Co-morbidities: When you Have ADHD and Depression, Anxiety, etc
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by scouter68 on -
i have a sophmore in high school and want to teach her to manage her adhd but we both are having a hard time. she knows she needs to pull trash every monday and friday but if i do not remind her it does not get done. i have tried to set alarms on her phone, reminders, and even dates on her computer. i want to try not reminding her but then it piles up and i hate procrastination and messiness.
i want her to take charge of responding to emails, searching for scholarships and other things and just does not do it.
i take charge of her because i want her to succeed and get into college and not have to work so hard like we do
even on her GS silver award we had to do steps with her rather than throwing her on her own. maybe this is ok to help some kids through life?
any suggestions. I thought about coaching but not sure we can add anything more into our budget at this time.
respond to scouter68@yahoo.com if you can assist some.
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Permalink Reply by Susie Wiseman on -
I have a dual diagnosis of ADD and depression, About a year or so ago I went to my pcp and said look I think my depression is largely caused by my ADD and I would like to try ADD meds without depression meds. He was very reluctant to try that but in the end he gave in. And I think I have largely proven to be right. But I try to do things that help me manage depression as well such as attending a support group and having animals and helping people (takes the focus off of myself).
Rose said:From memory I've always had ADD and I'm 61 yrs old now with 3 adult ADD children. I suffer from depression and anxiety and I take 100mg of Zoloft daily. I also take fish oil and glucosamine suppliments daily. They obviously are doing me good for I notice a big difference in my wellbeing when I forget to take them.
I sort of wonder if the anxiety came with the ADD or did the ADD cause the anxiety? I have always been an anxious person, I worry a lot about everything. If an event is approaching that I'm anxious about it's not uncommon for me to have sleep deprived nights beforehand.
i intend to investigate other medication. I put it off as I feel deep down that I've coped so far , do I really need more medication? I am happy with myself and my life at the moment and I hesitate to change anything. I'm used to coping withh my ADD symptoms . Does this mean I'm selfish because that means everyone around me suffer when I have my ADD moments????
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Permalink Reply by Susie Wiseman on
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You know I think sometimes people with ADD can try different thing to help themselves but sometimes you just need to have someone to do those physical reminders. That's the way it is with me anyway. I have a friend that comes to visit me and my son and he has helped me to get my home organized and cleaned up. And he comes to stay quite often and will give me reminders like you say you do with your sophmore. And its great because its exactly what I need. Although some would say that since I am an adult nobody should have to do that. But its just not true.
scouter68 said:i have a sophmore in high school and want to teach her to manage her adhd but we both are having a hard time. she knows she needs to pull trash every monday and friday but if i do not remind her it does not get done. i have tried to set alarms on her phone, reminders, and even dates on her computer. i want to try not reminding her but then it piles up and i hate procrastination and messiness.
i want her to take charge of responding to emails, searching for scholarships and other things and just does not do it.
i take charge of her because i want her to succeed and get into college and not have to work so hard like we do
even on her GS silver award we had to do steps with her rather than throwing her on her own. maybe this is ok to help some kids through life?
any suggestions. I thought about coaching but not sure we can add anything more into our budget at this time.
respond to scouter68@yahoo.com if you can assist some.
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Permalink Reply by Susie Wiseman on
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Flylady is great but even she says if you have conditons such as add and depression, etc. you gotta get help. Plus she is all about routines and routines can be very dull and difficult for Adders.Just have to modify. Like for me, instead of doing the control journal I have index cards. One set is neon colored for daily chores and one set is pastel for weekly chores. That way I can change them around a bit and I don't get so bored and I can choose what I want to do.
Rebekah said:Hi everyone! My name is Rebekah and I have several diagnoses including bipolar disorder, ADHD, PTSD and Dependent Personality Disorder and I am on a whole slew of medications. The ADHD was the last diagnosis that I was given, actually I told the doctors in the hospital (I was in a psych unit for suicidal ideations) that I needed ADHD medication because I wasnt able to function and I remembered a trial of ADHD meds in the past (before I had a formal diagnosis of anything) and how they helped me focus and get things done around the house....and I told the doctors all my symptoms and I think they gave me the meds just to shut me up, but whatever, I have been on them ever since and they are a lifesaver!
These forums are also wonderful because I see symptoms that I didnt know were ADHD related in other people's postings that I was attributing to a personality flaw or some character defect in myself when its really just an ADHD issue that I can resolve with finding the right methods to do housework and organizing and time management. The ADHD causes the most problems in my marriage, my husband is very neat and orderly and by the rules kind of guy and both of my children from a previous marriage have ADHD and one has Asperger's syndrome...so my husband has a very hard time with that in addition to my bipolar and anxiety and PTSD issues.
So needless to say I go from keeping things reasonably clean (by my standards) to atrocious depending on the day and the lack of consistency in our lives drives everyone crazy, including me. But I just dont know where to start. I am on medication for all these diagnoses and the ADHD medication is working wonderfully, but without the skills to accompany the increased focus, nothing gets done anyway.
The bipolar medications work somewhat, but not as well as they need to, but I am working on that with my psychiatrist and the anxiety medications work very well for general things but for work and other stressful things I need extra doses of the anxiety meds...and all the meds for the bipolar and anxiety have caused me to gain 120 lbs...so now I am obese on top of all these other issues and I just dont know where to begin and what to treat first and how to get it all in line and functioning well.
I am currently trying Flylady for the house, but I am inconsistent with it, so it doesnt do as well as I would like for it to and I forget where I put my "control journal" that has all my routines in it and I have posted them all over the house so I can see them and that seems to help some, but I need drastic improvements to make sure my husband will stay married to me, he is really really really tired of all the chaos and I dont blame him. I just dont know where to begin and how to fix a million problems all at one time.
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Permalink Reply by Smokeydragonlady on -
your not alone i was just diganoised 4 months ago and i have 4 children with it.always had anxity and
deppression now i know the stem of it its the uh hu moment for me
Alyssa The Otter One said:At 16, I was diagnosed as having clinical depression. In my late teens I was diagnosed as having anxiety disorder (this one caused me to have "friends" bail on me, especially if they had ever seen me in a panic attack). I HAD been tested at age 10 for ADD (ok, this was 1985...) and "they" said I was not ADD.
Flash forward to this past summer. We had our 9 year old daughter (we also have a 6 year old daughter) tested for ADD. Sure enough, she is ADD. In talking to our family therapist, she commented on how she believed I was ADD. My first reaction was "NO WAY, "they" said I wasn't". I talked to my psyc dr, and my husband and I completed CAAR evealuations. My name is Alyssa, and I am ADD! (my humor has not improved...)
I started Adderall a little over 2 weeks ago. As my doctor had mentioned, my anxiety has gone down! For the most part, I have the energy I never did, and my brain is QUIET! It was like spending my life in front of a speaker of a heavy metal concert, then being plopped down in the middle of a Zen garden. My implusiveness and focus has improved.
The pros to having the issues before the diagnosis of ADD is that at least logically, I am more accepting of the diagnosis (I already knew I was wired differently) and accepting of the idea of medication to help me. The nice thing about ADD treatment is it doesn't take 6-8 weeks to see a difference. I think that the trials and tribulations with depression and anxiety also help me realize that though the Adderall is helping, it will take time to get the right dosage and even the right medication in the end.
The bad part is now I notice my ADD tendencies and symptoms, but don't have the skills to organize, manage my time and the other issues we face as ADDers. I am looking into an ADD Coach, but need to see if my HSA account covers that. Being overwhelmed is also one of my panic triggers. I have danced close to a panic attack, but have not gone into one yet. Since I feel off kilter, I have been avoiding crowds (another trigger when I am "off") and doing my best not to completely shut down mentally.
Interesting, that even with the ADD diagnosis, I still thought I was "odd" since I had depression AND anxiety too(whoo hoo, mental trifecta!). It is amazing (and comforting) to find that there are other women out there, like me. I am not alone as I thought I was. How many of us think there is something "not right" about us and don't realize that there is someone else out there that understands?
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Permalink Reply by Rebekah on -
Wow. My first post in this thread (it may have been my first overall) was in mid 2009 and re-reading it gave me such a new perspective on things. Since then, I have done a LOT in terms of dealing with all of these diagnoses, mostly dietary changes actually. I have had resolution for a good bit of the "unexplainable" (meaning it doesn't have a trigger) anxiety and severe mood swings to the extent that I no longer have a bipolar diagnosis. The problem turned out to be a gluten sensitivity and MANY (around 30) undiagnosed food allergies/sensitivities.
Between consistent therapy, lots of my own reading and researching and trial and error, things changed so much, I started working for the first time in my adult life. However, that quadrupled my anxiety to unbearable levels and I had meltdowns at work and was let go.....but things are relatively functional at home, so what was it that made work so hard? That led me to do more research, and I happened to have bought some books on girls with Asperger's syndrome for my daughter because I thought maybe she had it along with her brother (he already has a dx) and I read it, and there is a symptom chart for girls with asperger's in it, and lo and behold it was ME who has EVERY single symptom on the chart!!! Even a bipolar misdiagnosis was one of the things on the chart!
Soooooo I know I have ADHD, no questions there, but now I am questioning the asperger's link (I always thought my dad had it too, after learning about it when my son was diagnosed) so I am trying to get neuropsychiatric testing for that soon, but just having everything finally "make sense" in terms of what's "wrong" (I don't think I'm messed up anymore, but I wasn't sure how else to put it) is a huge relief. I just think its amazing that I have ALL of the things on the symptom chart, talk about a poster child for a diagnosis!! It's just really hard to connect the dots when there is very little knowledge of asperger's as a whole and even less on girls and asperger's.
It has helped my marriage exponentially. My husband always said he thought I had it, but I had no way to know for sure, but now we are both convinced. So I think I have finally solved the "why" and can focus on building my strengths and managing my weaknesses effectively! I'm so thankful for this site, it gave me hope and let me know I wasn't alone, during some of the very worst of times.
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Permalink Reply by Heidi on
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Lynn,
Oh my gosh! I thought I was totally alone in this. I was diagnosed about 6 years ago. I am on prozac for depression, ritalin, and buspar for anxiety. The buspar is a recent addition to my medications.
I have 3 kids too. I have been unemployed for 2 years now. I was the primary income for our household. So financially we are not doing well since unemployment insurance has now ended. I have no motivation for anything. I want to get things done, I will make lists, and more lists. By the time I am done making lists, I'm too tired to actually do anything on them. This makes me so frustrated with myself and the lack of completion in anything.
I manage to cook dinner almost every day, but keeping up with the household chores is awful. I can get the laundry washed and dried and folded, but never put away.
Then there is the most important issue. I don't have a job. I have a bachelors degree, and was working towards my mba, but couldn't bring myself to log in to school any more. So with 2 classes left, I dropped out. I want to go back and finish my degree, kind of. But I need a job, its to the point where we have had utilities cut off, and family members helping us with our bills just to get by. Yet, in light of all of this, and knowing how much I need a job for financial reasons, and structural reasons (my daily schedule), I just can't seem motivated enough to look for a job every day.
Our family is starting to drown, and I know it. I know I have to do something. I feel awful that I haven't done more. But I get so tired all of the time. I thought it was depression causing this, but my meds have been increased and changed several times. I don't feel depressed, and I know the symptoms in myself pretty well since I have dealt with this for a lot of years.
I just don't know what to do to get myself going and on a regular routine every day. Has anyone else ever dealt with this type of lack of motivation even when on meds? If you have any suggestions, I could really use the advice. I'm at my wits end with myself and my whole family is too.
Lynn Kirsch said:I'm so on this page I have Known about my ADHD for only 3 years now and I have so many other things going on also. I have lost friends because of my social phobia, I have anxiety and depression to boot. I am currently taking Celexa and Vyvanse and I think I need to change because I'm finding that I can't sleep at night and I'm tired all day long so this route isn't working but I hope my Dr. and I can figure this out as I have had one of the worst summers I can remember in a while as far as not wanting to leave the house or just getting up the energy to anything. I'm 40 and feel guilty all to often for not having the gumption to go get active with my 3 younger kids but it really is a daily struggle. I would love to others stories and will take any advice anyone wants to give.
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