I am a father of a 20 year old ADHD person (my son). He has a pretty severe ADHD to the extent that he cannot really commit himself to actually do something starting from cleaning his room – to selecting courses for community college. Although he is very outspoken and bright any paperwork or followups, even the simplest deadlines – are absolutely impossible for him. He himself recognizes this and suffers a lot from that. We love him to death and fully support him and it is extremely painful to see that and not being able to do anything. He is on Adderall and Prozac which do not really help. He does manage to read and he reads a lot. He sleeps days and stays awake at night – his day/night cycle is completely destroyed by medications. He is also an active marijuana user and has (as many ADHD kids) been through meth addiction stage which he managed to overcome.
We have Kaiser as insurance but their attention to his condition is embarrassingly negligible not to say detrimental. They quickly put him on medication and pretty much forgot about him – giving him an option to select a therapist from a very general pool of people having little to no experience with ADHD.
I am looking for an amazing ADHD psychologist/therapist/coach. Ideally with decades of experience and a serious degree.
I would deeply appreciate and referrals for that matter
Thank you so much in advance!
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for what it's worth, the sleep situation is likely due more to the ADHD than the medication. Sleep disruption--including delayed sleep wake phase disorder--is commonly comorbid with ADHD. I always felt switched on after everyone else went to bed and could go until the sun started showing again before wanting to go to bed. Addressing my sleep issues with a good CBTi therapist and letting the effects of good sleep catch up to me over time made more of a difference than anything. And, to this day, a bad night of sleep is more directly correlated with a poorly self-regulated day the following morning than any other factor I've monitored. I also do not respond to medications, and though I would certainly make sure you've tried different types before giving up, genetic testing found them all to be less likely to help, other than those for which no marker had yet been identified. Qelbree has helped many who did not find relief with stimulant medications, but recently I only noticed a deterioration in mood and energy when I dropped SAMe from my daily pill load. I had thought the Qelbree was what was helping me, but without the SAMe, it was back to about as good as I could manage on quality sleep alone.
Therapy is not helpful for ADHD. This is clinically demonstrated, though it may be helpful for related issues around depression or self esteem. If you're looking at spending some money to improve the situation, I'd recommend finding a good ADHD coach.
My grandson was in a sleep study and we found out he was not sleeping well at all. Ended up having tonsils removed as he was mouth breathing and snoring in his sleep.
It is really hard to find the right meds to help. I have two teenage grandsons, and both are on 3-4 different meds. Quietiapine ( generic Seroquel) really helped both of them. But we still have major problems with anxiety with stress and life changes.
Here is a link the the ADHD Coaches organization: adhdcoaches.org/
Another recommendation is any kind of peer support group. Some colleges and universities organize their own (unfortunately, they fill up quickly). Peer support is an emerging model in mental health and addiction care that is proving to be highly effective. If there is something similar for adults with ADHD, he may find that very beneficial.
My son has not worked with a coach. I found one that would do online coaching but it was REALLY expensive! But, if you have the resources then this is one of the most effective routes. Fortunately, my son has an academic advisor that stays on top of all the students under her care and she helped him navigate professors that were being overly stringent with accommodations.
To follow up further--when I was reviewing the profiles of coaches, I noted that many were women. However, I did find one who was a man in his 30's who had ADHD. I liked that he lived through it and had a perspective informed by experience as well as education. Folx who don't live with ADHD often find the usual advice--use a planner! etc.--to not be particularly helpful.
Exactly! They all have great thoughts on the methods of self-organization. But my son isn't even able to start thinking about using these methods. Will try to use your resource along the lines you suggested
Behavioral therapy might be preferable to Cognitive-behavioral therapy for ADHD. My daughter now has Behavioral therapy. Not sure if it helps with her ADHD or not, but it seems to work for some. I think her current therapist probably helps more with her anxiety, depression, self-acceptance, and low self-esteem (which comes along with her ADHD).
For ADHD, having a peer coach in college has really helped my daughter stay on track. The college provides one to students who want one. As she tells me, it is like a parent who asks the same questions, but there is no baggage and therefore, it doesn't come off as nagging. Anyway, after using a coach during one semester and seeing the benefits, she has signed up for a coach each semester after (after flunking out during the pandemic).
I'm going to reply as the mother of a 28 year old with ADHD, with completely different advice. Unless your son is fully on-board with going to therapy, and can commit to actually doing the work involved, I'm not sure it's worth all the aggravation. It will just be something else to nag him about. I would give up college for the moment. He needs to get some sort of job, even part-time, to have some sort of schedule. The marijuana use is not helping - there's a reason heavy users are called slackers - it really does sap motivation. It's sad, but true that ADHD boys' brains are not fully developed until about age 25.....this is true for non-ADHD kids, but for some reason, our ADHD boys really seem to mature more slowly. I would start setting some simple rules: if he wants a phone, he has to work to pay for it. Same with electronics. No arguments - just set some rules. I would not allow pot smoking in your house and perhaps consider turning off the internet at a certain time. I know he's 20, but he's actually about 16 developmentally. I know this may sound rather harsh, but he's not going to absorb therapy at this age and the best thing you can do now is not try and "fix" him. The sleep issue may resolve itself once he actually has to go somewhere during the day. My son is now doing really well, but it's just been in the past 2 years that he really seems like an adult. Good luck!!
First of all thank you so much for responding. I see how you probably understand what we are going and have gone through and I would like to give you a true "brother in arms" hug over the vast space of the internet. I see so much hope for us in your response . Sadly "Oil for food" which you propose isn't an option for us at all. We have been through that and we learned our lesson. Whenever we went "you have to earn it" way he just found a way to find solace even when being in the most deprived conditions or in most cases – just hanged elsewhere with a truly "bad company" (and I mean criminally bad) which provided with everything he needed and more. When we disallowed pot at home he started doing meth somewhere else. Cutting internet – horrible lash-outs and scandals. The roughening just makes things worse and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody else. What I noticed though is that he actually understands the gravity of his conditions and is in fact suffering morally from it pretty badly. He truly wants to change things but he just can't.
This sounds exactly like our 19 year old son. He had delayed puberty diagnosed. Slow to grow. Now showing all the same behaviours that you describe.
he has just finally started talking to me about it, wanting to change but just can’t. But willing to try. He showed me a letter he wrote to himself while high.
Basically addressing himself like he was a parent pointing out all the things he was doing that were self destructive, pleading with himself to pull yourself together and get in with it, threatening himself with description of how bad his life will be if he doesn’t.
That was when I realised there is no point growling or lecturing. He is fully aware of everything. So now I have begun to try and find his areas of anxiety and remove as many as possible to see if he can do better. He had some debts so I paid them with understanding that eventually when well with a job he would start to repay them. He had emails from tax dept he was too scared to open so I made him open them and said I would pay it if there was a bill. But it was worrying about nothing after all as they weren’t important. I gave him big hugs and told him he is just young, it’s not too late to do anything he wants.
He said yesterday the world looked colourful again and today he is forcing himself to go out to the beach because he knows he used to like it even though he has to force himself to go. I think he has damaged his dopamine system with drugs so is finding no joy in anything. It’s a worry as his dad has Parkinson’s.
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Anyway, after using a coach during one semester and seeing the benefits, she has signed up for a coach each semester after (after flunking out during the pandemic).
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