Veteran ADD/ADHDers: those diagnosed 4-5 years or longer

I started a conversation on ADDer World, the social network, back in December. I asked 4 basic questions of these "veteran ADDers":

• what have you learned along the way?
• what helped you develop a positive ADDitude?
• what strategies, skills, etc have you developed?
• what morsels of wisdom would you pass along to a newbie; that is someone just diagnosed?

I have enjoyed reading the contributions of many members. The main pieces of advice have been learning about ADHD, personally and generally and developing a positive ADDitude. This is a comment I shared with the thread:

"I love what everyone has shared on this thread, I think they all say something wonderful and provide others with inspiration and hope. Please get out there and use your stories to help other ADDers, both kids and newly diagnosed ADDults. We've all been through the same struggles as those newly diagnosed are going through right now. We can demonstrate with our stories, how you can get beyond the struggles and start thriving with ADHD. I think it's also good for us to look back and see our progress. We shouldn't ever forget our journey, they represent the hard work, the perseverance and the success we've had in our lives."

If you have been diagnosed for a long time and are successful, how can you help with awareness efforts? How can you use your experience to mentor others with ADD/ADHD? We all need positive role models? We need role models, who haven't become "non-ADD" but have continued to be ADD/ADHD and are successful. We can all learn from people, who have overcome their challenges. You can't become a truly successful ADD/ADHDer without having gained some valuable morsels of hard earned wisdom.