ADHD Roller Coaster: "Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?"
News and Essays about Adult ADHD, with author Gina Pera
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If you are in the Seattle area on Saturday, June 2, 2012 and could use a little help in “Real Life Management of Adult ADHD,” please join me and three other ADHD experts for a full-day workshop presented by the non-profit ADD Resources.
Everyone is welcome – adults with ADHD, their partners or other family members, and clinicians. Here’s the line-up in brief: Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re attending the 23rd Annual International CHADD 
Conference in Orlando next week, please say hello!
I will be teaching a pre-conference institute (“Relationships and ADHD”) with psychologist Arthur Robin) on Wednesday, Nov. 10. Plus, I will offer a general conference presentation (“Adult ADHD Symptoms or Poor Coping Strategies: Success Strategies for Singles and Couples”) on Saturday, Nov. 12.
Friday night’s gala, “An Evening of Hope, Humor and Honors,” features Totally ADD & Loving It?! stars Rick Green and Patrick McKenna with Umesh Jain, MD, PhD., in a must-see stage experience inspired by their ground-breaking documentary.
To see a quick overview of the jam-packed conference program, click here.
After the conference? We’re going to Disney World!
Don’t let Dr. Mark Katz’s gentle demeanor and kind eyes fool you. For more years than he probably cares to count, this psychologist and clinic director has been one of the strongest and most steadfast advocates and professionals the ADHD community has seen.
Gina and Dr. Katz
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of re-visiting his San Diego center, Learning Development Services, founded in 1970 and serving as the nucleus of professional care and community support for San Diego county residents affected by ADHD and learning disabilities.
Mark had invited me to speak with his Adult ADHD discussion group, which meets weekly (check the tab for “adults” at the website). It starts at 6:30 pm and is free. How Mark manages this each week I’ll never know, but I do hope attendees appreciate the amount of energy and dedication this requires. This is a great group, and I so appreciated their generous reception of my talk. Please note that the center has services for children and parents, too.
If you are a CHADD member, you’ve seen Mark’s department in each issue of Attention magazine: “Promising Practices,” where he covers new educational and therapeutic models. For example, the October issue featured his story on “A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Model for Adults with ADHD.” Contributors to the magazine are unpaid volunteers, and Mark has contributed this column faithfully for many years.
Mark is also the author of a wonderful book: On Playing a Poor Hand Well: Insights from the Lives of Those Who Have Overcome Childhood Risks and Adversities. One 30-something software engineer who is a regular attendee of our Silicon Valley Adult ADHD group has read dozens of book on ADHD and related subjects, and he told me that that this book is one of his favorites. Look for more about Mark in a future post, with information about the “Resilience Through the Lifespan Project.”
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I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Daniel Amen, M.D., so I was happy to see him at the opening of his newest Amen Clinic, just south of San Francisco, and welcome him to Silicon Valley, my backyard. 
If I hadn’t lucked upon his book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life more than 11 years ago, it might have taken me far longer to discover the impact of Adult ADHD not only on society but also on my personal life. Thanks to that book, my husband was diagnosed with ADHD and I went on to help further this critical message: ADHD is real and ignorance of ADHD has real consequences for all of us.
Thanks to a subsequent book by Dr. Amen, Healing A.D.D., I learned even more and gained tremendous validation about the tough relationship issues I was experiencing (along with hundreds of people in the online support group that I lead for the partners of adults with ADHD). As far as I know, he was among the first (if not the first) to detail these interpersonal challenges, including those around sexual intimacy. Moreover, Amen balanced this validating narrative with compassion and optimism about our ability to take better care of our brains and, in so doing, elevate our lives. Read the rest of this entry »
I invite you to join me in the coming weeks at Northern California CHADD meetings (Marin, 4/21; Sacramento, 5/3) to explore this topic: “Adult ADHD Symptoms or Poor Coping Strategies? Clarifying the Confusion for Adults with ADHD and Their Partners.” The public is welcome; the suggested donation for non-CHADD members is $5.
Here is an excerpt from my book (Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder) that explains why we even ask the question, “Symptoms or poor coping strategies?”
There’s a whole lot more to understanding ADHD and its broad effects on behavior than reeling off the list of symptoms. “I used to think, what kind of disorderly disorder is this?” Grace recalls. “Just when I thought my husband would zig, he’d zag.” She couldn’t understand what was ADHD and what was personality or family conditioning—or, for that matter, where ADHD ended and jerk began. “It took a few years to piece together the puzzle, but I’m glad we did,” she concludes. “Our relationship and our family life is one thousand percent better now.”
It’s true. Trying to understand ADHD can feel like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Even within one person, the traits can appear slippery and shape-shifting over time or in different circumstances. Read the rest of this entry »
This morning, I had the pleasure of fielding some great questions from Totally.com community members in this webinar. (Note; there are a couple of commercials during the hour-long session, but they are pretty short!)
I am pleased to be invited to speak at this year’s Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, a highly regarded national conference for therapists, social workers, and the general public.
My topic: “Demystfiying Adult AD/HD.” I invite you (and your therapist!) to join me there, at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC. I’ll be presenting my workshop on Saturday, March 26, but the symposium is March 23-27. To learn more about the event, which features dozens of workshops as well as keynote presentations from John Gottman, Dick Cavett, Eugene Robinson, Louann Brizendine, and more, click here.
When I first started advocating for and volunteering in the ADHD community 10 years ago, the overriding goal was creating awareness that Adult ADHD exists. I figured that the next step for many of those newly diagnosed—that is, exploring medication strategies with an informed physician—would be relatively easy. Ha!
There is good reason that my book, Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?. includes three chapters on medication, including an entire chapter on the medication protocol offered by a top ADHD expert, Margaret Weiss, MD, PhD. Because, in listening to thousands of first-person stories, I so rarely encountered evidence that most physicians treating ADHD followed such a protocol. Or any protocol at all!
That’s why a chief goal in writing my book was creating a grass-roots movement to improve treatment standards. (It’s also why the book is offered in PDF form, so that readers can easily print out key pages for mental healthcare providers. The same for the details on evidence-based therapy strategies for ADHD. My book explained the details about CBT for ADHD long before you read all the headlines.)
A few weeks ago, I wrote this comment on a blog written by a man with ADHD:
You’re right, Douglas. Not everyone with ADHD needs medication. It’s a personal choice.
But when that choice is based on bad experiences with reckless physicians or a tendency to latch onto negative information (a not-uncommon tendency with ADHD), is it really a choice? I don’t think so.
I’ve been an unpaid advocate in the area of ADHD for 10 years not because I have any ties with Big Pharma (or even any stock). I do it because solid information makes a huge difference in individuals’ lives. It is appalling how often people with ADHD get substandard medical care — and don’t even know it. …
The producers at HealthyPlace read my comment and asked for an interview with me on this topic. Here is the video. I hope you find it helpful!
If 10 years ago, by some cross-temporal quirk, my husband and I had a chance to attend the Adult ADHD (and relationships) workshop that Don Baker and I have planned for next weekend….. well, sigh, it’s probably better not to contemplate that fortunate scenario. For his part, my husband says, “Who knows. I might have still been skeptical of ADHD’s impact in my life.” In fact, as I note the event’s date (9/12), I am reminded how “9/11″ happened shortly after my husband’s ADHD diagnosis, and that very day we were pursuing intensive couples therapy in Boston. (We live in the Bay Area; that’s how desperate we were).
The therapy went horribly (if you’ve read the book, you’ve read the story, in part, but under another name). But one lucky thing happened on that trip. We were originally scheduled on the fated SFO-bound United flight but changed it at the last minute. Against the backdrop of this massive tragedy, our problems seemed to pale. Did that mean it was a joy being stuck together in a hotel room for four days after couples therapy that only exacerbated our challenges? Not exactly.
During the many years I spent researching and writing my book, my sole motivation was clear: helping others to avoid the painful learning curve my husband and I had endured. If I could do that, our torturous journey held some larger meaning. This past two weeks, as I’ve painstakingly prepared for the Adult ADHD workshop in Seattle (co-hosted with therapist Don Baker, MD, LMHC), my goal has been the same: Giving workshop attendees the best of my hard-earned knowledge so they can fast-forward their success strategies at warp speed. If you already have your tickets, come prepared to learn — and laugh!
Here’s how Don describes his impetus for this workshop:
Dealing with relationships has been one of the most significant parts of my own ADHD journey.
Gina Pera says in her book that “ADHD awareness is a social justice issue, a question of each person deserving accurate knowledge and access to care that affords us full access to our talents and abilities.”
My personal and professional experience has taught me that it’s in an environment like the one Gina and I will create Sept 12th that significant learning and growth occurs.
Please join us and others in the Pacific Northwest ADHD community. For more information, please visit the event’s page on Brown Paper Tickets.
Update — The upcoming Seattle Adult ADHD workshop I announced here is already half-filled!
Do you want to jump-start your ADHD-related knowledge and success strategies in a beautiful setting with knowledgeable, compassionate experts and attendees? This is the place to be Sunday, September 12, 11 am to 7 pm. on Mercer Island, outside Seattle.
I am so looking forward to my trip and meeting you! These images depict the venue: Mercer Island’s beautiful new Community Center, above Lake Washington. You can sign up now at Brown Paper Tickets . (If you order your lunch with your ticket, you can specify your choice for $14. There will be more limited optioss available for purchase that day, for $16.
If you have friends in the Seattle area who might like to know about this event, please consider forwarding this post. Thanks! Gina
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