New Adventures...

The new year has been anything but boring. We started P90X, we started a new nutrition plan, and Peter has been officially diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). This is a diagnoses that will not effect his job in a negative way...especially since he is not a pilot. It actually might help him. Honestly we are by no way surprised by this diagnoses...but having an actual diagnoses makes it a real, and in some ways, life altering issue for us.  ADHD is something that is over diagnosed among children, so most do not actually have it. But I can say that for those who really do have it it is a very real thing. It is basically a chemical imbalance in the brain that causes difficulty staying focused and attending to daily, mundane tasks. That is a VERY simplistic definition of adult ADD. Basically for us it means that Peter does certain things that can be highly irritating and to me feel like he doesn't care enough about me to do the "right thing", but in reality it is something that is an ADD symptom. This is a list of ADD symptoms:

• poor organizational skills (home, office, desk, or car is extremely messy and cluttered)
• tendency to procrastinate
• trouble starting and finishing projects
• chronic lateness
• frequently forgetting appointments, commitments, and deadlines
• constantly losing or misplacing things (keys, wallet, phone, documents, bills)
• underestimating the time it will take to complete tasks

Anybody who knows Peter is aware that this list is like reading his autobiography. Every Single One Of Them. My issue is learning the fine line between an ADD behavior and a behavior that he has control over and CAN change. My personal favorite symptom being Hyperfocus. That's the one where I go to bed and he tells me he'll finish up whatever he's doing on the computer and then follow me...I wake up 4 hrs later and he's still not in bed. At this point I have no idea how to deal with this one. It really is an ADD thing...but I can't help but feel less important...even though he's not doing it maliciously.
The doctor gave him some meds to try out...but the meds were taking away his appetite (a bad thing when trying to do P90X), making him somewhat sick, and making him extra sleepy. Not good things to deal with currently. So he will be trying a new med this week. I guess that medications will help him balance out how he focuses and whatnot...but I do not know exactly how that will change things. It is all a new adventure that will keep life with my airman interesting.

Here are a few Myths/Facts

MYTH: ADD/ADHD is just a lack of willpower. Persons with ADD/ADHD focus well on things that interest them; they could focus on any other tasks if they really wanted to.
FACT: ADD/ADHD looks very much like a willpower problem, but it isn’t. It’s essentially a chemical problem in the management systems of the brain.

MYTH: Someone can’t have ADD/ADHD and also have depression, anxiety, or other psychiatric problems.
FACT: A person with ADD/ADHD is six times more likely to have another psychiatric or learning disorder than most other people. ADD/ADHD usually overlaps with other disorders.

MYTH: Unless you have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as a child, you can’t have it as an adult.
FACT: Many adults struggle all their lives with unrecognized ADD/ADHD impairments. They haven’t received help because they assumed that their chronic difficulties, like depression or anxiety, were caused by other impairments that did not respond to usual treatment.

I think this goes for the spouse as well

http://lifewithadhd.tumblr.com/
http://helpguide.org/mental/adhd_add_adult_symptoms.htm