thinkythink

Top Online Forums for Adults with ADHD

I seem to end up referring people to the same places to have online discussions over and over again, so I wanted to share them here. Online forums can be a great way to talk to other people with ADHD about what you're going through, and to get ideas (not medical advice!) about how to approach things. If you don't use your name as your login on the site, you can post without people knowing who you are in real life, and so you can have great open discussions. Here are some sites I like a lot:

ADD Forums - www.addforums.com - this site has been around for ages and you can find discussion sections for all kinds of subgroups of people of different ages with ADHD. It is very active. It even has a section for inattentive ADHD!

Women with ADHD - www.womenwithadhd.com - this site is quite new but also very active. I've been impressed with the discussions between adult women who have ADHD.

ADDer World - www.adderworld.com -  this is a forum and site set up by a guy who wrote about his own ADHD. It's fairly new, geared towards adults with ADHD, and seems to be pretty active as well.

Here are some caveats: Think before you give anyone any personal information (ie login names and such). Don't mistake other people's experiences for either medical information or scientific information. (Just because one medication/diet/strategy worked for some people online doesn't mean it makes sense for you.)
And a biggy for ADDers -- don't bother with the forums if you will get so sucked in you'll spend all your time there! They are useful, but you can get over-focused there, just like on facebook, or on the internet in general.

Enough lecturing/warning, though, I just wanted to share what I think are some very nice resources. Please share any other places you like in the comments!

I want to finish, I want to finish...

...but I'm having one of those days that it feels like my gaze and my thoughts are all stuck focused about two feet in front of me. I can't maneuver my attention. Heck, I can't even remember how to spell "maneuver." The internets had to remind me.

Somehow this sort of thing seems to strike when I am just itching to write about 6 posts that are in my head. I just can't access "in my head." Do you know this feeling?
I think this must be the hypoactive side of inattentive. There's food for thought...another day....

I'd like to offer instead a link to a terrific post about time over on Jeff's ADD Mind. Because I'm not sure the decaf is going to wake me up sufficiently, though on the bright side I seem to be able to keep the house vaguely clean today. Is that because my brain is devoid of productive thought?

Laptop Broke

The laptop isn't charging. We just replaced the battery, now we're getting a new charger, then we'll see. I'm also buying a new (used) laptop sometime soon so that I'm not sharing a laptop with my husband. Meanwhile, I feel surprised at how hard it is for me to do certain kinds of work sitting at my desk. I'm not sure why I feel surprised. I know myself better than than by now. But I'm surprised. And, it somehow just seems weird. Maybe I can chalk that up to forgetting the basics about myself (and my inattentive brain). Here are some things I know but sometimes forget:

• I can do certain rote tasks better while I have the TV on. Some examples include folding laundry and going through piles of paper.
• I can do certain mental and creative tasks better when I'm around other people, such as writing (blog posts or other things)
• ...but I need to control my noise environment while I'm doing those things
• Changing location can help me shift to a different task.
• If I don't touch a hard task for a while (like clearing my desk) I feel ill and anxious when I start working on it, but I can often work on it for a long time once I get started.

What are some things you know about your own work style that you tend to forget?