Does Adhd Exist?

[CatherineM]

My husband's best friend has been diagnosed with adult adhd. I think he is bipolar, but that's another topic. He was never able to hold a job longer than 6 months until 2 years ago. He went to work at Goodwill taking the deliveries. It was physical enough to tire him out, and he didn't really have to deal with other people in a work environment. People who drop things off stay at most 5 minutes. It was really good for him. After he had been there a year, his family pressured him to quit and go back to school again. It was partly cultural, and partly class issues. His dad is an architect, and his two younger brothers are both very successful.

So for the last year he has been going to one of those trade school kind of places. A self paced computer learning thing, and is now trying to pass exams to get certified in various things. He has gained weight, and I'm afraid he is heading for a really big fall. I'm not sure he can pass the tests, and even if he can, I can't imagine a company hiring him to do IT work. He can't sit still, and screams. His normal volume is so loud it hurts my ears. If he showed up to fix my computer in a big business, I'd last about 5 minutes tops.

There was once a time when people who were more hyper could be happy doing jobs like roofing or plumbing, but now everyone is expected to go to college. The funniest thing about my husband's friend is his BA is in library science. I can't imagine someone working in a library who screams. I guess his family thought that would be a "normal" thing for him. We are so worried about our kids being normal, that we forget that happy and healthy is okay too.

[mcts]

i was on meds when i was little. Looking back, I'm pretty sure i didn't have ADD. However, the meds screwed with my head and now i'm having other issues

[Christie_M]

Sometimes I think my brother has ADD. he can never concentrain on something for along period of time and is constantly swtiching from one thing to another, which takes a pounding on his schooling(wors then me ).
But maybe he's just being a 14year old boy stuck with 4 sisters and no social life.

[Hassan]

[quote name='Christie_M' post='1872257' date='May 20 2009, 10:25 PM']
Sometimes I think my brother has ADD. he can never concentrain on something for along period of time and is constantly swtiching from one thing to another, which takes a pounding on his schooling(wors then me ).
But maybe he's just being a 14year old boy stuck with 4 sisters and no social life.[/quote]

I did poorly in Middle School.

I was always loosing papers and such, the material wasn't difficult but I could never make great grades. In High School I just did alright until I found AP Classes, in college I've made two B's since entering.

A lot of times ADD people have trouble in the lower grades. It makes sense. The busy work, dozens of little daily homework assignments to take care of etc, but in college and upper High School they just do great because they are more free to branch off and such.

So it's not the end of the world if he's 14 and having trouble. But get him tested and some help, I didn't and it really hurt me for a while.