David Lawrence asked me on his show tonight to talk about my recent experiences with ADD treatment and lack thereof, and to generally talk about my experiences. It should be interesting. If you want to tune it, it is available on:

XM Satellite Radio - 152 Extreme
Sirius Satellite Radio - 148 TalkCentral
KBNP/Portland

Over the last 25 years I’ve gone back and forth on being open about my ADD and learning disabilities. Since I am going on the radio, I guess I am back in an open phase.

Well, sort of. Until my blog post I actually was pretty quiet about getting treatment. I was a bit surprised by the negative reaction I got from a fair number of friends when I mentioned I was even thinking about going on medication. If I was getting the reaction from friends I figured it would be better to keep it pretty quiet overall. After a week though I felt quite a bit better hearing comments like, “Ok, something is very different with you recently (in a good way), what gives?”

Before seeking a drug for ADD, I concentrated on behavioral changes to deal with it. This includes changing some of my techniques for getting things done, but also it is about creating a good environment that is more conducive to my needs. In a workplace though, creating a good environment often required asking for thing that you need changed at work, whether is your workspace or your work tasks. This is when it gets pretty sticky.

The sort of modifications that ADD folks need for their work space are things like privacy, quietness and no visual distractions. These needs make cube life very difficult. A private cube is better than a bullpen. A cube on the edge of a cube pool is better than one in the middle. An office trumps any sort of cube. Do you see the sticky spot? Things that help an ADD person are environmental elements that everyone wants, and are often granted by seniority or rank rather than need.

To get a better workspace based on need before you would have “earned” it in that passive aggressive office one-upmanship, marks you to your co-workers. Getting what you need means frequently damaging relationships with co-workers. Mentioning that you have a medical condition requiring it, will generally just make things worse with comments about how ADD is a fad condition, or that you must have some sort of unscrupulous doctor.

This is all to say that behavioral treatment can get you where you need with a lot of work, but often with a lot of social consequences. Taking a small pill once a day gets me to the same place or better without the need to “stand out” in uncomfortable ways. A more positive way of looking at it though is that Adderall gives me the ability to function in a variety of environments now, where before I was limited to working in optimal conditions. That flexibility is worth a lot to me.

My guess is that we will be talking all about this tonight 8-9PM PST.