It turns out I am attention deficit as well. I was always an underachiever in school and counselors and parents were constantly telling me I wasn't working at my potential. Of course ADD hadn't been invented back then so I was just a problem kid.

A couple of years ago I'd been complaining to my doctor that I thought I was loosing intellect; a big problem since my very survival depends entirely my intellect. That complaint, together with other things I didn't realize were related prompted my doctor to schedule me for a sleep study. Turned out I have sleep apnea and my brain has probably spent a considerable amount of time starved for oxygen. She (the doctor) also sent me for a psycological evaluation—probably to see if I was depressed.

It turned out I wasn't depressed and my IQ testing ranked me "far above" the 99th percentile. That impressed the psycologist so it was tough trying to make the case that I was becoming stupid. I didn't bother to tell her that, even though my present IQ would get me into MENSA, it was still 19 points lower than it used to be.

The psycologist also kept finding different ways to ask me if I had been disruptive in school as a child or had other behavior problems. I kept saying no, not understanding why she kept asking. Then she told me I had ADD/ADHD and most likely have been that way all my life. It turns out that, because my mind was quick and creative, all my hyperactivity was acted out in daydreams since my own head was a far more diverse and exciting place to run loose than the physical world around me.

To this day I can be in an important situation—e.g., meeting an important business associate—and my head will suddenly start a special showing of some "movie" it's cooked up and force me to watch it. Until the "movie" had ended, I'm totally unable to focus back in the real world. I'm focused and effective when working with something I'm obsessive about but even those things must be completed in pretty short order or I'll lose focus and drift off into some other endeavor.

The psycologist offered to prescribe drugs to help with the ADD but I said no. I've been this way all my life and I've pretty much learned how to make it work for me. Still, learning that I have ADHD helped to explain a whole lot in my life that I could never really understand before.

      - Mark