by guest blogger Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD, Making the Grade with ADD, ADD & Your Money and Adult ADD: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed

So is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) a real thing, or is it just a byproduct of the times we live in? We have overcommitted, over-scheduled and overextended ourselves. We have to answer our emails right now. We have to check Facebook as soon as we wake up in the morning. Television shows have quick edits and short sound bites, and we have 800 channels to choose from. Have we been conditioned to be an ADHD/ADD society?

Not exactly.

by guest blogger Stephanie Sarkis, PhD, author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD, Making the Grade with ADD, ADD & Your Money and Adult ADD: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed

Many people ask me what the difference is between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Both ADHD and OCD seem to be highly heritable: if you have it, it's likely that at least one of your parents also has it. When you have ADHD, one of the issues is that your brain has a low level of a chemical called dopamine. When you have OCD, one of the issues is that your brain has too much of a chemical called serotonin. Sometimes people have both ADHD and OCD. This means that you have the inattention and/or hyperactivity of ADHD, along with the compulsions and/or obsessions of OCD.

excerpt from Free from OCD by Timothy A. Sisemore Ph.D.

Jamaal doesn’t really appreciate his new nickname, Mr. Perfect. Though he has really tried not to, he still has to keep every paper straight in his organizer and catches himself straightening up his friends’ papers. He used to feel good about himself and thought he was pretty popular and cool. But now that his stuck thoughts and rituals have gotten worse, he doesn’t go out with friends much because he just doesn’t want to hear the teasing. He has to go to school but wouldn’t if he didn’t have to. Though his friends say they’re just teasing, Jamaal doesn’t find it very funny. Having OCD is a pain.

for you to know

As if it isn’t bad enough to wrestle with stuck thoughts and rituals, for many teens these symptoms can have a big impact on many areas of their lives—particularly in friendships and self-confidence. In some ways these “side effects” can be worse than the stuck thoughts and rituals themselves.

for you to do

Get a piece of paper and answer the following questions:

excerpt from The OCD Workbook by Bruce M. Hyman, Ph.D., and Cherlene Pedrick RN

We’d like to introduce you to people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so you can see how these symptoms affect people in their daily lives. Except for Cherry, these people are composites of many people with OCD. You may observe similarities between yourself and one or more of the people described, but this is only coincidental.

• Cherry’s Story: "What If? " — An Unwanted Companion
• Mary’s Story
• Melody’s Story
• Robert’s Story
• Ben’s Story
• Jack’s Story
• Mark’s Story
• Liz’s Story
• Angelita’s Story
• Ron’s Story

excerpt from Loving Someone with OCD

The cumulative effects of OCD on marriage can result in a relationship burdened by stress and conflict. If left alone, the challenges of OCD moments combined with OCD’s threats to the couple’s emotional and physical intimacy, related financial stressors, interference in social relationships and activities, and fears for the future can shake the very core of your relationship.

Failure to communicate with each other openly about these stressors serves as a form of avoidance that, whether purposeful or inadvertent, creates the opportunity for the root of the problems to grow while creating even greater opportunity for devastating and painful effects on the relationship.

excerpt from The OCD Workbook:

Expect lapses and beware of relapse—especially upon making progress! What’s the difference between the two? Only a world of difference! Lapses are accompanied by a relatively minor uptick in OCD symptoms, are usually short or limited in duration, and almost always occur during a period of short-term life stress or transition. Getting married, divorced, changing jobs, the birth of a child, a move to a new location/community, illness in the family—both happy events and unwanted events—can be associated with a short-term lapse in your recovery from OCD. They are completely normal and should be expected as part of the normal waxing and waning of OCD symptoms throughout your life. Your previous recovery should be fully intact when the outside situational stressors subside.

Relapse, on the other hand, is a much rarer, severe regression back to pretreatment levels of symptoms. It is usually associated with some significant life stressor or disruption in social support, plus additional factors such as alcohol or drug abuse, and in almost all cases, having gone off of your prescribed anti-OCD medication. The sooner you face the issues of lapse and relapse and learn some tools to both prevent them and manage them when they occur, the better.

The following suggestions can help you: