Today’s comments are in response to my post on ADHD accommodations, which seems to have created a bit of a stir. Let’s have a closer look at why asking for accommodations may or may not be right for you.

Adjusting to having ADHD

I’ve been taking stock of all the changes that have happened since I learned I had ADHD. One of the best is, I’ve gone from feeling ashamed of being “flawed,” to feeling completely comfortable in announcing, rather matter-of-factly, that I have ADHD.

When necessary, that is.

Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling victimized by being turned into the hottest new demographic to peddle all kinds of crap to because we have ADHD?

Today’s post is warm and fuzzy. It’s about my dog Samantha. She’s warm and fuzzy too. And she just happens to be the best ADHD program I’ve found.

About four years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Six months later, Sam was diagnosed with diabetes. Great. As if I wasn’t dealing with enough.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a…Highly Sensitive Person? When HSP looks like ADD and vice versa

When researching ADHD, I stumbled across Elaine N. Aron’s excellent book, The Highly Sensitive Person.

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on my new identity as an adult with ADHD, along comes Aron and blows me away with another book describing traits that were completely familiar.

I’m listening to “Purple Haze.” Jimi Hendrix. It’s 7:24 a.m. I got distracted while searching for a video of Hendrix singing Goddamn the Pusher Man. Thought this might be a sweet accompaniment for today’s post. I’m totally distracted, man. I forgot to take my meds yesterday. Sorry.

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”
Rabindranath Tagore

Adults diagnosed late in life with ADHD tend to experience an initial feeling of elation. Finally, their life makes sense (to them, if not anybody else).  Sadly, this initial euphoria is soon crushed by the smashing weight of grief.

[Feel free to check out Part I and Part II of this discussion if you missed them!]

You nervous? Me too…

This’ll have to be a quickie. It’s a blog post, not a book, after all. I’ll get straight to the climax: ADHDers have a different relationship with sex than others. At least, the hyperactive ADHDers do (I’ll speak for myself).

When I was researching my book, Adoption Reunions, I learned that adoptees were overrepresented in U.S. psychological treatment facilities by (according to some estimates)  four to one (Nancy Gibbs, Time magazine, October 9, 1989).

Bummer. … Guess who’s adopted?

Let me take you on a pre-ADHD diagnosis flashback: I’m 24 years old. I’m at a party. It’s crowded, noisy. I have a good-looking man pinned in a corner, and I’m talking his ear off.