Posted by SuperADDMom on April 19, 2010
The stigma of living with ADHD is pretty negative at times. The negative impact it has on our day to day lives, and the people we live with can get pretty stressful. So stressful in fact that without help from medications to regulate brain chemistry, and being on top of RIGID routines to make life easier, we can end up being sucked down the big black ADHD holes of depression and inability to cope.
I grew up not knowing I had ADHD. I was just told I was lazy, and stupid, and bad, a daydreamer, etc. I didn’t learn to cope with my ADHD well, and now in my 30′s I’m basically teaching myself stuff i should have learned when i was younger. Kids today have advantages in the life skills with ADHD arena.But it is still not easy.
Some people think living with ADHD is a walk in the park because we get prescription drugs that are basically cousins in chemical make up to drugs that people take to get high, like Meth. ( drugs that have been around since 1955 BTW)
People see celebrities like Richard Branson, or Robin Williams ( with suspected ADHD) and think it must be a blast to have ADHD.
People make comments about being on medications for it, like we’ve somehow cheated a system to be granted legal narcotics, so we can get high.
As representatives of ADHD, you see these celebs as jovial, and friendly, and chatty. They are daredevils in racecars, or actors or comediens, business people, teachers, even doctors.
But you don’t see us ADDers among you scramble to keep a house clean, make dinner on time,get our kids out the door in a presentable fashion, With everything they need. You don’t see us struggle to make appointments on time, and the stress it causes us internally.You don’t see us struggle to keep a job, struggle to pay for these medications that are far more expensive then any street drug.
You don’t see us search for the 10th time this week for our missing car keys because we got side tracked or interrupted in the middle of putting them away, and we laid them down someplace, and we only realize it when we are already 5 minutes late to an appointment, or lunch with you. You don’t see that we are late because we also didn’t have any clean socks.
ADDers live a life of secret embarrassment for these kinds of things. We blame the traffic, or roll our eyes and say “kids! what are ya gonna do?” or we say ” hey I thought you said <insert what ever time is cloest to us not being late but just on time>, I’m sorry about that.”
We have to do things like set our clocks a half hour earlier and get everywhere a half hour before, just to ensure a “saftey zone” in our schedules to allow for ADHD blunders and mixups.
People with ADHD make mistakes, A LOT. Daily. hourly. We struggle to keep up in a world with standards and time tables set by people who don’t have ADHD.
So, as a person with ADHD it really pisses me off when people make jokes about my medication, or imply that I must be a “happy mommy” because I take amamphetamines to “get through the day”. Or they joke and ask me how I pulled off an ADHD diagnoasis just to “score”. They say things like ” nice deal if you can get it”
So…
Just to clarify…
An Amphetamine is a psychostimulant drug that is known to produce increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite. Amphetamine is related to drugs such as methamphetamine and dextroamphetamine, which are a group of potent drugs that act by increasing levels of norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine in the brain. All chemicals, if you bothered to look into it further,that you’d know ADDers have lower levels of.
We chose to put these chemicals in our systems, because it alters our brain chemistry to try and put us on a par level with people who don’t struggle through life with a sleepy brain, and so we can live better among a society who sees us as “broken, annoying, and beneath the rest” that need to be fixed.
FYI the hyper activity of ADHD is CAUSED by LACK of the chemicals those drugs help our bodies produce at more “normal” levels in order to STOP the hyperactivity. To bring us UP to a level of “normal” functioning like you have the ability to do just by breathing. We don’t take them to make us high. Bt they’d likely make YOU high.
I personally struggle in the morning to wake up because those chemicals are so low in my system. I could just sleep all the time without my ADHD medication. Did you know there are scientifically proven links between ADHD and narcolepsy
In order to be able to just walk to the bathroom upright in the morning, due to the morning haze my ADHD brain has, I have to set two alarms, one to take my meds and snooze back asleep until they start to wake me up more due to the chemicals in my brain rising from the help of the meds, and then I wake up to the second alarm, and even then STILL, it takes my brain at least an hour to feel functional. When my meds wear off toward the end of their effectivenes in the day, as a mother and wife I still have a lot of “work ” to do to keep a family with special needs functioning, and prepared for tomorrow.
If I don’t remember my meds one day, we fall out of routines and things get way out of sync, and we all must struggle to get back on track, because I go around in a scatterbrained haze unable to accomplish much of anything.
If I take my meds too late in the day, my brain is wide awake, and I can’t get to sleep and I’ll find myself awake at 4 am, planning a menu for the month, or tweeting, or watching movie, because my brain then won’t shut down until the chemicals dwindle down to a lower level to bring on sleep.
And, just so you understand the cycle… once my brain is FINALLY sleepy from the lack of chemicals again needed to stay awake… my brain will just want to stay sleepy, and we start the cycle the next morning all over again.
ADHD medication make us not want to eat as much and people struggle to get in the proper daily intake to remain healthy. This is especially a concern with children who are still growing.
I’m not sure what the Non ADHD world thinks, but having ADHD is not all fun and games. People with ADHD come from higher rates of divorced homes due to the chaos and stress ADHD traits cause in everyday living. Adults with ADHD, struggle in relationships to find a balance that works, and also have a higher rate of divorce.
People with ADHD have increased risk of drug and alcohol abuse ( trying to self medicate a constant sleepy brain), have higher rates of severe low self esteem and depression than the general population, as well as debilitating anxiety problems, and higher suicide rates.
Ya! pretending to have ADHD when I was 6 months pregnant and depressed to get a diagnosis finally, just to not be able to get any help with my brain chemistry for over a year, due to breastfeeding my son was a SURE sign I was looking for a quick cheap legal high.
HAHA YOU R FUNNY!
Oh? it is just a joke? oh. my bad…I’m such a stiff!
People with ADHD have higher rates of being in lower income levels due to struggling through school with learning difficulties, keeping jobs due to ADHD interrupting their ability to do their job to expected standards ( late for work, poor performance on bad days, forgetting projects due etc)
People with ADHD try to be upbeat and positive because we have SO MUCH negative stuff in our lives to deal with. Prescription drugs for ADHD is not a COPING thing. We are not getting high. Shit, smoking pot in highschool didn’t make me high, it made me normal! YA that was fun! Everyone else was giddy and high as a kite, and I was able to finally focus enough to go home and do my homework for the first time in my highschool career.
Our meds are helpers to the chemicals our brain cannot produce well enough on their own.PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
You’re stigma, prejudice and “jokes” are offensive. PLAIN AND SIMPLE.
So if you are gonna look in my face and say to me that my drugs make me hyper, or happy, or that ADHD can just be “cured or solved” with some basketball… well, sorry to be so blunt, but I’m gonna have to say…
FUCK YOU!
Plain and Simple.
YMCA Vancouver Paid Ad in a local paper. Charlene Giovannetti-King, the YMCA Vice President of Funds Development directly linked to the Advertisement said “We don’t see this really as a mistake” on a CBC radio interview with Rick Cluff.
Posted by SuperADDMom on August 23, 2009
*I* should know better…I had a nephew from my first marriage die from fatigue driving 3 months before our wedding. He was supposed to be our groomsmen. Driving home after a long shift at work, and visiting his girlfriend, at 5 am, he fell alseep. Just like that… Gone.
*I* SHOULD know better…In our rural area, last year a well respected, well known business man, driving in the wee hours of the morning along a straight stretch, getting close to home, fell asleep, and hit a tree. Just like that…Gone.
I have family who are long haul truckers, who have to follow rules to stop and rest….I’ve driven from Nova Scotia to Ontario straight through MANY times, sharing shifts at the wheel when we each got tired…so if anybody should….*I* SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
I would never dream of drinking and driving…but when you’re tired…eh, who’s NOT tired this day and age right?
It’s been 3 busy days for me…during a very hot spell this summer, and I’ve had a terrible time going to sleep, and getting terrible sleep at best of the 6 to 7 hours I’ve gotten the last 2 nights. I could give you all the reasons WHY I’m tired, but we all have them. I’m on my period, so I’m more scatter brained, the joys of ADD to add to the whole situation.
But, even when you are tired you do what you need to do, and we needed bread,milk and eggs,some other essentials, and a new door for our house that we need to install before winter.
Home Depot had a door on sale, and we new it was ‘now or never” purchase opportunity. I was tired before we left around supper time. I was cranky, and hot…the kids were driving me nuts all day, being tired and cranky and hot too.
The city is about 35 minute drive from where we live. Due to my husband’s illness, I’m the driver in our family. Shopping under the stress of tired whiny kids, while I am tired just wears me out more. But this is usual, and we knew this ahead of time, but we went, because we had to. We did what we needed to do hopping at 4 different stores over a 4 hour time period or so. On the way out of the city we grabbed some fast food to eat on the way home.
We sat in the van to eat it, and then I started our 35 or so minute drive home on dark two lane rural roads on a Friday night after 11 pm
My husband mentions to me that he hates driving home at this hour because you never know what kind of idiot is out trying to drive home drunk. This is a fact I’d considered based on the fact that the drive into the city during daylight hours didn’t inspire any confidence by the way the oncoming traffic was being reckless trying to pass in badly chosen places, tail gating and speeding etc.
Traffic is not heavy, but for a Friday night in a rural/tourist area, it is steady enough with oncoming cars.
Some people are forgetting to turn off their high beams at the right time and are practically blinding me, making my already exhausted brain need to concentrate more to not be drawn to their lights like a moth to a flame. That really aggravates me, too, it’ is not like they don’t know I’m coming.
So, I pay attention to the corner of the pavement I’m driving on in my lane to avoid looking right at the headlights, to ensure I pass safely. I’m aware than I move a little to the right each time an oncoming car passes me. I’m trying to be safe.
I drive half way home sipping warm coke from a can, eating sweets and talking to my husband, shifting positions, doing what I need to to stay alert and awake. He hardly drives these days due to his disability, and he’s in a lot of pain today. I don’t want to ask him to drive. He’s tweeting on his Black Berry to a friend and telling me about the conversation to keep me alert.
We were not far from our destination. which is “just going home from grocery and home repair supply shopping”. He’s tweeting on his cell phone. Just another shopping trip. I’m always tired anyway.
He mentions I’m swerving a bit on the road. I say “I’m fine hon, just a bit tired”. It’s a reminder for me to pay closer attention. He says, its starting to freak him out a bit.
I decide half way home to stop & try to jar some adrenaline into my system, even though adrenalin is short lived, it’s worked before, and we are closer to home. I did jumping jacks, breathed fresh air, stretched, jogged a bit back and forth, drank more caffeine…just like countless other times that always work.
I get back in the van, and it’s ok, though I still am needing to concentrate more then I usually need to.
We make it to the little town just a few more minutes from where we live rurally, and I tell myself, it’s not far now…I think my brain starts to let it’s guard down now due to this knowledge.
We drive through the one main street of our town, checking out the lack of action going on in our little town at almost midnight.
I don’t even realize I’m having a micro dose until i “wake” from one. It feels like I’m not even really ever NOT aware of what’s going on, and no one else notices. A little more adrenaline makes my heart pump a bit, and makes me more alert, and I drive past the Tim Horton’s.
When I dozed this time Just a few feet up the street, my husband screamed my name and grabbed the wheel to jerk the wheel to the left miss a parked car in front of the flower shop I just about plowed into going 50 KLM, with no ability to brake for impact because I don;t see it coming.
He tells me to pull over now.
I do.
I’m in such a mental state of shock that I dozed that long or bad, that my heart is not even pounding. I notice my state of tired, and wonder how it got to that point.
I apologize, and we take a moment for HIM to slow his heart rate. I’m grateful he’s not freaking out on me. I mean we just avoided an accident. a very serious accident.What if he had been asleep like sometimes he does on the way home. What if that had of happened while we were on the road doing 70 to 80 KLM with oncoming traffic!
I’m too tired to even have adrenaline over that jar and have my heart pound so hard I can hear my heart beat in my head.
We switch and he drives home the last 10 klm. I’m grateful he does, I’m so exhausted I doze on and off on the way home, now suddenly jarring awake here and there worrying about HIM being awake enough to drive home. He’s fine, not sleepy, just in pain from his illness. I feel out of my element in the passenger side of our van, where I rarely sit but am releived to be right then.
When we get home, I bring in everything that we bought, door included, the kids go to bed and then crash…I have sleep to catch up on and I suck much! and don’t tell me I don’t.
When I woke up this morning, the slider door on the van was open, because I’d forgotten and left i open when taking our sleeping son up to bed.
The sobering effects of this event have not Left me, and I won’t allow them to.
And I wrote this, so hopefully YOU won’t either.
Stop depriving yourself of sleep. And Don’t Drive if you are feeling that tired.
To Husband and the kids…I’m sorry.
To my husband… thankyou.
Some fatigue Driving facts
A report produced by the Highway Safety Roundtable, compiles some of the latest available research on the consequences of driver fatigue. It linked to the deaths of some 400 Canadians every year to driver fatigue.
“The message is very clear that a lot more Canadians are driving tired on our roads than anyone has ever thought before, or ever wanted to admit before, and it is a very serious road safety issue. We really have to be a lot more aware of the dangers of fatigue than we have been up until now.”
-Mark Yakabuski, president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
Research based on Ontario traffic data suggests a long day at work could be triggering collisions, since most accidents involving fatigue occur between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. and on Fridays.
The most fatal fatigue-related crashes occur between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.
“Fatigue is likely being under-reported, because police don’t have a good way to determine when it is a factor in a crash – unless drivers admit they were fatigued” – Yoassry Elzohairy, senior safety research adviser for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.
A 2005 study also found one in five drivers admitted to falling asleep behind the wheel during the previous 12 months.
Posted by SuperADDMom on February 9, 2009
So, I mentioned in my last blog post that I’m reading some books on ADHD to refresh my memory, and to apply it to the kids and their hyper ways, scatterbrain issues, and the whole non compliance issues we are having with 2 adhd (plus) kids, and a ADD mommy who forgets to be consistent in the routine department and consequences to keep them in a routine ( which is how ADHD kids cope best)
Some of the techniques have been things we did before, but me and my ADD ways, I forget, stop doing them, and things go back to the chaos.But the last two days have been decent when I started the “1,2,3 magic” over again, and I’ve been able to nip unwanted behavior in the bud by usually the calm but firm count of two.
One of the biggest issues of ADHD kids is night insomnia…and their inability to “shut off their brain” and get to sleep, they just keep going and going and going, and even when they are totally exhausted and totally crabby and bawling in a puddle of thier own tears on the floor from frustration, they still have a hard time some days falling asleep. It is completely physically and mentally and emotionally exhausting for all involved, and everyone ends up short tempered when lack of decent sleep sets in.
Last night hubby and I were laying in bed chatting and reading the books and comparing notes, and for like the 6th night in a row, our 8 year old daughter who has been having ever increasing issues falling asleep due to her general compulsive worrying and anxieties, comes in unable to sleep again, very frustrated with herself, and upset…I mention to hubby that the book I’m reading mentioned melatonin, and it was something I’d forgotten about. He reminded me that he had some he stopped using because the doctors recommended it for his CFS, but it gave him adverse side effects due to his strange and complex system functioning. So he took out the bottle, read it to see recommendations, weighed our daughter, determined a safe dose and gave it to her for a try. She took it after much convincing and crushing the small pill, and went back to bed, and nothing more was said. She seemed to fall asleep, but we were not sure how long she laid and read or watched a dvd to do so.
Then, she slept in until noon!!! And we had to get up and out the door for a party. she was SOOOO crabby…Yesterday we went to a birthday party for some friend’s youngest daughter ( first bday), and we were there for a good 4 hours since I was hired to do photography for the party for them, and since I was busy flitting about the room, my kids filled up on pop and chips and other hyper inducing foods with very little substance…we got home and once again our children were too hyper at even midnight to sleep ( usual bedtimes is 8:30 and 10 pm) they were fighting and jumping around, watching dvd’s trying to “settle” in the kid den, and I was so mentally exhausted i didn’t care if they did or did not sleep, I was just at LEAST hoping for a hyper focus on their parts of a movie they liked so I could have some silence and hear myself think after being at a party with over 35 people!
So, forward to today, they had finally fell asleep at like 3 ish AM, and we were heading to bed at like 4 am, because we NEED some no kid, alone time that doesn’t involve sleeping side by side….they slept until about 11 am, and got up, and were their usual busy, energetic selves, running all over the house and just going totally full throttle all day.
I was so not in any position today to hear their fighting and arguments, and trying to explain personal space to a wiggling 4 year old…I’m feeling like I am getting some stomach bug of some kind, and my plans to do anything productive to make up for my total lack of housework the last 3 days was foiled…i did a few dishes and cleaned up after the stuff they did today, so as not to have a COMPLETE disaster to clean up tomorrow or whenever I feel better, and I was mentally drained and in no mood to deal with kids again until 3 am!
Hubby reminded me to try them both on melatonin tonight, so I broke up the doses and put it in their drinks at the table for their evening lunch ( snack really, but in Cape Breton the food and tea consumed between the large evening meal and bedtime is called lunch)
Within 35 minutes, my son who ate his lunch licking his milk from a bowl to “play puppy” while he danced standing on the chair while eating his food, yelling and singing at the top of his lungs to annoy the pants off his sister, was laying over the computer chair in the living room, starting to look TIRED!!! and my daughter, who during her lunch at the table being pestered by her little brother and was whining in piercing tones to tell me to make him stop bugging her and SCREAMING at him while she swung her leg from the chair in a rhythmic motion to keep moving, was sitting easily without figitting beside hubby looking at the latest video going around on twitter ( david after the dentist!) and was giggling, not LAUGHING so loud that she was shreaking and getting wound up!!!!
I looked at them and almost wondered where my children were and who replaced them with these reasonable replicas!! I then said to hubby..”I gave them the melatonin at lunch eh?” and he said, ” you mean just now?” ( he still cannot understand why we east coasters call it lunch) and I said Ya.. he looked at Bupba and was in shock! ” he’s actually TIRED!!!” he mouthed to me…we’ve never really seen what tired looked like on our 4 year old son before!
Usually bedtime is an hour fight to get them upstairs and requires me to be with them for 4 to 5 story books, dark rooms, and whispering and keeping them in their rooms. Tonight I said ” time for bed I think” and told them to head on up, and they pretty much went without arguing with ME or each other!!!!!!!!!!!!
I went up to check on them and found them laying on the floor in the den camped out watching fox and the hound being very interested and quiet and NOT trying to climb the shelves, jumping off the desks etc….so I just left them….then I went back and checked again, paranoid, and because I so very often am NOT comfortable with silence from MY ADD children…. in less then 20 minutes of them tucking THEMSELVES in ( albeit on the floor in the den with fox and the hound playing on the TV but who am I to be a stickler at THIS point!), they were both asleep!!!!!!
I almost began to cry from relief on the way down the stairs. I was literally choking back tears and had a lump in my throat!!! it is ALMOST 2 am here, and hubby and I have had about an hour and a half of alone time already!!! I hope this is NOT an anomaly and that this will continue!!!!
Tomorrow night, I’ll give them the melatonin with a snack half hour before their respective set bedtimes and see where it takes us…lets hope we’ve hit on something to help them regulate their sleeping issues.
Now for the crappy part…..hubby is trying to convince ME to take melatonin too, so maybe I’ll get to bed before 5 am and sleep better in the night….and I’m resisted the urge to argue about it, because 2 am is when I do my best hyper focusing on stuff like getting my website updated, or chat with my friend on gmail, or tweeting, or blogging…. etc… LOL…
