Field of study? Well, I always had a problem keeping focused. I started off thinking that I would go for my MBA and I would take the necessary prerquisite courses. I didn't do so well in the calculus course and I definitely could have done better in my Advanced Bus Admin courses, so I decided to look at Law instead. I really bombed in second year so I decided to just finish my history degree and cut my losses. After that I tried to go for a computer science degree but, I bombed Matrix Algebra and I barely passed intro to programming (I couldn't design efficient programs. mine worked but they were about 50% longer than the idea program length). Given that I failed the prerequiste Alegbra courses and got a 65% in a calculus course in which I was going in to the finals with a 85%, I decided that maybe comp sci wasn't for me. A friend recommended Human Resources Management, which I wound up staying with.

I got a job in HR but, after 3 years, the meticulous employee files that I needed to maintain drove me nuts. I couldn't finish them in time, often working on weekends and after hours to get them in shape, and there were always little mistakes here and there that drove my supervisor nuts (almost got fired because of it). My director knew I was smart so he moved me on to project management and policy analysis where I did well though, I did have problems getting the projects finished on time and following the "procedures".

Why did they diagnose me with ADHD?

1) history of failing asleep in meetings or when I was awake, making inappropriate remarks during meetings about how irrritated I was by the slow proceedings. The irritation and inappropriate outbursts were not limited to meetings. Often happened with friends and family.
2) constantly "zoning out" in meetings, social gathering and conversations
3) inability to be on time for anything and not because I didn't want to be
4) constant need to stay awake just until the point of exhaustion...every night
5) frequent signs of being a workaholic. (I've been at work until 1am a couple of times in addition to working on weekends and holidays - o.k. sometimes I forgot it was a holiday.)
6) ex-girlfriend would always complain that I would need to plan ahead
7) bizarre chain of thought that often requires a lot of concentration to figure out how I got there. This annoyed a lot of people, especially when I changed topics in mid sentence.
8) depression that didn't react to Remeron or Effexor. no history of hypothyroidism but, my sister has been informally diagnosed with ADD.
9) EXTREMELY animated while talking. I find that if I try to restrain hand movements, walking around, or subconscious leg bouncing when sitting down, that I am tense, stressed and my muscles are extremely sore afterwards.
10) poor impulse control in relation to actions (I would often do things as a kid, and as an adult which afterwards resulted in me wondering why I did that afterwards - i.e. car accidents) and thoughts (inappropriate comments, shopaholic)
11) constantly interrupts others because I can see where they are going before they finish their comments, in addition to an inability to talk slowly when stressed or when I have something to say...and when I say slowly, I mean less than 60 words a minute and I'm not exaggerating.

This is in no way an exhaustive list. Working with a psychiatrist and a psychologist together for 2 months, and eliminating depression and social anxiety disorder as the primary causes for my mental condition, they referred me to an ADD specialist. His anecdotal analysis of my life led him to diagnose me with ADD. The first two people I saw didn't have a good background in ADD and the 3rd woked exclusively with ADD patients. This creates room for doubt but, I'm no expert so, if you can offer an alternative analysis, Human Spirit, I'm more than willing to consider and explore it...

I just want to be normal.

Quote from HumanSpirit:

What was your field of study? I question that ADHD exists.