Reasons I thought that I didn’t have ADHD:
-I was super depressed
-Then I could keep beating myself up about being a failure at everything.
-Later, in college, when I was making the decision to get tested/treated I was worried that my boyfriend wouldn’t like me as much when I went from “quirky” to “defective”.
-It would mean that I didn’t have 100% control over my fate and actions.

Though I have combined type ADHD, I was not a traditionally “hyperactive” child. I’m a little more fidgety then average, and I take notes, doodle, or have something in my hand all the time, but I wasn’t running, climbing, being rude.

In high school I asked my parents if I could look into getting tested. They said no for some reasons you haven’t listed. Including:
-You are very smart, and smart kids/teens often struggle in school and feel misunderstood.
-Creative people like you are supposed to be a little spacey.
-You are not impulsive, you are anti-impulsive and terrified of risk.
-You organize things for fun. You make lists all the time. You take amazing notes in class. Your room is neat. ADHD makes people messy.
-Even though you aren’t doing as well as you’d like to be, you are passing, and holding down a job that would be outside of the capability of an average high schooler. So you must be better than average, rather then have a deficit.
-Sometimes you do really well at stuff. If you had a problem your performance would be consistent.
-Everyone has charactaristics that look a little like ADHD. Your step-mom would forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on, but she doesn’t have a problem.
-If you would just meditate/stop stressing/believe in sprituatlity/quit coffee/take vitamins all your concentration problems would go away

While I think 10 is a great round number, and all of those are true, I would add a few from the medical side:

“The Three R’s,” have to do with the medical confusion and flip use of meds without specific measurements – the key background word is ‘iatrogenic’ – from my very first posting 2 years ago at CorePsychBlog:

1. Right Diagnosis: If the ADHD diagnosis is made with shallow observations, descriptively, not functionally, the treatment targets appear vague, unconvincing, and somewhat imaginary – as indeed they are with description alone.

2. Right Medication: While many understand the pharmacology of stimulant meds, many simply to not. If the doc doesn’t know the differences he/she won’t address them, and if not addressed, inevitable adverse effects will be blamed on the diagnosis and the specific medication – and the client simply does not want to do that again.

3. Right Dosage: All ADHD meds from stimulants to non-stimulants require titration strategies to dial them in specifically. If titration strategies are not used, and many do not practice specific titration, the course of treatment is confounded by ups, downs and inside outs. The treatment regimen itself becomes a disincentive for the long term medical relationship necessary to adjust meds.

4. Some docs simply don’t believe in ADHD, and they challenge the care given by other more informed docs.

5. Some docs who are interested in treating ADHD apply 24 hour half-life thinking such as is seen with antidepressants to these shorter half-life stimulant meds.

6. Patients take the stimulant care into their own hands, using meds irresponsibly, have side effects, then blame the doc, the diagnosis, or the meds.

For more on this subject I have my own summary [article] on The 10 Biggest Problems with ADHD meds over at my site, and a free short audio download on the whole problem of stimulant meds – all my gift to those who sign up early for notifications regarding my new book on this very subject.

http://www.corepsychblog.com

Thanks for pulling these ideas together to address this very significant problem,
Chuck

Personally, I think the information I feed my mind and spirit is like food. If I spend a lot of time digesting junk food news, I will wind up with an unhealthy attitude. No different than if I eat primarily junk food my nutrition and health will suffer too.

I feel sorry for people who automatically believe what they see on tv. When I get a reaction from someone based on this, I just silently tell myself “Thank you – now I know this is not a person who I want in my inner circle of support.”

Bryan

My ex-husband is seems to be realizing some of the stuff that Lizard is talking about – but in agood way. He’s acting more understanding of me lately, like I’m not just doing stuff merely to tick him off – which is how he’s reacted to me for years.

Also, I do think that families like to have you stay in your assigned role and when you venture out, they get all panicky.

Plus my brother and his wife think that you have to get up at 3 am, go jogging, go for a bike ride, go to work, fly a plane, play recreational soccer in the pm, go out dancing and then go to bed at midnight in order to qualify as having ADHD.

And I know that some of us do that sometimes, but my attention issues seems to be of the more drifty and anxious sort.

Anyway, great list, Bryan.