I recently tweaked my resume on the job sites to focus more on what I’ve been doing in my business for the past 5-6 years. I realized that I’ve got to go with my marketable skills if I want to make a living. The good news is that lots of recruiters have been contacting me about different positions. There are not many people in the world who do what I do and certainly not many who have done it as long as I have. The demand is great for my skills which does make me feel good. It’s not my first choice of life work but I can make a good living at it, so I’ve decided to just be happy about that and look at it as a step towards getting to where I want to go. I don’t have a job offer yet but the last week has been encouraging.

I’ve got a tentative plan where I can do this and continue to pursue my music and/or film dreams. That gives me some hope and seems to have eased the depression a bit. Having hope and something to look forward to can have a remarkably powerful positive effect on the brain. I hope it’s not just fleeting.

This whole job thing is a common theme in my ADD support group. Maybe the struggle never ends I don’t know. It’s just the way our brains are and so we have to deal with it and make the best of it. There are certainly many people worse off than me. Many people’s ADD leads them to addictions, jail, or chronic unemployment. Luckily I’ve been able to overcome most of that probably because my determination may be a little stronger than my ADD challenges. I try to keep that in perspective as I deal with this situation.

I’ve owned a number of businesses over the years. None of them were hugely successful but I gotten by. I’ve owned my current business for almost 4 years and have done it exclusively (no day job) for about 2 and 1/2 years. As always seems to happen, I’ve lost interest in what I’m doing and consequently my income goes down.

So I decided that I need to get a job. Something I really don’t want to do because I keep thinking that I can get my business back to profitability. I used to make a pretty good living at it, but I seem to have reached a point where my ADD confusion, lack of motivation, and apathy has taken over.

This week I started to look for a job and what I’ve realized is that I’m not "technically" qualified for a lot of positions. I have the knowledge and ability but I don’t have the certification, or for that matter a college degree. The whole college degree thing has always really annoyed me. If you can do the job then why does the piece of paper really matter? The really dumb thing is that many jobs don’t even specify that you need a particular kind of degree. You may be looking for a job in finance and if you have a totally unrelated degree in something like French or women’s studies you can get the job, but if you have 10 years of experience and no degree you can’t. It’s really stupid.

My IQ scores place me in the 99.7%-99.9% percentile depending on which of my IQ tests are more accurate. I’ve always been able to do anything and everything that I’ve wanted. The problem is, in what I now realize is typical ADD style, I either don’t know what I want to do, or I find a subject that I’m interested in, learn all there is to know about it, and then become bored and move on to something else. That’s one of the primary reasons I didn’t go to college. I wanted to learn what I wanted to learn and I knew that I would not learn what I didn’t want to know. At 18 I knew that even though I didn’t know why.

A woman in my ADD group who’s about 50 years old said that she has over 150 college credits but no degree. She’d be interested in something, take a bunch of classes, but then become interested in something else and take a bunch of classes in that and so on through the years. It didn’t hit home with her until she was fired from a job that she’d held for 14 years. A new manager came in, saw that she didn’t have a degree, fired her and hired a recent college graduate with no experience. Her 14 years of experience didn’t matter, the fact that all the staff loved her and that she was great at her job didn’t matter either. All that mattered to this bone-headed manager was the piece of paper.

I’m not saying all of this out of sour grapes. What it really is is a realization of where my life is. I have years of experience owning and running businesses, managing people, working in many different industries, I’m intelligent, get along with people, am creative, and on and on. But here I am almost 42 years old and I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. I know that I can do anything I set my mind to. The problem is I don’t know what that is most of the time.

I’ve always known that I’d have to make it on my own–that I couldn’t work some boring job for 40 years. And subconsciously I always knew that since I didn’t have a college degree this is the path I’d have to take. But as I get older, the ADD affects me more. The confusion is worse, the apathy, and having no sense of direction is really getting to me. The desire to always see and do something new has always been with me, but I’m finding that doesn’t fit in with the way of employment in the world.

I’ve always known that I didn’t fit into the world’s ideas. I’m not cut out to be a corporate zombie. I just can’t do it. I know there’s got to be a place for me to make a good living but finding that place is not easy. When I was younger I was happy to fight the world and break down walls. But now as I get older I don’t have the energy for that anymore.

I’m at mid-life and yes maybe this is the typical mid-life crisis, I don’t know. I don’t want to end up at 70 years old as a greeter at Wal-Mart, but I’m starting to wonder. I know I’m better than this and I know I have great ideas and great potential–in my mind. If I could just get off the couch and do it. Or if I could stick with one thing for long enough. What really scares me though is that I’ve become a statistic.

Another lady in the group says that her insurance company still separates mental health from "regular" healthcare and so she is rarely ever to get coverage for her child’s treatment. It’s difficult to believe that some companies are so behind the curve on this but I guess as long as they can avoid covering things they will. That’s really lame.

<sidebar> See Senate bill 558 the mental health parity act. Ask your congresspeople to support it. Also see these other mental health bills up before the current congress.

 A Quote From Chadd:
U.S. Senate Unanimously Approves Parity!!
On September 18, The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007 (S. 558).

I’ve had major challenges with Blue Cross of California getting insurance coverage. Since I take 2 meds for ADD I knew that no insurance company would want me. (I’m self employed and so I’m left to fight the insurance companies on my own.) I applied for a plan with no prescription coverage and I was denied because I took prescriptions! How the hell can they get away with that? They won’t cover prescriptions but they deny me because I take them. What a crock of shit!

Eventually I was able to get coverage under HIPAA (which also covered meds), but the cost was 6x higher! When I went to get my first prescription filled I was shocked at the high amount that I still had to pay. When I called blue cross about it I found out that they’d conveniently changed the terms of  my plan so that basically they would only pay for generics and I have to pay the bulk of the costs for brand names. That was a total bait and switch. They mailed me the changes to the plan after I’d already purchased it. What a bunch of crooks. The prescription was $199. I paid $155 and blue cross paid $45. Gee I sure am glad that I’m paying them $457 a month for insurance! Great coverage. Basically if you don’t get coverage through an employer you’re screwed.

Which brings me back to the lady I was talking about at the beginning. Even though she has insurance through COBRA it doesn’t pay crap and they won’t give her any treatment or therapy. She’s not "poor enough" to get assistance from the state or county healthcare so she’s caught in the middle and not getting any treatment.

To rub salt in her wounds…apparently she was fired from her last job because of her ADD. Attorneys have all agreed that she was discriminated against and that she has a case for a lawsuit, but none of them will take the case because there’s not enough money in it for them. So her basic point of the evening is that unless you’re wealthy and can afford to pay a psychiatrist out of your own pocket you can’t get treatment. And even if a company blatantly breaks the law and discriminates against you, there’s no one to hold them accountable.

The bottom line is that living with ADD and depression is bad enough without having to deal with this crap. Please contact your congresspeople about fixing this horrible situation. (Healthcare in general and especially mental healthcare.) Hopefully we’re reaching critical mass here and some much needed changes will be coming soon.

At least sign this petition and demand change.

Join CHADD and help the fight to end the discrimination against those of us with ADHD.

A quote from CHADD’s announcement:

The U.S. Senate has designated September 19, 2007 as "National Attention Deficit Disorder Awareness Day."  Senate Resolution 295 recognizes that AD/HD is a chronic, neurobiological disorder that can have serious – even "devastating" – consequences for children and adults.  The formal language of the resolution might seem a bit arcane – using words and phrases like "whereas" and "be it resolved that."  Even still, it’s worth reading!

The Resolution reminds us:

• that AD/HD is the most extensively studied of all childhood conditions;
• that AD/HD tends to run in families, suggesting a strong genetic component;
• that despite its prevalence, AD/HD remains largely undiagnosed in both children and adults;
• that the U.S. Surgeon General and numerous federal agencies and professional organizations recognize the need for better diagnosis, education and treatment of AD/HD;
• that public education is essential, including the recognition that "misleading information contributes as an obstacle for diagnosis and treatment";
• that lack of knowledge and stigma are particularly detrimental;
• that even healthcare professionals, employers and educators need to learn more about AD/HD;
• and that – most important of all and despite all these challenges – the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) consistently reports that proper diagnosis and treatment can substantially decrease AD/HD symptoms and improve quality of life.

In giving official recognition to this serious public health concern, the Senate calls upon Americans to find out more about AD/HD and to support those services that provide effective treatment.