ADD
By Bob
I posted this over at my options trading blog, but I thought I would share this with T&B.
I was diagnosed at the beginning of this year with ADD. It was a total fluke that I discovered the possibility of having it as I had absolutely no idea the symptons described me to a tee. I had read an article on ADD in the workplace that really was freaky. The people described had work experiences very similar to what I had gone through. After reading it, I did a ton research and realized that I did have it.
Nearly everybody experiences the symptoms of it, but most don't to the degree that I do. This applicable to trading as my P&L was always like a mountain. I started trading for somebody, did very well, then lost interest and lost money. That repeated a couple of times along with a lot of conflict with my bosses. The most frustrating thing was always the little errors that drove me nuts. As a traders assistant/clerk, I was quite possibly the worst one in the world. As a trader, those unexercised options alone probably add up to a small fortune. I just simply forget or my mind has just wandered off into its own little world.
Today, we get an article on TheStreet.com questioning the prevalence of the disease. Frankly, medication probably is prescribed to people who don't need it. I definitely do and it has made a huge difference. I may be only taking two classes this semester, but this has been my best one in all of my academic career. I also sleep sane hours, keep my kitchen and bathroom clean(my livingroom is still a mess) and have lost a ton of weight.
What I'm really looking forward to is seeing how this affects my trading. The test won't be this month but what happens a few months down the line. I'm already much more calm through the day. Also, I have learned more about quantitative derivatives in the past few months than I did in ten years doing this. I always meant to, but could never quite get it going. Well, now I can and do.
I don't really have much time for pharmaphobics. There seems to be some sort of idea popular in the media that if a business is selling a drug than there must be some sort of conflict between profit and good medicine. Or, alternatives to medicine, like behavioral therapy should be tried first. That is a crock of shit. Pardon my language, but who the fuck wants to go sit on a couch to work through "issues." Some people may have a preference to go that route and thats fine, but its also fine that somebody corrects a chemical imbalance in the brain through pharmacology. So keep your dang paws off the drugs I take.
I will add one more thing. Even if medication is "overprescribed", these drugs are doing people some good whether or not they have ADD. There should be nothing wrong with a company selling them and nothing wrong with somebody helping themselves.
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