By Judy Brenis, ADHD coach, AAC Jay Carter’s resume reads like a Who’s Who in Business, but it wasn’t always like that. His psychologist once said, “Jay Carter has taken a rather circuitous route to his present success.” “That couldn’t be truer, says Carter, who has ADHD and has worked at a Fortune 100 company for the past 14 years. Labeled a troublemaker as a child, Carter could never quite figure out how he ended up in the principal’s office or how he’d gotten into a particular fight. “I never set out to get myself in those kinds of situations,”…
ADDA recently participated in Mediaplanet’s Mental Health Awareness campaign where we united with likeminded industry leaders to raise awareness for mental health issues and advocate to make mental health care a priority. The campaign was distributed through USA TODAY on May 18th, 2017 and is published online. You can read our contribution here. Please spread the news and help raise awareness!
By Judy Brenis At the age of 32, Michael Camoin was fired from his job as a school social worker, and then diagnosed with ADHD and depression. It was a tough year. Eighteen years later, he is a leader in independent film production in northeastern New York and co-founder of Upstate Independents, Inc., a network for the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers and home to over 200 media artists. “My passion is pursuing independent motion pictures – and I rarely ever look at the clock other than to see how much time is left in the day,” said Camoin,…
By Dan Pryor I love helping my colleagues. Saying “yes” makes me feel important and it pleases them. But sometimes I over-commit because I like saying yes. Volunteering provides opportunities to participate in fun, energizing or very important projects, but I suspect that I - and many other ADHD’ers - often say yes because we haven’t mastered the fine art of saying no. No matter how seductive the request, it is not necessarily the best use of time, and much as we may be tempted, we simply cannot say yes every time. The challenge is to pause, choose the appropriate…
By Linda Walker Most adults with ADHD find their challenges most daunting in the workplace. This is not to say ADHD is not an issue in other areas of life, it certainly is, but work related problems often spill over into other domains. When you’re struggling to keep up with demands, working long hours and suffering anxiety because you know you’re not delivering up to your potential, you rarely have the time or energy left over to attend to other areas of your life that might be falling apart. ADHD by the Numbers If you feel that as an adult…
If you have ADHD, or you work with people who do, you may have asked yourself, “Since I have ADHD, what type of work should I do?” To help answer that question, here’s a chapter excerpt from Taking Charge of Adult ADHD by Russell A. Barkley with Christine M. Benton. Copyright © 2010. Reprinted with permission of Guilford Press. It's important to have a job where you get as much of what you need to succeed as you possibly can: - Are there jobs you should favor over others because of your symptoms? - Is one type of workplace better…