Adhd - my first hand experience and learning

[Giulia]

Ok, I copy what I said in another thread. It's first hand experience.
I will then try to summarize for who want the short version.

The only thing I could say was I was neither able to study/work, nor able to do anything around the house until the age of 25. Proper diagnosis and proper treatment made the whole difference.
The only thing I could do around the house was searching and trying to find the right treatment for myself, in order to live and not survive.

What you said hurted me.
So, if I understood well what you said, my mommy should have made me go away because "I didn't study/work nor doing anything around the house" ?
Here, mental health is like Middle Ages. Having the diagnosis and treatment for ADHD as an adult is next to impossible where I live, let alone the right care. When I was a child, same story, even more difficult to get the proper diagnosis and treatment.
We needed 5 years to get this diagnosis and treatment for me.
In the meantime, antipsychotic were not having therapeutic effects and I had quite a bunch of side effects, some of them were awful.

You have little services for people with mental health. But here where I live, it is even worse.
So families are, more often than not, left out with their child in need for care.
These persons, especially children, are not only rarely able to help themselves, but they also don't often obtain the help they really need. When they obtain help, it's a very partial help and even, not helpful at all.
I cannot not mention it.

In a few words, my ADHD was so debilitating that working/studying and helping around the house were not an option. I wish it were an option, but it was not actually.
And I was not lacking will to get help, I just didn't receive the help I was needed. As simple as that.

Of course, substance abuse were not in the middle (it was enough complicated like that without substance abuse, let alone if substance abuse were involved !!).

It happened for me to be very unstable. Hurting mom sometimes, verbal garbage, anxiety ++++. I of course called psychiatrist when it happened (or going to GP), but it didn't mean that I still had the right medical care (they did what they could, but they didn't know if it were chicken or eggs).

I still remember my ex boyfriend telling me that mom should make me go out because I wanted to profit from her. It still hurts now.

Insane, I could threaten when very unstable. We then dealt with my psychiatrist. Some addon therapy. It was helpful somehow, but still not enough to get stable and functional.

Here, in France, obtaining help for ADHD for children is very difficult, next to impossible for an adult. It's not like we could obtain help easily, not at all. When you can get help easily, it's one thing. But when you really darn can't get the right help, or only after extreme efforts, what do we do then ?
If we could obtain easily a help, things would have been completely different. I would had been able to do more, even helping more at home, or studying, or working. More functional. Not only stable, but also functional.

Before telling what I quoted, we have to be extra careful. Not every place has the possibility to purpose help for pathology like these (and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is the typical topic in France about such a problem, families left alone without the help they truly need, often told that they caused their child's illness. We were more or less in the same place with my ADHD).
In this kind of situation, you cannot realistically ask a parent to kick out their young adult. Not only it would be inhuman, but also it's absolutely not realistic at all.
As I often say, "we need a village to raise a child with disability". What do we do when the parents are left without the village ?

I won't lash out at you. I can only say that I have had severe ADD - which still affects me today. However, I still managed to move out on my own, get a job that didn't require much but serving drinks and went to college. Today I am a successful Accountant with severe ADHD. I can multi-task with the best of them!. I do not take any medications.

I often feel that people use an ADHD diagnosis as a crutch. So many people with ADD and ADHD are very, very successful people.

True for certain people. But not every person with ADHD can manage without medicines. I was and I am still in this case. Without medicines, I am useless, no matter how much I want to be useful.

I am not saying that you are using it as a crutch. I have absolutely no idea what you have gone through growing up and what you go through today. I am sure there are exceptions to the rule. But, I do agree with MWMom. At that age, you should really be self supporting or at least able to help around the house. Helping with the cooking and cleaning don't require much...

I can be useful at home now because I have the right treatment. Not every adult with ADHD can help at home without medicines. Not every person with ADHD can work/study without medicines. I am one of these persons.
I am happy for you that you can function without medicine, but not all adults with ADHD have this ability.

I help at home, I am able to do it because I have now the right treatment. I can manage food shopping, my laundry, feed the cats, repair triple play box (TV, Internet, telephone) and computers. After having the right kind of medicine, these chores have even quite long to master for me. I am still learning how to cook and clean up and for me, it requires much. We cannot generalize your experience nor mine to everyone.
Without medicine, I am useless.

But before 25 years old, we had no diagnosis, nor the right treatment.
I was given an antipsychotic because I desperately couldn't function without medicine, but it was absolutely not the right kind of medicine. So no, I couldn't help, nor having the success despite having all the will I could have.
And psychiatrists didn't even know what darn did I have. But attention deficit was still there, still unable neither to cook, nor to clean up.... It was so debilitating that I couldn't even read a page of a book/magazine. Not een learning chores.
Again, no one with the same diagnosis will be able to function at the same degree without medicine. I am one of these unable to properly function without medicine. There are adults who can.
But other adults can't, and it doesn't mean they are "lazy", "wanting to get profit from their parents".
It's not because you experienced success while having a severe ADHD and without medicine that all the adults with the same diagnosis will succeed without medicine like you.
Again, I am happy for your success. But we cannot be scornful for these who cannot get the same success as yours. Not everyone has the same capacities, and not everyone will succeed like you without medicine.

In my case, ADHD was so debilitating. And without medicine, it's still as debilitating to the point I am useless without medicine.

I didn't say you don't have to be honest or such.

Well, when all the hell started, I desperately wanted some help. Medicines were and are still the small price to pay. I had to oppose myself from my dad, because he chose and still chooses to self medicate. I didn't absolutely make this choice.
The problem was getting the appropriate help. I think that without my mom, I would be dead now (no exaggeration).

What helped me most to stick on my medicines was comparing all this to a somatic illness. If I were having diabetes, asthma, or whatever you want, no one would wonder twice if medicines are needed or not.
Same with ADHD or any mental illness.
It was the simplest yet the most helpful path to make me buy it. It may not work for everyone, but it's a solution we don't always think about when it deals to convince someone to take neuropsychologist medications.

My short version

1) ADHD can be extremely debilitating, to the point that a child/adult is absolutely unable to help at home, work/study if not on medicine.
Some can work/study and/or help at home with severe ADHD and without medicine, but to others, ADHD can be so debilitating that it completely prevents from helping at home and/or studying/working if they don't have any medicine to take.
It's not laziness. it can be debilitating like that to some individuals. As debilitating as if someone were in ICU.
When ADHD is as debilitating as that, the first and foremost priority must be getting the needed help. It has no sense to ask someone who really, really can't study/work/help at home/self support to do it.
Mom and I learnt it the very harsh way.

2) To make myself buy the idea of medicines, I was told that if I had a somatic illness (diabetes, asthma....), no one would question the need for medicines.
It may not work for every individual, but it worth to be tried.

3) Rely on baby steps. One little thing after another. The more you rely on baby steps, the more you can avoid anger, resentment, feelings of guiltiness.... for yourself (and the person, of course).
It took me weeks to master the laundry, and months to master planning my chores. With mom, we took one tiny step at time. Once it has been mastered, we added another one. And so on...

4) When a rule is broken, the general intuition is adding more rules to counteract the broken rule.
It rarely works, it more often than not leads to escalation because it gives more occasions to break the rules. So, it goes towards escalation only.
As counterintuitive as it seems, keeping only the essential rules, and keeping the list short and simple, while we consistently enforce these rules, leads to a much better outcome.
Short and consistence is much more efficient.
My experience is only health and safety are the absolute no no at home, the line to never ever cross. I help as much as I can, but there are some moments that I really can't keep it, so be it. Then, if pants and tee-shirt are mismatched, it would be better not to, but it's not the end of the world.
The two rules of thumb are "health and safety first and foremost" and "do your best, even if results are not always there".

5) And if we had to keep only one important thing, it would be this one. Pick up your battles, so you avoid endless lists.
The more you avoid the endless lists, the better.
"Less is more", it's true also in such a situation.

6) ADHD can evolve during the course of time, to the better or to the worse. Even when becoming a teen/adult.
Don't assume that it evolves always to the better without medicine, it may not be the case at all.