You know you have A.D.D. when....

I would credit these with a link to the old Prodigy ADD Forum, but it isn't there anymore. Anyway...I saved some of these "You you have A.D.D. when...." lines because I felt I could have written them myself. Sometimes, when I read these over, I laugh!! But sometimes I want to cry when I re-read them. Depends on how I am viewing myself that day. Some days, having my brain wired differently is depressing. And then some days I can accept how I am and try to look at it as a gift; not a disability or disorder. Incidentally, I just added the first sentence in the list tonight.

You know you have ADD when...

....You are vacuuming the house and cleaning the bathroom at 10:00 at night the day before guests are due to visit, even though you have been home since 4:00 in the afternoon...

...suddenly you realize somebody has been talking to you and you don’t have a clue what they said.

...you get to work and find the remote in your purse.

...you realize...that other ADDers...tend to use the three little dots...that I’ve over-used in this sentence...because we always have more ideas to say...and we don’t have time to figure out the correct way to punctuate...and we might add more later...(parentheses are overused, too!!)

...you have a cup of coffee at bedtime and get to sleep faster than usual.

...you go on the web to find an answer to help your daughter with hers homework and two hours later you have to go and ask what you were looking for

...you find yourself at stop sign and suddenly realize it’s not going to turn green.

...at your first ADD group therapy session, as everyone tells of their personal experiences, you find your head is nodding like a hungry parrot’s...

...your 3 year old daughter is ready and waiting at the door for you to get it together.

...you buy something at the store, put it on the hood of the car while you put the baby in his car seat, then drive off with the item you just bought still on the hood of your car.

...being on time means 5 to 10 minutes late.

...your most vivid memory of elementary school is the shape of the windows.(and the smell of that paste we had to use.)

..you go to the store for milk and come home an hour and a half later with a weeks worth of provisions. ( but you forget to buy milk)

...you keep important things in a place called “It’s in a Safe Place” and you have no idea which one it is.

...you figure you can write a ten page paper, shower, shave, cut your nails, get a hair cut, go to the post office, get gas, in about an hour

...you find the TV remote in the refrigerator AND it doesn’t surprise you.

...you take your garbage to work.

...you forget a person’s name a 1/2 sec after they told you

..you notice the box of summer clothes on the kitchen floor, that has been there for 3 months, and you tell yourself you need to finish organizing...only to find that 2 months later it makes a perfect display stand for your Christmas display

...you owe late fees at the local video store every time you rent a new movie

...you type a final exam term paper on ADD experiences at the last possible second.

...you turn on the tv to see what the weather is going to be and at the end of the broadcast don’t remember what the weather is going to be.

..you load your car up with prepared foods, serving trays, etc. and speed off frantically to a party (to which you are a host) only to realize and few miles down the road, that you have no idea where the person lives to whose house you are headed.

...you throw things out in stages - first by the bedroom door, then the dining room, then the living room. Within a year, you finally throw that lamp away!

...your middle name is “Not working up to potential.”

...you have a sense of humor that could only be classified as “unique.”

...you don’t seek treatment because you are terrified the doctor will tell you you don’t have ADD and you really are just lazy, disorganized and incompetent.

...when you’re typing and you spell words wiht, hvae, teh and leave out words in a sentence because your mind is faster than your fingers.

...you are driving down the road deep in thought (of course) and you suddenly have absolutely NO CLUE where you are, or where you are going. Panic for a moment, then decide the best course of action is to keep driving since you might actually recognize something eventually.

...you tell your daughter you are going to cook dinner. She comes to the kitchen 30 minutes later to find out what happened to dinner, sees dinner half-prepared, and finds you in the back yard planting a tree (that had been in its nursery container for a year already).

...you have looked up all the home tips and have a collection of “how to get pots and pans clean after scorching them”

...you have to take 2 birth control pills because you forgot yesterday, and realize when you open the pack that you have actually forgotten for 5 days.

...you go to Starbucks and order a triple espresso just to relax

...you are living in an apartment even though you earn enough to buy a house. You can’t get a mortgage for less than 13% because you haven’t filed your taxes in 8 years, have no idea where your records are, and your credit rating stinks because you forget to pay bills even when you have money in the bank.

...you walk away in the middle of conversations and don’t even know it

...your electricity gets turned off for nonpayment and the money order you bought three weeks ago to pay the bill is still thumb tacked to the door post so you’ll see it on the way out

...you drive away with your organizer on top of your car. You don’t answer the phone calls from the lady who found it, because you don’t recognize her number, and she might be a bill collector. When she finally gets through, you realize that you haven’t seen your organizer for days!

...you are really “on”, the life of the party and everyone is laughing at your jokes and as soon as you get home you spend all night wondering if you made a fool of yourself (again)

...you are listening to someone talk and you are thinking of something else and you can’t wait for them to shut up so you can go do something else. (the sad thing is, I do this when my husband is talking to me sometimes. And..I think he knows this..)

....you put something in a “safe” place . . . . . . so safe you can’t find it . . . . . . until, of course, you’re looking for something else.

...you open your microwave and find the coffee you had re-heated from 2 days ago.

...one morning you are about to put breakfast in the microwave...only to find last night’s dinner already in there!

...your cats and dogs live far longer than your houseplants because the animals complain when not fed/watered.

. ..you feel like you’re “bluffing” your way through your job & that if people knew how much you miss, you’d be out on your ear, & that it’s only your ability to get the gist from very little that keeps you looking like you know what you’re doing!

...your class notes are covered in doodles and few actual notes.

...you’ve said that you’re going to go back to school for an advanced degree...at least 10 times a year during the past 10 years.

...you have an essay and 2 research papers due the next day and instead of working on them, here you are...

...you get mad enough to chew nails when some (who is definitely not ADD) claims that ADD is a made up “disorder” and that we all just want to be “lazy” and “get high” on Ritalin. (Shows what linear thinkers know about non-linear thinkers...absolutely nothing!)

...the library has a bounty out for that overdue book that you meant to bring back LAST year.

...you read this list and realize it sounds just like you! (absolutely)

...your best friend describes his worst day ever and you wish you could have such a calm day

...every night you have a nightmare about teacher/parent/boss saying “I know you could do better if only you would try a little harder”

...let the laundry machine start filling up while you go collect the clothes (which are scattered all over the room), and two hours later you happen to go through the laundry room and realize the machine went through the whole cycle with no clothes in it. (or start the laundry, forget about it and wonder what the foul odor coming up from the basement is five days later. Oh..it's the damp laundry still waiting to be taken out of the washing machine! Of course, I have to wash them all over again to get the musty, mildewy smell out of what could have been clean clothing the first time. *sigh*)