It's often hard to tell the difference between whether you're explaining something or making excuses for yourself when you have adult ADHD. When you find it difficult to accomplish something and your ADHD symptoms are holding you back, you may try to explain why this is the case and others may think you are making excuses. How can we find the balance in these situations?

People associate so many experiences with food. I remember what I had at so-and-so's wedding and how happy my grandmother's strawberry shortcake makes me feel. There are so many good things about food. And, then, there's the way that ADHD medications make you feel about food. Those feelings? They tend to not be so good ...

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to be able to volunteer with the Special Olympics in Maryland. It was a great day where I was able to do a bunch of different physical therapy related skills with some really fantastic Special Olympic athletes. So, overall, the day was really great, and it also posed some challenges for me. The number one challenge? Managing a crowd. How do we adults find a balance between doing our duties (in my case, volunteering effectively) while the possibility for becoming crowd-induced-hyperactive is looming in the background?

Having ADHD can be frustrating. Merely struggling with compensating for the challenges so they don’t interfere with daily functioning and learning new ways to do things can be taxing. There is a constant internal battle of symptom and strategy waging inside yourself when you are coping with ADHD.  In fact, a lot about ADHD is exhausting, however, putting up with or hearing from people who misunderstand or have misconceptions about ADHD has to top the list.

This is a misleading title perhaps. What I want to talk about today are Legos and games of all sorts. I want to talk about adult ADHD and boredom and what can bring relief. I want to talk about having fun when fun can't be had and all sorts of interesting thing. And, I want to talk about whether rules make fun more fun or less fun. Let's get started!

Boredom can last for hours. ADHD-Related boredom can last for days, weeks, etc. And, there are things we can do to address it. Turn on the tunes or bust out some brain-stimulating games and see things go from boredom to less-boredom!

Have you ever sat in front of the computer screen or pad of paper, wishing the words to magically come forth from your fingertips so you could finally meet your deadline? Do you hope that you won’t have to go through the chaos and stress of it being late or not completed at all? Yet no matter how long you sit there, or stare out the window, or surf the internet or hit your head on the desk…nothing happens. It’s not that you aren’t motivated or that it’s not important to you, but literally it’s like you have no idea of where to start or what words to use…you’re blank.

I am sitting at an airport waiting for my flight at 7:40pm. It's now 5:35pm and I've already exhausted a ton of boredom-curing strategies. I've listened to music. I've played on the computer. I've played phone games. I've listed to an audiobook. I'm still bored.  What can I do?

Sitting in class, I drift sometimes. There are days when attention is just not something that I can find in the recesses of my brain. I look and look, but it eludes me. I need to know the content being presented in lectures, though, so what do I do? I multi-task. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I feed the hyperactivity monster list-weasels and friend-weasels when I get super hyper. I handle my inattention in a very similar way - I don't try to ignore it, I get myself down and dirty in it.

A reader recently asked me a really great question: how do I know my adult ADHD medication is working? I love this question! I'm going to take it in two parts. First, how I knew that ADHD medication was right for me and, second, what it feels like every day. This could be very different for other people, of course, but this is how medication makes me feel.