Adult Attention Deficit Disorder

Adult attention deficit disorder, or adult ADD, can be a very frustrating condition to have. Almost all of the initial research and focus for the attention deficit disorders was focused on children and adolescents, but adults are just as likely to have the condition as youths. The disorder normally makes itself apparent during childhood, with difficulties at school being one of the most common hallmarks of the condition, which helps to explain why so much focus has been on children with the disease. But children with attention deficit disorder grow up to be adults with attention deficit disorder.

If you are an adult and you are having trouble focusing at work, difficulty listening to people in everyday conversations, find yourself interrupting people a lot, losing things frequently, are easily distracted from tasks, are easily frustrated or find yourself feeling over stimulated often, you may have adult attention deficit disorder.

Treatment for the disorder mirrors the treatments used for children with the condition. The first step you need to take if you suspect you may have an adult attention deficit condition is to see a doctor. There are other disorders that can mimic an adult attention deficit condition, such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, or bipolar disorder, and it is important that these be ruled out before trying treatments.

Most health professionals will agree that there are also a number of non-medication based steps you can take to alleviate some of your symptoms. Getting regular vigorous exercise has been shown to help a lot of people with ADD. Also a diet high in lean protein is recommended. Keeping lists, writing notes, breaking large tasks down into smaller parts and taking other similar steps to counter your disorder will certainly help as well. Medication is also another option. Talk with your doctor and decide together what method is best for you.

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Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Generalized anxiety disorder affects approximately three percent of the population. There are no real triggers for generalized anxiety disorder. Sometimes it can affect a person without them knowing. The feeling of worry and anxiety will start to creep into the person's head and they are unable to stop, despite all indications the worry is unnecessary.

People who experience generalized anxiety disorder usually expect the worse case scenario. It prevents them from relaxing and can cause insomnia, fatigue, headaches, irritability and trembling.

This anxiety disorder affects nearly four million people each year and often hits people in their childhood or adolescence but can first appear in adulthood. It affects women more than men.

Generalized anxiety disorder is just one of six different anxiety disorders and can be categorized in the following groups: Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Post Traumatic Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Anxiety Disorder and Phobia Related Anxiety Disorder

GAD along with the other 5 disorders is treatable and should be looked at by a professional therapist as soon as possible. There are two main types of recommended therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy. Cognitive therapy is focused on changing one's mental state by helping the brain relearn its thinking process. It can help with long term treatment because changing the way a person thinks can affect their out come tremendously.

Behavioral therapy is a more in your face type of treatment. It involves confronting a person's fears. The purpose to this is to help a person talk about their problems until they become desensitized from the fear or anxiety by describing in detail how they feel.

Whichever method a person chooses, treatment for generalized anxiety disorder will help the person live a fuller, more enjoyable life. A life free on unnecessary worry and fear is possible with time and effort.

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Conduct Disorder

Children and adolescents with conduct disorder are budding psychopaths.

They repeatedly and deliberately - and often with great joy -violate the rights of others and breach age-appropriate social norms and rules. Some of them gleefully hurt and torture people or, more frequently, animals. Others damage property. Yet others habitually deceive, lie, and steal.

These behaviors inevitably render them socially, occupationally, and academically dysfunctional. They are poor performers at home, in school, and in the community. As such adolescents grow up, and beyond the age of 18, the diagnosis automatically changes from Conduct Disorder to the Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Children with Conduct Disorder are masters of denial. They tend to minimize their problems and blame others for their misbehavior and failures. This shifting of guilt justifies, as far as they are concerned, their invariably and pervasively aggressive, bullying, intimidating, and menacing gestures and tantrums.

Adolescents with Conduct Disorder are often embroiled in fights, both verbal and physical. They frequently use weapons, purchased or improvised (for example, broken glass) and they are cruel. Many underage muggers, extortionists, purse-snatchers, rapists, robbers, shoplifters, burglars, arsonists, vandals, and animal torturers are diagnosed with Conduct Disorder.

Conduct Disorder comes in many shapes and forms. Some adolescents are "cerebral" rather than physical. These are likely to act as con-artists, lie their way out of awkward situations, swindle everyone, their parents and teachers included, and forge documents to erase debts or obtain material benefits.

Conduct-disordered children and adolescents find it difficult to abide by any rules and to honor agreements. They regard societal norms as onerous impositions. They stay out late at night, run away from home, are truant from school, or absent from work without good cause.

Some adolescents with Conduct Disorder have been also diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and at least one personality disorder

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Creativity and Bipolar Disorder

Almost since the beginning of time, human beings have recognized the connection between intelligence or creativity and mental illness. Consider the way these individuals are portrayed in movies and books, for instance - the mad scientist working day and night in his laboratory, the hallucinating artist who doesn't even take time out from his creative work to eat.

Researchers have noted that an unusually high number of creative geniuses suffered from bipolar disorder. The reason Bipolar may bring about this increase in creative abilities is linked to the nature of the disease. One symptom of mania is an increase in creative, mental and physical energy. This might explain why these people were able create such works of genius, and why they were able to devote such concentrated periods of time to their work.

These creative geniuses included novelist Virginia Woolf, who brought us numerous first rate novels. Poet Sylvia Plath also suffered from the mood swings associated with Bipolar disorder. Musician and composer Ludwig van Beethoven is also believed to have suffered from Bipolar Disorder.

Perhaps best known for her role as the Southern belle Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, actress Vivien Leigh was also plagued with Bipolar Disorder. Despite the disease and the shock therapy she was given as the treatment in those days.

Painter Vincent Van Gogh is also said to have suffered from Bipolar disorder. His most loved painting Starry Night was painted while Van Gogh was in a mental asylum for treatment of his erratic moods.

While every person with bipolar disorder may not create lasting works of art or literature, there is a higher percentage of artists and writers who are bipolar. So does the emotional instability of bipolar disorder bring about genius? We may one day know the answer for sure.

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Bipolar II Disorder

Bipolar II is related to Bipolar I, but it differs in one major aspect. While Bipolar I has extreme manic and depressive states, Bipolar II has the deep depression, but never goes into full-blown mania. The highs of this type of bipolar disorder aren't quite as high, but they are high enough to make the individual notice the downswings more. This form of bipolar disorder can be just as trying on the individual as Bipolar I.

The highs of bipolar two are called a hypomanic manic episode. Hypomania is essentially a very revved up state of great productivity and quickness. When hypomanic, you talk fast, walk fast, think fast, pretty much do everything else fast. You become upbeat, enthusiastic, relentlessly optimistic and confident.

Major depressive episode is essentially just a fancy word for depression. When you have a major depressive episode, you're severely depressed. The symptoms are the same as they are for clinical depression. These symptoms are:

--Decreased interest in life.

--Feelings of sadness, tension, or irritability.

--Loss of energy.

--Change in appetite.

--Change in sleeping patterns.

--Feeling restless.

--Feeling slowed down.

--Decreased ability to make decisions.

--Lack of concentration.

--Feelings of worthlessness or guilt.

--Feelings of hopelessness.

--Thoughts of suicide or death.

The major depressive episode is the downside of Bipolar II in more ways than one. Not only is it the mood downswing, it's the cost of having such great productive ups. Although you can get a lot accomplished when in the up phase of Bipolar II and you can also feel wonderful, you pay a high price for these benefits. You pay with a major depressive episode. Coming down off of a glorious, ecstatic high into a place of hopelessness can be devastating.

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Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder

Giving unconditional love for bipolar disorder patients is a tough job. If you do not understand what is happening to your loved one, then you will have difficulty relating to them.

Do not think of the illness as humiliation. If you will feel ashamed of your loved one because he is inflicted with such illness, then you are not helping him restore his good health, instead you are letting him do worse than expected.

Trust is essential to individuals with Bipolar disorder. They need you to trust them, not entrust them to other people or institutions such as the psychiatrists or an asylum. To build up trust, an open and honest communication is needed. Keep the communication line open. An open and honest communication is vital. Encourage your loved one to talk about what he thinks and feels. Let him suggest ways on how you are supposed to relate to him.

Do not suppress what you feel. However, there are positive ways to let your loved know how you feel. It is recommended that you avoid nagging, preaching or lecturing an individual with Bipolar disorder. Such negative actions will drive him to detach. If you are concerned about him, let him see how concerned you are in a gentle and encouraging manner.

Let him do things his way. Along with trust and communication, let the person experience what he can do for himself. Let him solve problems if he can find solutions. Let him live the way he is supposed to live. By that, he will feel that he is important and has a good reason why he lives.

Be there. Although you allow him to do his own way, it does not mean that you will not be there when he needs you to. Let him do things his way but make sure that you are around to give assistance when needed.

Most importantly, apart from assistance, you need to offer your love, understanding and support.

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Addiction and Personality Disorder

Substance abuse and dependence (alcoholism, drug addiction) is only one form of recurrent and self-defeating pattern of misconduct. People are addicted to all kinds of things: gambling, shopping, the Internet, reckless and life-endangering pursuits. Adrenaline junkies abound.

The connection between chronic anxiety, pathological narcissism, depression, obsessive-compulsive traits and alcoholism and drug abuse is well established and common in clinical practice. But not all narcissists, compulsives, depressives, and anxious people turn to the bottle or the needle.

Frequent claims of finding a gene complex responsible for alcoholism have been consistently cast in doubt. In 1993, Berman and Noble suggested that addictive and reckless behaviors are mere emergent phenomena and may be linked to other, more fundamental traits, such as novelty seeking or risk taking. Psychopaths (patients with Antisocial Personality Disorder) have both qualities in ample quantities. We would expect them, therefore, to heavily abuse alcohol and drugs. Indeed, as Lewis and Bucholz convincingly demonstrated in 1991, they do. Still, only a negligible minority of alcoholics and drug addicts are psychopaths.

What has been determined is that most addicts are narcisstic in personality. Addictions serve his purpose. They place him above the laws and pressures of the mundane and away from the humiliating and sobering demands of reality. They render him the center of attention - but also place him in "splendid isolation" from the maddening and inferior crowd.

Such compulsory and wild pursuits provide a psychological exoskeleton. They are a substitute to quotidian existence. They afford the narcissist with an agenda, with timetables, goals, and faux achievements. The narcissist - the adrenaline junkie - feels that he is in control, alert, excited, and vital. He does not regard his condition as dependence. The narcissist firmly believes that he is in charge of his addiction that he can quit at will and on short notice.

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Histrionic Personality Disorder

Histrionics resemble narcissists - both seek attention compulsively and are markedly dysphoric and uncomfortable when not at the center of attention. They have to be the life of the party. If they fail in achieving this pivotal role, they act out or create hysterical scenes.

The histrionic is preoccupied with physical appearance, sexual conquests, her health, and her body. The typical histrionic spends huge dollops of money and expends inordinate amounts of time on grooming. Histrionics fish for compliments and are upset when confronted with criticism or proof that they are not as glamorous or alluring as they think they are.

Histrionics sexualize everyone and every situation. They constantly act flirtatious, provocative, and seductive, even when such behavior is not warranted by circumstances or, worse still, is highly inappropriate. Such conduct is often ill received. People usually find this unabashed directness and undisguised hunger for approval annoying, or outright repulsive. Consequently, histrionics are sometimes subject to social censure and ostracism.

The histrionics' intensity and unpredictability are exhausting. The histrionic's nearest and dearest are often embarrassed by her unbridled display of emotions: hugging casual acquaintances, uncontrollable sobbing in public, or having temper tantrums. The histrionic's behavior is so off-color that she is typically accused of being a fake.

Concerned only with the latest conquest, the histrionic uses her physical appearance and attire as a kind of conscious bait. It is ironic that histrionics often mistake the depth, durability, and intimacy of their relationships and are devastated by their inevitable premature termination.

Histrionics are the quintessential drama queens. They are theatrical, their emotions exaggerated to the point of a caricature, their gestures sweeping, disproportional, and inappropriate. The histrionic is easily suggestible and responds instantly and fully to the slightest change in circumstances and to the most meaningless communication or behavior by others.

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Symptoms of Post-traumatic stress disorder

During World War Two, a strange phenomenon called "Battle Fatigue" affected many veterans after they returned home from combat zones in Europe and the Pacific. Today, we know this condition to be "post-traumatic stress disorder". Back then, returning veterans didn't talk about it, because discussing these worrisome symptoms suggested weakness or cowardice.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a medical disorder that can occur to anyone after experiencing an extremely stressful situation. Soldiers aren't the only ones to suffer from this condition. Natural disaster survivors, as well as those who have experienced and survived attacks and accidents, also suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. Twice as many women are affected than men.

A victim may experience one of many symptoms: A flashback or nightmare, a feeling of detachment, loss of interest in activities or a lack of positive emotion, avoidance of anything (activities, people or situations) associated with the trauma, difficulty sleeping, irritability and exaggerated responses to being startled.

Many people exhibit roller coaster feelings or emotions after a traumatic experience, but for most, such symptoms normally fade after a few weeks. Nevertheless, recognizing the early signs and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder is important, as it can incur long-lasting consequences for those who suffer from it. Physiological changes that occur in victims have a brutal affect on both neurobiological functions such as memory, as well as fear-response reactions. Sleeping habits and the ability to deal with any stress can be disrupted. Physical complaints can range from headaches, to immune system disruption, debilitating pain, and in some cases, asthma.

Depression and a sense of growing anxiety can lead to phobias, panic attacks and behavioral changes. If you feel that someone you know is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it's extremely important that he or she get help. It will not go away by itself.

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