Quotes from Sari Solden, MS

The reason that common AD/HD strategies alone don't always work is because they usually focus on merely controlling the negative and difficult part of the AD/HD. You want to focus on supporting the new growth, not just taking care of the difficulties. As you grow and become more and more successful, you'll constantly think of new ways to form cushions of support and structure underneath you. The emphasis should be on nourishing your successes, not just managing your deficits.

If you go to an event, give yourself permission to leave early when you're worn down, knowing that you want to go and connect to people, but that you want to leave before you stop enjoying the situation. Set it up and think it through in advance so you don't feel anxious. Plan for your AD/HD.

This feeling of not having control, even when one has a strong motivation or desire, is a strong contributor to depressed feelings.

Relationships simply bring too many things to do and to consider, adding to stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. Women feel, at some level, that developing more relationships or even a few relationships to a deeper point will put them over the top.

After a woman understands that she does have something called AD/HD and has had it for a long time, she begins to look back and see how deeply it has affected every area of her life. At this point she will often move into the next stage—anger. She often feels anger at lost opportunities, looking back at the paths that she didn't take. She focuses on the point at which things started to go off course and begins to feel anger at a system that let her down as a child.

They don't know how hard they are working or how much of their energy is going into just surviving. They don't know that living is not supposed to be that hard. Too often, like the frog, by the time they discover this is not the way it's supposed to be they're already depleted, depressed, or overwhelmed.

As the non-AD/HD person continues on through life, the pieces continue to make sense. They don't get A's one day, and F's the next; they aren't called creative one day and lazy, unmotivated, and irresponsible the next. When people without these difficulties try to do something, their efforts usually pay off. In other words, there's a direct relationship between the effort and the results.

Paying attention also requires inhibiting certain responses when making the above choices. This involves inhibiting the following: Acting until information has been processed Speaking out one's thoughts (This involves internalizing speech or "talking inside your head" without actually speaking one's thoughts out loud unless that is the desired thing to do!)

One way some women mask their AD/HD symptoms is to anchor their lives with extensive systems and controls. They may seriously limit the amount of activities in their lives in order to keep things under control.

Many menopausal women are now being diagnosed with AD/HD for the first time because previously developed coping skills that hid the symptoms are compromised once the estrogen changes exacerbate the symptoms.

Learn to know your particular balance between being overstimulated/understimulated and overwhelmed/underwhelmed.

Because their discrepancies are much larger, people with hidden disorders are confusing to themselves and perplexing to other people. Because their range can be very wide, individuals can't easily encompass and incorporate both their strengths and their weaknesses into their self-image. This is especially true before they know the nature of this challenge.

When I'm inside my house, it's like I'm right in the middle of a busy street. Each noise from down the block throws me off. If I have a thought and then the phone rings, I'm lost. Each tick of the clock drives me over the edge. People say, 'Just ignore it,' but I can't block it out.

Many women with AD/HD have fears of loneliness or abandonment that turn into dependency. They may then push away feelings of anger or avoid setting healthy limits needed to get appropriate help and support. I've seen women with AD/HD stay in emotionally abusive relationships because they feel they can't be completely independent and take care of things on a daily level.

Many women report just being awake and alert all day as a huge improvement in this area. They feel a tremendous difference in their ability to counteract " the paralysis of will " that leaves many bright women sitting for hours, remote in hand, aimlessly changing channels with a million intentions and good thoughts trapped inside their head not being translated to action.

At some point, the demands on these girls and the pressures they feel and carry inside increase to the point that they are over their heads. No one knows what is going on: not their families, not their teachers, not their friends, and not even themselves.