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[INFP] INFPs - Have you ever been diagnosed as having ADD?

INFPs - have you ever been diagnosed as having ADD?


  • Total voters
    40

prplchknz

Well-known member
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yupp
Yeah. Just those internet peeples. :smooch: (nah jk :newwink: )
the ones that live inside the computer but pretend to be real across the globe? and has fake photos to "prove it"?
 

Siúil a Rúin

when the colors fade
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the ones that live inside the computer but pretend to be real across the globe? and has fake photos to "prove it"?
You know about them too!! Yes, those are the ones!
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
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Maximized systems that explain all the dynamics by which our world works will always trump poory developed rush constructions.

It's kind of like how the scientists go with rigorous reasoning, and the religious prophets just do whatever God tells them. The former of course is what works, and the latter is just rushing with the authority without question or deviation.

If you want to walk the way of greatness, get to work and actually build something up, rather than simply throwing whimsical rubbish into the junk synthesizer.

You're talking about creating and exploring and forming lines of reasoning, not accomplishing rote tasks. The latter is where INFPs will become bored & rush through it or create some fantasy backdrop to make it less dull. School & many jobs can ask more in the way of mindless, rote tasks than critical thinking.
 

Stanton Moore

morose bourgeoisie
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You're talking about creating and exploring and forming lines of reasoning, not accomplishing rote tasks. The latter is where INFPs will become bored & rush through it or create some fantasy backdrop to make it less dull. School & many jobs can ask more in the way of mindless, rote tasks than critical thinking.

Most people here don't think that INFP's are capable of critical thinking!:(
 

chickpea

perfect person
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I got diagnosed with ADD when I was 14 and could have gotten things like extra time on tests.. But I never needed anything like that, I always tested very well and was almost always one of the first people in class to finish. My problem was usually any assignment I had to do at home which always felt like torture and was very difficult to focus on because I had so many other more interesting things I could be doing.
 

briochick

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I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 7. I took ritalin until I was 16, and made very good grades in school while I was on it. The down side was that every behavior problem from 7 on was blamed on the ADHD and my mother wanted to medicate it so I wouldn't be so "difficult." Which was apparently my constant state. I was "rediagnosed" with ADD when I was 21. I think I would have done very poorly in school without the meds (I did pretty poorly after I stopped taking them)
 

Chad of the OttomanEmpire

Give me a fourth dot.
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My step father and little sister are both INFPs and they've both been diagnosed with ADD.

My mother and I are also probable INFPs, and we haven't been.

I don't believe ADD is necessarily personality-related, though Ne may appear as an attention deficit problem to some.
 

TaylorS

Aspie Idealist
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I was diagnosed as ADHD when I was in Kindergarten.
 

Raffaella

bon vivant
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I think my TJ father put it best when he said "Your problem isn't concentration, it's motivation". Never had ADD, never been questioned, and never worried about it.

Should probs point out that I'm IxFP, undecided. Sorry, I just realised I shouldn't have voted.
 

Odi et Amo

To here knows when...
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One of my younger brothers is an INFP and has been medicated for ADHD for the past 2 years. He has fairly mild ADHD, though. He's on a low dose of Concerta IIRC.
 

Noll

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Yes, I was diagnosed with Asperger and ADD. I was supposed to take some medicine, but it never made me feel good. It made me so moody and pissed off, I remember yelling at the history teacher in front of the class and everything 'cause she made me so annoyed for whatever reason. That is so unlike me. Class must think I'm weird. I just stopped taking it, no hard feelings. I don't believe much in either of the diagnoses I got, it's just bull. Though I am lazy and unstructured...
 

Forever_Jung

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Yeah, I was misdiagnosed with ADHD. I tend to resist structure, methodical problem solving, and rote learning.
 
Last edited:

Bullet

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May 8, 2014
Messages
241
It seems like INFPs often are considered as having behaviors of a person with ADD. People suspect you have ADD even if you are never diagnosed.

Thoughts?

After doing some research on this, I am fairly certain that I have a moderate to severe case of ADD. I wasn't diagnosed with it as a child because my parents never took me to a doctor; they assumed these traits were just typical for my age. Then when I mentioned it to a psychologist a few years ago, she blew it off with the ignorant assumption that if you weren't diagnosed with it as a child, then you don't have it as an adult. Also, if you're not hyperactive, you are less likely to get diagnosed with it, though hyperactivity is not an essential characteristic of ADD. It seems many therapists are just as ignorant as laypeople about this condition. There are a lot misconceptions about it, such as it being over-diagnosed. Though some children may be inaccurately diagnosed with ADD, as with any condition, it is believed that less than half of the population who have ADD are receiving any treatment for it. Some people believe this is a phony diagnosis, as well, to excuse a lack of discipline, motivation or responsibility. In fact, there has been research which indicates the brains of ADD sufferers are functioning differently than that of normal brains. The inattentiveness is actually caused by a lot of information being perceived by the brain at once. As has been mentioned in the thread, hyper-focusing on certain things is also a common feature of ADD.

Here are some informative discussions about the condition for anyone who's interested:



 

brainheart

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I was misdiagnosed with it as an adult. It was actually bipolar disorder. Mood disorders can look a lot like ADHD. You're not just 'moody', they affect cognitive functioning as well. (The tip-off for my psychiatrist should have been that I had semesters in college where I got straight As and others where I dropped most of my classes, not to mention that I did very well in school until around the age of eighteen- well in the classes that interested me, anyway.)

When I was on ADHD meds all of my symptoms were worse. Mood stabilizers, on the other hand, have been life-changing.

As you can see from this chart, bipolar disorder shares a lot of symptoms with ADHD.


bipolar-disorder-fig2_large.jpg
 

tkae.

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They thought I had ADD because during elementary school because I'd play with my pencils when I was bored during math class. Ultimately they took me off the medication in high school after I was on it for so long it gave me heart arrhythmias. My grades got a lot better afterwards. My high school GPA was 2.78, my college major GPA was 3.5+ (can't remember the 1/10th), and my overall college GPA was 3.3.

I mean, years of never being hungry, never talking, being drugged into a focused stupor? Not like I'm still bitter about it or anything :dry:
 

magpie

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I remember rambling to a a new therapist once about how reading Goethe made me think of the universe. I think I wasn't making sense because she diagnosed me with ADD and offered me medication. All within half an hour of having met each other. I never went back, suffice to say.

But yeah, I've been (mis)diagnosed with tons of things. The list could go on forever. Part of the problem is that contesting diagnoses just gets you diagnosed further.
 

skylights

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Eh, well, recently re-identified as INFP, still feel slightly like a fraud posting in INFP threads. But I have an ADD experience to contribute, so here goes.

I was diagnosed with ADD in high school, when I was an overachiever in a demanding program requiring a heavy load of academics, extracurriculars, and volunteering, as well as having a weekend/holiday job. I struggled in high school, but I don't think it was really because I have an attention disorder. I think a more realistic perspective is that the program required a much-higher-than-normal level of focus.

My psychiatrist raised my Adderall dose quickly, despite my voiced concern, and one afternoon when I was in withdrawal from my morning dose, I had a psychotic break. I took myself off of it after that. I then realized I didn't need it during school, because school was structured, and that helped me focus. I ended up just taking it every once in a while after school or on the weekend when I had a huge workload staring at me. That worked really well.

I took a bottle of Adderall to college with me, but my crazy neighbor stole it a few weeks in, and I never renewed the prescription. I did better with balancing in college. I still did the Honors program but also did an easier major and didn't minor. I was involved in extracurriculars but still took time for relaxed fun. I did fairly well, only falling significantly behind in two classes, yielding a C and a D. One I forgot to do the online midterm for, and the other I slept through the final. (Lol!)

My conclusion for myself is that I do much better having a structured environment for focused work, which keeps me on task, and then being careful about not over committing myself outside of that. I do think that I will go to a psychiatrist again soon, and see if I can go back to having a bottle of PRN (take as needed) low-dose medication, for the days when I want to get my own projects done and struggle so much to implement them. I think those days are the real evidence I have an attention disorder.

But as for ADD/ADHD on the whole - I think it's real, but I also think, as is the general suspicion, that it's over diagnosed. There is pressure, at least in US culture, to overachieve, to be the best, the richest, the most powerful. There is praise for being extremely busy and for a neverending schedule. There is pressure on high schoolers to get into prestigious Ivy League colleges. The woman I work for calls one of her healthcare workers a "workhorse", as she is still working a 12-hour weekend day with that family while taking on a new full-time job where she is in charge of developing the program. Another girl I know was recently praised for working 84 hours (!!!) a week and never asking for time off. I recently talked to a friend of mine who lives in Japan, and she says that people in her community tend to work 10-12 hour days, 5-6 days a week. I have nothing against those who push, push, push themselves. I used to be that person - still am sometimes - and I understand that drive. But at the same time, people - kids especially - shouldn't be devalued if they're not living this kind of life. I think the truth is that many of us who have been diagnosed could do just fine living happy, healthy lower-key lives.
 
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