Douglas A. Puryear MD [Puryear MD - Your Life Can Be Better: using strategies for Adult ADD/ADHD

Your Life Can Be Better

Using strategies for adult ADD/ADHD

Douglas A. Puryear, MD

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Copyright 2011 Douglas A Puryear MD

All Rights Reserved.

Cover Photo Copyright 2011. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Illustrations by Juan Antonio Villalobos

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author.

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Dedicated to the disorganized, distracted and demoralized.

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Most men live lives of quiet desperation.

Thoreau

Acknowledgements

With gratitude to:

My wife, Martha, who has chosen to tolerate me, my ADD, and my writing, with varying degrees of patience but with constant affection.

All those family, friends and patients who have contributed to this book and allowed me to tell part of their stories.

All those who struggled to review some of the terrible early drafts, and those who reviewed and proofread the last ones, which were somewhat better.

Those few hardy souls who both contributed and reviewed.

And Juan, the illustrator.

Thank you!

Doug Puryear

Table of Contents

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Life can be hard sometimes. If we have Attention Deficit Disorder, a.k.a ADD, it makes life much harder. Despite our best intentions, were always messing up, and people are frustrated with us. ADD causes us a lot of problems, and weve all devised ways to cope with them, ways that work more or less well.

I am a psychiatrist who has ADD. Im going to share with you some of the ways Ive learned to cope with my ADD problems. Ill also share with you some coping strategies from my friends, Tom, Richard and Harry, and some from my patients with ADD. I will also share some of the ways that we all are still not coping so well.

Unlike most books on ADD, the focus of this book is on strategies: strategies that will make your life easier.

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The basics: problems and strategies

Life with ADD is hard. Strategies make life much easier. Let me give you an example of a basic strategy and how this works.

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Where are my keys?

I was losing my keys about three times a week. Im not good at looking for things. Actually, Im pretty good at looking for things; I can do it for a long time. Im just not good at finding things. If something is not where I expect it to be, or isnt looking like I expect it to look, I cant find it. In the refrigerator, unless the ketchup bottle is the color and shape I expect, and in approximately the place I expect be it to be, I can look right at it and just not see it. I can easily spend fifteen minutes or more looking for my keys. When I cant find them, I usually have to ask my wife to help me. Ill often be in a rush and a panic, and always frustrated. My wife does not have ADD, but neither does she have unlimited patience, and she gets tired of this. She figured out the solution:

The strategy is to put my keys on the table by the front door. I always put my keys on the front table. I dont allow myself to put them anywhere else, not just for now, not just this time, not because Im busy. No. On the front table. I do not leave them in my jacket pocket. I do not lay them on my desk or on the bureau top. I put them on the table by the front door. Right now. Always.

Now that is a strategy that becomes a rule. And the rule helps me make it a habit. And a habit means that I dont have to think about it anymore.

Strategy.... Rule.... Habit....

I have a lot of rules, and Im grateful for them, because my life is so much easier now. So that rule about the keys is a strategy, which was made into a rule, which became a habit. But to be honest, occasionally this has to work as a rule again. If I hear myself saying, Oh, it will be alright just this once, my rule says, Oh, no, it wont. That not only saves me trouble that one time, but it keeps the habit strong.

It took a while to make that a habit. I slipped up a number of times, but I kept at it and it did become a habit. Now I dont have to think about it, I dont have to remember it, I just do it. Keys on table. The truth is, I lose my keys still, but maybe twice a year instead of three times a week, and even thats getting better.

Summary:

* Identify a problem.* Pick a strategy.* Make a rule.* Stick with it.* It becomes a habit.* Life is easier.

Illustration 1. The table by the front door

The keys go here!

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About the book

This chapter tells you about the book. This ordinarily would be the introduction, but when I pick up a book, I often skip the introduction and maybe you would, too. I wanted to give you a real example of what this book can offer right off the bat, rather than beginning by telling you what I was going to tell you. If youve gotten this far you probably have some idea what its about anyway, but I want to share a little more information with you. Its probably worth your reading, but its up to you.

There are many books on ADD out there, many of them good, many of them similar. This book aims to be different:

1. It doesnt go much into the history of ADD, the definition, causes, diagnosis, medications; it focuses on using strategies to make your life better.2. It gives specific real life examples of people struggling with ADD rather than general tools or made up cases.3. Its personal; it could be subtitled my life with ADD. I hope this will make it light reading rather than hard work or study, and will make it more interesting so that you will get more out of it.

This book focuses on strategies, tried and true ways to deal with your ADD and to make your life much easier. I know they work, because they work for me and have made my life easier.

The strategies in this book deal with some specific problems that ADD causes. Ive given you one example: my habit of losing my keys. Some of these problems are big and important, and some of them are seemingly trivial, but a day filled with minor frustrations is usually not a good day; even minor frustrations add up.

The book may help you recognize which problems and frustrations in your life are related to ADD, and you may identify some of the things you do that are your way of coping with ADD. You may congratulate yourself for having come up with these ways, or you may realize that there might be better ways. We are all different: my problems may not be the same as your problems, and my solutions may not be the ones that will work best for you. But if we both have ADD we will have a lot in common.

When we have ADD, were trying to live daily life with at least one hand tied behind our back. Our life will be harder than it has to be. We can use strategies and tools to make our life better. That is my hope for you. Even small changes can make a big difference. I told you how one small change, a rule about my keys, made a significant difference in my life.

This book is written mostly from my own experience. I dont intend to push spiritual beliefs on anyone, but since the examples are real and largely from my own life, some of them will be about spiritual things. But you can apply the strategies and principles to anything you want.

I want to tip you off in advance; theres a lot of information here and some readers have said they found it overwhelming. Just take it easy, see what clicks for you: Oh, I know about that! or Hey, that makes sense; maybe I could try that. Pick one or two things you want to work on. It will take time to master them. Then pick another. Its taken me well over fifty years to create the strategies I use and to make the habits I need, and Im still working on it, as you will see.

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