General Characteristics of the Adult With ADD/ADHD
General Characteristics of the Adult with ADD
Please keep in mind that this is a generalized overview of how characteristics and symptoms of ADD/ADHD may present themselves in Adults. In addition, if there is no “impairment” in your life, you do not have a disorder. How these characteristics affect each individual will be different and unique.
Inattention and Memory Characteristics
* May lose things such as keys, important papers, phone numbers etc on a regular basis.
* May be forgetful in daily activities “I know there was something I was supposed to do!” or consistently forget to take out the trash, instructions from your partner, or picking the kids up from an activity.
* May consistently begin a task and not complete it.
# Maybe you start to cut the grass, go inside to get a drink, answer the phone, see there is a sporting event on TV, sit down and watch it and leave the lawn mower in the middle of the yard. Maybe you have a “workshop” with projects began with good intentions, all half finished.
# May have a problem following conversations. Maybe your wife/girlfriend/partner talks to you and always complains that you never listen. Maybe you are always wondering when someone told you something when they say “Don’t you remember I told you about this last week.” Maybe you miss deadlines at work or hand in something irrelevant because you only heard half the conversation.
# May be difficult to motivate yourself to begin a project. “Oh sure, that sounds great, I’ll get started on it, well, maybe tomorrow!” A project that doesn’t instantly sound great and exciting may continually be placed on hold, making you look lazy.
# May have difficulty following a timed schedule. Misjudging time can create havoc in any schedule. Either you begin with an unrealistic schedule, allowing too much or too little time for each activity, or you can’t follow the schedule because you forgot about the time and just spend 3 hours on an activity that should have taken 20 minutes.
Impulsiveness
* You may interrupt others or answer a question before the other person is finished. Entering in a conversation in the middle of someone else’s sentence can be embarrassing and lead to others thinking that you are rude and inconsiderate.
* You may blurt out your thoughts without thinking first. Do your friends and family know you for your “bluntness” or “complete honesty?” Do your thoughts jump out of your head before you even have time to decide if it is an appropriate response? Do you tend to hurt other people’s feelings with your remarks, even though you never intended to be insulting?
Emotional Turmoil
* You may become easily angered. Do you find your temper rising over the smallest incident? Does your family and friends wonder why you can get angry so quickly? At the same time, are you able to release your anger quickly, left wondering what all the fuss is about?
* You may have a low tolerance for frustration.
* Without instant success, do you find yourself become frustrated with a project and leaving it alone? It is possible that consistent failures in the past due to ADHD (diagnosed and undiagnosed) may have left you with a bad taste for “failure” and your frustration with not being able to complete a project successfully can create stress in your life. You may have unpredictable moods. Instability in moods, happy one moment, frustrated the next; depressed the next can create havoc in social relationships.
Low Self Esteem
* You may have the ability to appear confident to others. Previous failures and frustrations can cause your confidence to waver. On the outside, you might appear a confident outgoing individual, while you secretly fear your “imminent” failure.
* You may avoid new situations. To avoid the fear of failure, do you avoid entering into new relationships, or into situations involving something new in order to avoid possible failure?
General Characteristics of the Adult with ADD
Please keep in mind that this is a generalized overview of how characteristics and symptoms of ADD/ADHD may present themselves in Adults. In addition, if there is no “impairment” in your life, you do not have a disorder. How these characteristics affect each individual will be different and unique.
Inattention and Memory Characteristics
* May lose things such as keys, important papers, phone numbers etc on a regular basis.
* May be forgetful in daily activities “I know there was something I was supposed to do!” or consistently forget to take out the trash, instructions from your partner, or picking the kids up from an activity.
* May consistently begin a task and not complete it.
# Maybe you start to cut the grass, go inside to get a drink, answer the phone, see there is a sporting event on TV, sit down and watch it and leave the lawn mower in the middle of the yard. Maybe you have a “workshop” with projects began with good intentions, all half finished.
# May have a problem following conversations. Maybe your wife/girlfriend/partner talks to you and always complains that you never listen. Maybe you are always wondering when someone told you something when they say “Don’t you remember I told you about this last week.” Maybe you miss deadlines at work or hand in something irrelevant because you only heard half the conversation.
# May be difficult to motivate yourself to begin a project. “Oh sure, that sounds great, I’ll get started on it, well, maybe tomorrow!” A project that doesn’t instantly sound great and exciting may continually be placed on hold, making you look lazy.
# May have difficulty following a timed schedule. Misjudging time can create havoc in any schedule. Either you begin with an unrealistic schedule, allowing too much or too little time for each activity, or you can’t follow the schedule because you forgot about the time and just spend 3 hours on an activity that should have taken 20 minutes.
Impulsiveness
* You may interrupt others or answer a question before the other person is finished. Entering in a conversation in the middle of someone else’s sentence can be embarrassing and lead to others thinking that you are rude and inconsiderate.
* You may blurt out your thoughts without thinking first. Do your friends and family know you for your “bluntness” or “complete honesty?” Do your thoughts jump out of your head before you even have time to decide if it is an appropriate response? Do you tend to hurt other people’s feelings with your remarks, even though you never intended to be insulting?
Emotional Turmoil
* You may become easily angered. Do you find your temper rising over the smallest incident? Does your family and friends wonder why you can get angry so quickly? At the same time, are you able to release your anger quickly, left wondering what all the fuss is about?
* You may have a low tolerance for frustration.
* Without instant success, do you find yourself become frustrated with a project and leaving it alone? It is possible that consistent failures in the past due to ADHD (diagnosed and undiagnosed) may have left you with a bad taste for “failure” and your frustration with not being able to complete a project successfully can create stress in your life. You may have unpredictable moods. Instability in moods, happy one moment, frustrated the next; depressed the next can create havoc in social relationships.
Low Self Esteem
* You may have the ability to appear confident to others. Previous failures and frustrations can cause your confidence to waver. On the outside, you might appear a confident outgoing individual, while you secretly fear your “imminent” failure.
* You may avoid new situations. To avoid the fear of failure, do you avoid entering into new relationships, or into situations involving something new in order to avoid possible failure?
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