Ever since my son was diagnosed with ADHD, I've been researching it. For the past few years I've had the sneaking suspicion that I might have ADD. However, I don't know if I have ADD, or it's just anxiety, depression, disorganization and laziness mixed with wishful thinking. Wishing I had ADD? Yeah, I do, because then I could understand better what my son is going through.

I've always had a problem with organization. My room as a child, and my house as an adult, looks like someone ransacked the place. My entire family has always had problems with deadlines. We're procrastinators and do everything (from cleaning the house for Thanksgiving, to writing major papers for school) at the latest minute possible. It could just be that I use time pressure to set my organization patterns, but when I read about AD/HDers having problems with time management that leads to last minute deadline work, I wonder...

I went to a therapist for depression 8 years ago, and she diagnosed me with anxiety. I figured she was off the mark, because I'm only anxious about specific things, not about everything all the time. But now I read that women with ADD are frequently diagnosed with depression and anxiety, but the ADD is missed entirely. So I wonder...

Yesterday was the worst. We'd had Thanksgiving at my mom's house. She made one turkey too many for the six people that were there, so she sent us home with half a turkey. Yesterday at dinner I started pulling out Thanksgiving leftovers that I'd put in the fridge Thursday night. No turkey. I looked in the car, did it get left in the car? No turkey. I called my sister, did my turkey leftovers get mixed with hers? No. I called my mom, did I leave the turkey in the fridge (hope) or on the table? No turkey. We eventually found it in my son's room. He'd carried it in with a bunch of his stuff and just took everything into his room. I put all the food away, and never noticed there wasn't a turkey.

My life is a constant struggle to remember what I need to do. I'm an expert at getting the computer to remind me of things (like a weekly check to see if meds need to be re-ordered) and I can make Excel sit up, roll over, and bug me about tasks in progress. I keep trying to find the perfect system or software to help things stop falling through the cracks, but haven't found it yet. (Though I do love Life Balance.)

So, wishful thinking or possible ADD? I don't know.

Quote