Age Activated ADD
ByThis is a humorous video from Youtube about ‘Age Activated ADHD’. Although this is a funny ‘sketch’, it describes what many people with ADD/ADHD feel like when they go about their day.
Watching it can help parents of kids/teens with ADD/ADHD, and spouses of adults with ADD/ADHD understand what is really going on for people who have this condition.
Enjoy!
Oh my gosh! That is SO me!! LOL!! It exhausted me just watching her go in circles like I do!
LOL That is my day in a nutshell!
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I’ll laugh, with just a little bit of tears in my eyes.
Thank you!
What a great video!!!!
As a reply:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P785j15Tzk
OMG, the procrastination video is amusing and pathetic at the same time… that’s exactly how I spend my days trying to get things done!! I make excuses as to why I can’t initiate, focus, and complete something that’s extremely important so I end up doing many little tasks that mean nothing. I convince myself that all the little tasks will help me complete the ultimately important task, but they never do. By the time I’ve finished the little tasks, it’s late and my brain is tired. I may get that important task done just before the deadline and wear myself out by staying up all night, or I may just put it in a pile and completely forget about it until my husband reminds me. So many piles…..ugh!
The video reassured me that I’m not the only one with serious procrastination issues, although I feel like I am sometimes!
For the other Procrastinators out there, what tips and tricks have you found helpful to get tasks finished and diminish this circle of wasted time?
The only thing different between this woman and me is that I move around faster. It made me sad to watch it because I identify with it so much. Thankfully, I’m learning to look at my strengths more today, so my self esteem has risen out of the toilet.
Iit is sad to see a self reflection but it is facinating to see how easy one can see ADHD through a video. This should be used more inteenagers and children. I can only say that their is great progress in having ADHD and the troubles be acknowledged. More help will be available I still don’t mention i have ADHD beacuse people don’t understand it and some say it does not exist.
It’s good to know I’m not that odd after all, as depressing as it is, this is oddly comforting! How horribly familiar!
wow so me now where to find help
I love it! It’s like they tapped into my head while I’m zinging around. It feels like I always have to save the thought before it floats away. This is exactly why I have a whiteboard or a notepad located every 10 feet throughout my house, in my purse, in my pocket, in my car, at my job, notes in my phone, and 100 bookmarks in each web browser. So now I have a clutter issue, but hey, one thing at a time. LOL
That’s may day from morning till night!
This is so me, i dont know whether to laugh or cry. After being fired today from another job where i was told I had 9/10 attributes for the perfect employee but the one I didnt have was reliability. I now don’t feel so alone.
Yep! That’s why i choose to be stoned or pissed constantly, just so over it. May as well be relaxed while achieving absolutely nothing.
Dr. Kenny,
I see many similarities to my own life in this video. It is cute to watch someone else go through it but it is such a serious subject. I hope people who do not realize why their life is the way it is will watch this and see there is a reason they behave the way they do.
Thank you,
I recognise myself and my methods, but her house is sure a lot more orderly that mine. What’s up with that???
I have to say that ADD/ADHD is not so much an individual problem as it is a culturally systematic one.
There are so many things (obligations, objects/gadgets) in modern-day society to consider and tend to that it doesn’t leave much time to organize ones mind.
I sincerely think that if a subject/patient is “diagnosed” with ADD/ADHD, medication should be the last approach to treatment.
For someone to rehabilitate from such a “disorder”, a basic start should be environment/surrounding (personal living space, daily routines, interactions with objects and associated obligations). People with ADD/ADHD need to see a different perspective of visual order, thought priority and organization. Once introduced to a new way of seeing and thinking, that person CAN heal themselves.
Neurochemistry ranges widely from one individual to another. The modern day practice of Psychiatrists prescribing pharmaceutical agents to a patient is nothing more than trial&error trials on a test subject.
After-all, any organism is subject to development or mutation in accordance to variables set from environmental influence along with a biological/genetic tool-sets.
I see many of you have written that you relate to the above video, but don’t forget that cognitive focus and thought priority all stem from practice, more so from childhood, you either learn these things and become a better functioning individual as a young adult or you don’t and are labeled “ADD/ADHD”. With most things you don’t learn as a child, you can learn later on in life, and even things you know from childhood, you can forget without practice (repetition).
I urge for most of you that are being medically treated with ADD/ADHD, try alternatives from pharmaceutical intake. Promote yourself to exercise breathing/meditation, physical activity and organize things on paper (start by brainstorming), you will find ways to manage the tangled thoughts.
As a last note, please don’t consider scientology. They are an organization bent on using ant-pharma propaganda to hook you into their mental hacking business scheme. AVOID Scientology or any other cult-like “religious” organization asking money for help.
Yup, pretty accurate…
John, although I can appreciate your well-articulated opinion-response, I wholeheartedly and fundamentally disagree with it. In much the same way deafness is an “individual problem”, ADHD is very much one. It is a neurological condition that a person, regardless of race, culture (note the difference), gender or childhood experiences, cannot learn or self-discipline their way out. Believe me, I and my son have tried for many a year. Before I go any further, please understand, I do see the value in complimenting drug therapy with learned organizational skills, in fact I see them as nearly equally affective components in assisting someone with a medical diagnosis of ADHD or ADD who’s: relationships, schooling, career, or health have been negatively affected by their diagnosed condition. I stress ‘nearly’ because without first finding the key, you are not likely to start the car and get to where you want to be.
I can also appreciate how you may have come to the conclusion, as many have, that ADHD and other neurological disorders, which are not amenable to diagnosis via a blood test or biopsy, are not truly “medical problems”. To this point, I suggest some reading John; specifically Dr. Russell Barkley, Ph.D. a leading expert on the subject of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). He is currently a professor at the State University of New York (Upstate Medical University) and has written over a dozen books and more than 150 scientific articles related to the nature, assessment, and treatment of AD/HD. Dr. Barkley believes “media distortions of over-diagnosis and over-medication – combined with poor diagnostic criteria – contribute to below-par identification and treatment of kids with impulse and attention issues, leading to risk factors ranging from self medicating through drug and alcohol use, to school/work problems, to criminal activity.
Additionally, I disagree with your mention that “…cognitive focus and thought priority all stem from practice”. They most definitely do not all stem from practice. Granted, they are indeed susceptible and often positively receptive to repetitious practice but are at root, physiological constructs of the executive functioning system in the brain, which control cognitive response, a theory well established in the 1950’s. “Irregularity” in the frontal lobe of the brain for example, is inherently present in those with challenges in Executive Functioning. Executive Functioning Deficit, in addition to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and even Schizophrenia are neurologically based disorders, along with ADHD, that are not the manifestation of poorly engrained organizational skills from childhood, a conscious lack of will or “mommy and daddy’s fault” (aside from perhaps their unique genes!).
I take particular insult to your idea that ADHD, ADD (along with any number of neurological disorders), can be “rehabilitated” or “healed” as you noted in your posting. I do agree that exercise, organizational tools, routine and even diet can play a complimentary part to a holistic treatment plan for a diagnosed case of ADHD or ADD. I do not, however, appreciate the suggestion that upon utilizing these complimentary treatments that a “different perspective of visual order, thought priority and organization” will produce a “…new way of seeing and thinking, that person CAN heal themselves”. I have had to exercise ample restraint in writing this response to not speak more frankly about how misguided, narrow and simple minded I believe your assumption to be. Although I understand that there are many unique benefits, which can be associated with a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD, my life as a mother (with ADD), raising a son with ADHD, has had more challenges, pain, agony, fear, self doubt, and pity than anyone should have to endure. For you to imply that my life, and the lives of millions of people around the world, who have live through the challenges of ADHD and ADD every hour of everyday of their lives, could be ameliorated by simply adopting some breathing technique and opening our eyes to the benefits of organization is pitiful. I do hope that by the time my son, and his children are welcomed into the world, that there is a more well established and educated understand of what life with ADHD can and cannot be.
Dear Dr. Kenny Handelman,
Hello. In watching this video, it demonstrates enough information for us to relate within our own life. There are times I find myself going from one task to another, being tired and frustrated in not getting enough done by the end of the day. Thank you for the video and a gentle reminder.
That is a funny video, but on a very serious topic. I’ve been treating adult and pediatric patients for many years, their challeges are all too real to them.
Thanks for lightening this topic up a bit.
As a person who has been successfully treated for ADD and now has ceased ADD treatment and relies on meditation I think I can reasonably answer John’s post.
Firstly he video is excellent because it does show the reality of living with ADD. I have personally been there and done that too many times to count. I am very glad to have moved on from that point in my life, and exceedingly grateful to the doctor who diagnosed my ADD and provided appropriate stimulant treatment for it.
Unfortunately John’s main idea is a little off beam. ADD is an immense problem for the individual who is in that state. It is absolutely true that there is a social contribution, and I would go so far as to say that ADD can be viewed as a stress reaction to living in a toxic environment ( by which I mean Western industrial society).
Our aboriginal community in Australia has a very high incidence of ADD, but if that incidence has existed 250 years ago- the sufferers would have not been able to survive in a hunter gatherer environment. A genetically based defect in attention would have rapidly been selected out of the gene pool via the death of the ADHD individuals in a hunter gatherer environment.
The other huge and gaping flaw in John’s argument is that all we ADDers have to do is change our behaviour.
At this point it is clear that he has very limited direct experience with the problem. What does he think we have been trying to do?
Does he think we are totally unconscious of the difficulties of life with ADHD, and that we are NOT trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps??!
Russell Barkely ( with whom I more often disagree than agree) did comment that ADD is not a disorder of not knowing what to do, it is a disorder of not being able to deliver it in a timely fashion.
What I found out, and what many of the patients I have seen with ADD discover, is that as soon as our attention improves our already learned capacity to be organised surfaces spontaneously. So all that cognitive focus is learned well enough already- just not accessible at the time.
I was extremely fortunate to have a preexisting interest in Buddhism at the time I was diagnosed. It only took a few weeks of living with the stimulant treatment to grasp that the goals of stimulant treatment are also the goals of good quality calm abiding meditation. ( Actually this can be demonstrated on functional brain scanning, which shows the same focal enhancement of activity in meditation and in stimulant treatment.
However I would have faced almost insuperable hurdles in trying to learn to meditate properly without the assistance of medication.
John’s neurochemistry argument is valid though- as about 15 of people do not respond well to stimulants. The big issue that is usually missed in the treatment of ADHD is the underlying stress load. Our stress is usually not overtly obvious as anxiety, in fact we are often not consciously aware of it. The relaxation element of good quality meditation is also effective at addressing this aspect of the problem.
hat last paragraph should read “15% of people do not respond well to stimulants”.
i am adhd adult.firstly,i dont know i am adhd until i found a lot about it in the internet.now,my brother and my 2 sister also have adhd.they are adult too.i think we heritage this disease from our mother.
This is me especially when I need to do something that I don’t enjoy. For example sitting down & paying the monthly bills, filing paperwork or because I’m a teacher grading student assignments (215 middle school students per semester).
But I find that I have a similiar problem even when I’m working on projects that I enjoy. During the summers I get to work on fun projects that I don’t dare attempt during the school year. I live in a 2 story house and most of the tools are in the garage. Frequently I find myself going downstairs to the garage only to get there and not a clue as to what I went downstairs to get, ughhhh. No matter how hard I try to remember, I actually have to go back upstairs (point A) in order to get a clue as to what it was I needed from the garage. Most fustrating, I used to feel like a major retard now I just accept it as my daily exercise program.
I once heard a comedian describe this condition prefectly. He called it destinesia, developing amnesia upon arrival at your destination.
Of course I could get a notepad and write down what it is that I need from the garage, which would be the wise thing to do. But I stopped buying “organization gadgets” when realizing that I never use them, sometimes never even opened their packaging. I became a miniwarehouse of “organization gadgets”. Which ironically, had to periodically organize.
This is a great blog. Thanks for sharing this video post about your ADD and ADHD and how it can affect many people, including their families’, lives. Now others will be better able to empathize with what they are going through! I’m new at blogging and will revisit often to share comments from my speech and language therapy sessions.
As a person that has ADHD and has a wife that is beyond understanding of my “quirks”, this video is very entertaining. Thank you for the great work!
Very simple Shelly,
I just look at this video- and say to myself ” If I do not work on my ADHD- the whole of the rest of my life could be like this”.
it is surprising just how motivating that can be.
Andrew,
Thank you for your response and great suggestion to put the whole picture in perspective. I’m going to write it on paper and hang it on my wall as a constant visual reminder.
I’ve never heard of the artist so I went on his website and checked out his other videos, comics, etc. I really like his style and his videos are amusing. My husband is an artist so he could relate to the video, “stuck in a rut” which was hillarious.
On a personal note, what type of ADD/ADHD do you have and are you currently taking medication? You can email me at sdschroed@gmail.com
Thank You!
Great video. I’ve been living like that for 61 years and just recently found out why. Wish I’d seen this video long ago.
Good luck and best wishes to all of you young ADHDers.
My dad forwarded this youtube video to the entire family yesterday afternoon, and while I was laughing…. I was also thinking– omg… this is so me.
While I’ve been attempting to teach myself the “art” of slowing down, it’s oh so hard at times.
I am a 48 year old severely ADHD woman and this video describes.me.perfectly.
ROTFLOL, literally.