Posted by Ritch on February 9, 2002, at 0:09:39
In reply to Re: ADHD link for You » Ritch, posted by IsoM on February 8, 2002, at 14:55:21
> Thanks, Mitch, but I have read a lot on ADHD. I have been diagnosed as having it, but was curious about how bipolar II & ADD overlapped. Reading more on bipolar II, I can see that I definitely don't have it - mine is straightforward ADHD.
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> In many ways, I've managed well with it. Most people are surprised that I have it. My weaknesses is distractibility (I'll switch topics midsentence when something else catches my eye without even be aware I've done it & then switch just as fast back to original topic) & organisation. I work so hard at keeping things organised.
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> Talking with others who have ADD, most (like me) are very good at organising. We can organise anything or anybody, but ourselves. Anything I organise, I can disorganise in a matter of seconds. I keep any important notes or papers on a special folder in the computer. I've yet to misplace my computer & be unable to find it. One reason a palm pilot wouldn't be good for me. It's the distractibility - I carry away & put things down all the time, completely unaware of what I'm doing as my mind's working on so many other things too.
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> Yet, it's organisation that gives me structure more than anything else. I'm hoping adrafinil may help make me more aware of what I'm doing so I won't get so mixed-up in my everday doings.
Hi,I was just reading through that NIMH article in its entirety and combined with other stuff I have read about ADHD and I am more convinced than ever that bipolar disorder is just a subset of an ADHD "umbrella". The *most* conservative estimates are 3% of children with ADHD, and the most conservative estimate of that bunch that "keep" ADHD into adulthood is 50%. Well that still leaves 1.5% min. of the general population of adult ADHD'ers. Bipolar has been well studied and is estimated at (middle of the road) 1.0%. My opinion is that bipolar folks are just ADHD with prominent emotional lability or psychosis (as with BPI). Gee, what if it was just ADHD with temporal lobe instability(seizures)??
The sheet about coping with ADHD, and the "50 tips" thing I brought out define EXACTLY how I have been learning to self-manage a problem for 25 years. All the lists, sticky notes, color-coding, what am I going to do today-scheduling stuff. It all fits to a tee.
Perhaps bipolars have a combo of frontal lobe hypoactivity (ADHD) with temporal lobe instability?
If you tried 5mg/day of Adderall for the first time and didn't suffer a major seasonal(wintertime) depressive episode (without AD's) that normally occurs otherwise, and I can work in a room full of distractions without any problem-doesn't that sound a little indicative?
I still have a bipolar *component*. But, with the seasonal major depressions gone, I am left with hypomania. Interestingly, when I stopped AD's my cycling *settled down*. SSRi's seem to trigger cycling(hypomania)-but help with anxiety. So how do I get the anxiety relief of SSri's (without taking them) and get the bipolar/ADHD relief of a pstim without causing anxiety (or having worsened anxiety as a result of withdrawing an AD)??
Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:92585
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020208/msgs/93376.html