I’ve just recently been diagnosed as ADHD. I must say that getting my diagnosis was helped by the fact I quit smoking weed and have cut back on my drinking a little. I’m on medication now and the benefits are a little hard to judge just yet. I would suggest you do your best to kick the cannabis totally, making small reductions can help, I personally go cold turkey but the downside is that drink quickly takes the place of the weed. I find that a weekend trip to somewhere totally different helps when kicking the smoking habit as that sudden change can mask the absence of cannabis. The excitement of being somewhere different also takes your mind off things and gives your brain a little break from your daily woes.

Also if you smoke a joint mixed with tobacco then the first thing you need to do cut out the tobacco as that is probably the biggest thing stopping you from kicking the habit. I’ve heard junkies say that kicking tobacco is harder than heroin!!

Showing the doctors and whoever that you are taking positive steps to sort things out will encourage them to help you. I have been on a health kick for a while now and that really helped my doctor to take my problems seriously.

Making progress is often based on a positive feed back loop like this – (1) POTENTIAL – You have potential to get better. (2) BELIEVE – You believe you can get better. (3) ACTION – Take some small positive steps (action) to get better. (4) RESULTS – Positive action gives you positive results (remember there is no failure just feedback) —– Positive RESULTS reinforce your potential, your BELIEF in your potential gets stronger so you are encouraged to take more positive ACTION which then gives you more positive RESULTS and around you go again but in a positive way and you get better and happier each time.

Its all about the first small positive step followed by the next small positive step. My late Mum used to say ‘Everyday and in every way I am getting better and better’. Say that every morning and evening it helps !

Well I hope this helps you in some way

Cheers

JC

well its been a while since i last posted and a lot has happened.

in my area the PCT was holding up the release of funds for an extra 8 months and i eventually went to the local MP’s. Not only did i get a response but i was seen within a month, this shock up my beliefs a little as i always hold politicians in the lowest regard, after a three hour meeting with a psyc and my Mum (thank you mum for being a god send) i got a direct response – i had ADHD.

as if i didn’t know already.

the next day i was put on medication – it felt like the first day of the rest of my life. Completely changed everything that i have hated about myself for so long (well not everything but its not a wonder drug or everyone would want it).
that was just 2 weeks ago – and now i have finished an essay that was gathering dust and given a presentation that i was proud of (the people marking it though it was pretty good too).

but the biggest change is that i can now implement elements of CBT (self taught-who can actually afford a therapy) that i never could before – its like they handed me the choice to stop thinking about the “bad things” – the choice to sit and watch a movie with my partner – the choice to walk away form an argument – the choice to let go and enjoy myself for a night a week without punishing myself for not continually “working” (when i say working i mean going around in circles and not actually doing anything) these are all things that i did not know were a problem.

I’m still odd and a bit weird – it seems nothing will stop me blurting things out =] but sod it you can’t have it all.
i still can’t bring myself to care about my looks or weight or anything else that seem to fascinate the majority of the female population (i work pretty much solely with women as a nurse). But i hope with continuing use of medication i can can be me successfully.

for anyone who is struggling (with ADHD or with out it – I’ve delt with a hell of a lot in my “small number of years”) i now feel like i would be able to give you my proper attention – msg me and i will listen + help if you want it.

Any comments or advice you guys can suggest regarding pros and cons of diagnosis will be welcome.

This is unfortunately one of the reasons people think it is all about parenting, I agree that parenting is relevant, however that is in then teaching the structures for the individual that complement their symptoms, and providing the right kind of diet and offsetting their bodies attempts at stimulation by providing appropriate outlets.

Now if you have more than one child doing all that can seem like a hassle and the kid doesn’t know how to conform, they just are and the parents think they are “playing up”, so demonize the kid, which makes it worse because the harder they try the more frustrated they get because chemically and environmentally the issues have not been resolved.

The fail to meet there own and others expectations shaping their view of themselves often negative making in addition, to the ADHD act out which appears worse because of the impulsivity and being children.

Now carry this on to adulthood we learn how to conform and in realizing we are unable to do so like our peers we suffer and become isolated, if we don’t have the right group of peers that is and even when do don’t always constitutionally grow at the same time, so end up drifting apart.

personally I found that I have either really quiet friends who love me being wild, blunt and real, then the friends who got serious and we grew apart, finally the others who have substance problems, I am great fun to hang out with if you get drunk I barely drink and love to laugh, these people have their own destructive patterns that they drag you into, most of us know better so end up moving away from these people but nothings changed they are still just alone and reaching for scraps of a life in the wilderness of the world.

We are being surpassed and sufferers like myself and others are getting second rate care, which in some cases may be fatal.

Case Study: GP bias of undiagnosed symptoms being chatty, disorganized, direct and leads them to ignore patient pleas regarding other ailment thus delaying treatment by the time someone listens the condition has deteriorated to far to be treated and is now permanent, the patients quality of life is impacted (earning potential, relationships, etc) and no-one is held to account.

GP says ‘I thought you were one of those patients’ no apology, no legal case, no nothing!!!

Your experience of life sounds like it has been filled with a lot of traumatic moments but the thing is you are still here and that is not coincidence.

First, you have to know two things inside out –YOURSELF AND THIS CONDITION.

For some it is not a disability it is just a nuero-biological condition which they have been lucky enough to never have needed a diagnosis or may have come up in a situation that enabled them to build strategies that worked and grew with them.

What I have found is that many of the so-called specialist have a textbook and they try to fit you into the criteria, if you don’t fit they treat you as difficult or just give up.

Also because of the lack of 121 support/coaching options they may see you once a week discuss trying something but hold on that is 6 days and 23 hours for you to forget all about it.

if you can get yourself a coach if you feel really overwhelmed start with daily (make sure that they offer that) contact – phone or skype for about 2 x 10 min or less(morning late/afternoon) to track you daily goals or help maintain a strategy, or join a group and get a buddy.

Read everything you can because you need to be involved in your own care and don’t let them get narky with you, as if you think you know so much. You have to know the different methods what people say works and why and investigate these things because there are many different biases from different “experts”.

Use your fury(adrenaline shot)! Write down ideas and questions in notebook, then review it! you may have already thought of solutions you just forget to get or keep them going.

You are a human being, an individual, a woman and Stronger than you may at times think!

Check out http://WWW.ADDCLASSES.COM they have free teleseminars ignore the pay one (unless you want that).

*Hugs*

BLF x

In the end, knowing oneself because of this condition is what gets you through and my goodness there will be many moments of doubt and if you attempt to make your way in a world in which you are circular peg in a square hole, you might fit in the space, but you still don’t belong on every so often in those gaps some bastard and that includes the GPs will try and make you feel less undermine everything you say.

I say DAMN THEM!!!!! Damn them all to hell.

Everything I just said, might very well be easily said by a person of colour about living life in a predominantly white world, and when somebody makes a snap judgement that the condition you live with you have to remember to be true to yourself sometimes the dreams you had sold to you not born from you, these are the ones that will make you successful ones that you can shape on your own terms, we were born this way you can only pretend something you’re not for so long, some may pass others get drugged and beat into submission.

Don’t let that be you or yours we have to take a stand. We are the MOTHERS, most of us primary care givers, we must be strong so that our children can be and becoming knowledgable able the condition and becoming a role model to them by arming ourselves with a heavy artillery of strategies is where to start we start building by talking one another.

In the words of the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) they have instated “regulatory arrangements in the UK which allow an authorised healthcare professional to commission [i.e prescribe] an unlicensed medicinal product to meet the special needs of an individual patient.” So while Methylphenidate has yet to be licensed, it CAN be prescribed. Not an ideal situation, of course, as many GPs are reluctant to prescribe unlicensed medication (especially given widespread misapprehension and scepticism of the condition in the medical profession and outside of it).

We are offering something for adults, where there is nothing else- it’s up to you if you wish to include this support on your list, but without it it suggests to adults that, as usual, Oxfordshire has nothing to offer.

With your existing diagnoses it’s not uncommon for ADHD type features to be part of those presentations – attention/concentration diffciulties and impulsivity. You maybe need to think about how significant the impact of those diffciulties are on your daily living. For diagnosis thye need to be having a significant impact across both home, work and social settings and perhaps if you could provide evidence of what you already do to help manage those difficulties i.e. lists, post it notes, diaries etc but reflect that you are still having problems this might be favourable towards a referral. The problem I find where I live – Lancashire, is that there are no or very limited services for Adult ADHD and often the community mental health team are not trained adequately to help with assessment, diagnosis and management. There are a number of websites that you could access for information and supportive stratgies and I’ve included them below. Hope these comments are helpful,

Kind regards
KC

[Editor’s note: the sites listed were ones that we have links to inside this site anyway, so we would prefer if you took a look around our site and went from there. Thanks. BTW our forum can be access -> Here <-

The main thing I am worried about, going forwards in the assessment, is that my mum is absolutely convinced I don’t have ADHD, she was a schoolteacher so she has come across some pretty bad behavioural problems in her time, she doesn’t think that I possibly could have been as bad as this (even though she never actually taught me herself). Plus, because I am intelligent and quick, I managed to get through school quite well academically despite constantly being in trouble for misbehaving and being ‘disruptive’. So given her way of thinking, my mum is unfortunately very unsupportive in me trying to pursue a diagnosis and get some help. Normally she is right by me in anything I do and she is the one that I talk to when I am down, so it hurts that she can’t bring herself to support me in something that it so important to me. In addition, my mum seems to have erased from her memory what I was really like when I was a child, I can recall many conversations with schoolteachers etc, every time I got into trouble, every time she came home from parents evening and had to pour herself a stiff drink… she has forgotten all this and it seems like she is recalling a completely different childhood to the one I actually had. It seems that your childhood experience is the key to the diagnosis as they say you can’t develop ADHD in adult life (I almost certainly had hyperactive type as a child, but now I would say it is mainly inattentive). How am I going to get her to cooperate with the questionnaires she will be asked to complete as part of the assessment? I am worried my mum is going to thwart my attempt at finding a resolution that would bring me so much comfort.