Yes, folks, it's time once again for the Semi-Occassional posting of
Hallowell & Ratey's famous and fabulous list.
Feel free to copy, cross-post, and find ways to share this list with
others. Just -- please! -- be sure to include the copyright line at the
bottom, so that the good doctors get all due credit for their work.
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            FIFTY TIPS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF ADULT ADD
                      Insight and Education
     1. Be sure of the diagnosis. Make sure you're working with a
professional who really understands ADD and has excluded related or
similar conditions, such as anxiety states, agitated depression,
hyperthyroidism, manic-depressive illness, or obsessive-compulsive
disorder.
     2. Educate yourself. perhaps the single most powerful treatment of
ADD is understanding ADD in the first place.  Read books. Talk with
professionals. Talk with other adults who have ADD. These can be found
through ADD support groups or local or national ADD organizations like
CH.A.D.D.  You'll be able to design your own treatment to fit your own
version of ADD.
     3. Choose a coach. It is useful for you to have a coach, for some
person near to you to keep after you, but always with humor. Your coach
can help you get organized, stay on task, give you encouragement, or
remind you to get back to work. Friend, colleague, or therapist (it is
possible, but risky, for your coach to be your spouse), a coach is
someone who stays on you to get things done, exhorts you as coaches do,
keep tabs on you, and in general stands in your corner. A coach can be
tremendously helpful in treating ADD.
     4. Seek encouragement.  ADD adults need lots of encouragement. That
is in part due to many self-doubts that have accumulated over the years.
But it goes beyond that. More than most people, ADD adults wither
without encouragement and thrive when given it. They will often work for
another person in a way they won't work for themselves. This is not
"bad", it just is. It should be recognized and taken advantage of.
     5. Realize what add is *not* -- i.e., conflict with mother,
unconscious fear of success, passive-aggressive personality. People with
ADD, of course, may have a conflict with their mother or an unconscious
fear of success or have a passive-aggressive personality, but it is
important to separate ADD from those other kinds of problems because the
treatment for ADD is completely different.
     6. Educate and involve others. Just as it is key for you to
understand ADD, it is equally if not more important for those around you
to understand it -- family members, coworkers, school personnel, and
friends.  Once they get the concept, they will be able to understand you
much better and to help you reach your goals.
     7. Give up guilt over high-stimuli-seeking behavior. Understand
that you are drawn to high stimuli. try to choose them wisely, rather
than brooding over the "bad" ones.
     8. Listen to feedback from trusted others. Adults (and children,
too) with ADD are notoriously poor self-observers. They use a lot of
what can appear to be denial.
     9. Consider joining or starting a support group. Much of the most
useful information about ADD has not yet found its way into books but
remains stored in the minds of the people who have ADD. In groups this
kind of information can come out. Plus, groups are really helpful in
giving the kind of support that is so badly needed.
     10. Try to get rid of the negativity that may have infested your
system if you have lived for years without knowing what you had was ADD.
A good psychotherapist may help in this regard.
     11. Don't feel chained to conventional careers or conventional ways
of coping. Give yourself permission to be yourself. Give up trying to be
the person you always thought you should be -- let yourself be who you
are.
     12. Remember that what you have is a neurological condition. It is
genetically transmitted. It is caused by biology, by how your brain is
wired. It is *not* a disease of the will, nor a moral failing, nor some
kind of neurosis. It is not caused by a weakness in character, nor by a
failure to mature. Its cure is not to be found in the power of the will,
nor in punishment, nor in sacrifice, nor in pain.  Always remember this.
Try as they might, many people with ADD have great trouble accepting the
syndrome as being rooted in biology rather than weakness of character.
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copyright 1992 by Edward H. Hallowell and John J. Ratey
 * SLMR 2.1a * I'd lose my body if my brain weren't surrounded by it.
--- I killed my WildCAT!
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