I was diagnosed right before my last year of college, after 3 years of tremendously ‘struggling’. I was an above-average student, had friends, and on paper, it looked like college was a breeze for me. When my friends heard the news, the typical response was “your childhood makes so much more sense now.” I put off seeing a psychologist for 3 years, until one day, I lost it and decided it was time to go through with some more rigorous testing. Here’s how I can best explain ADHD to people:
ADHD is like writing an assignment at 11:50pm that’s due at midnight and your computer crashes and you lose all the work. It’s like running a marathon, but not crossing the finish line. It’s like training for the olympics, writing a book, playing a concert and reading 12 chapters of a book all at the same time, and not making it to the olympic event, not making it to the publisher’s hands, not finishing the show with an encore, and only making it to page 2 of 12 chapters. It really is frustrating. In high school, I couldn’t study for more than five minutes, without getting up to do something else. I would blast music to try to amp myself up. I was always looking for ways to make things more exciting. I remember sitting across from my psychologist at my first appointment and he asked me if I could give him any examples of impulse behavior in the past week. I replied “Well, just yesterday I got an email about a discount on flights to Denver, and I knew my dad was going to Colorado for work, so I texted him begging him over and over to let me go. It was at 2pm on a Tuesday. I can show you the texts.” His eyes widened as he read my messages and scribbled on his notepad. I sat for an hour with him, laughing a little along the way at myself, at the end he goes, “just from talking to you and observing your behavior, it looks like you might have ADHD, but just to be sure, fill out this questionnaire and send it back to the office for my review.” At the next appointment, I thought I had sent it, and expected to review my results with him. It turns out, I had forgotten to send it, and it never made it to his office. “I PROMISE, I sent it. OMG, did I forget? Crap, I might have not put enough postage on it..is it too late? Do I have to wait longer now? I’m so sorry.” To make me feel better he said, “Let me double-check. The mail gets here late sometimes.” It never made it. He had me re-fill it out in front of him, and was able to give me my results on the spot.
Honestly, I was relieved that I knew what it was and could now get treatment. You could say that a lot of that “getting through the day” stuff is a heck of a lot easier. I am dedicating more time to my friends and family, dedicated a lot more time to school, and was able to somehow manage my daily life. My senior year was hands-down the best year of my college career " both socially and academically. It was a complete 180 of my prior three years. But, sometimes, I feel like I lost a little bit of myself along the way. On my adderall, I am a different person than who I am off my adderall. On it, I am alert, present, calm, pleasant to be around, articulate, able to hold a conversation, but also, a little bit more not myself. Off of my adderall, I am spinning in circles, picking things up, putting them down, trapped inside a head that is spinning faster than my body can move. But, I am also curious; the quirky, happy-go-lucky, dreamer who gets excited about the little things. I am fascinated by people, curious about the world, and very very very intuitive. I love reading people, analyzing them, and predicting what their Myers-Briggs score is after meeting them. I am a person filled with passion. I have a list in my phone called “Things to look up when I’m bored” & used to update it after seeing something that grabbed my attention. Medication has its ups and downs, literally, but at what cost? Am I really the type of person meant to sit in a box and check things off a list and wake up the next day to do it again? So I might zone out a little bit, look a little confused, ask you to repeat things a couple of times, and I might take off without warning for a day or two. This one time, in a group project, I was getting a little antsy, and stood up went to the white board and began writing down and drawing out connections I was making in my head. I started to pace and talk really fast with really no sense of direction. When I looked at the blank stares of people I said to them, “guys I’m so sorry, I just had to try to get out what was going on in my head” A group member replied “honestly, I liked it! Being hyper is cool, and plus its like 11:30pm so it was kinda entertaining.”
But, there’s also a downside to not treating my ADHD. If I don’t treat my symptoms, I lash out, over-react, and go into “freak out mode” as my father puts it. I do this to the people I love. I hate doing this to people, and I do not mean to. I find myself apologizing far too often, because I’m terrified of losing them or that they will stop loving me. I care way too much, but worry that I’m a bother to people. I become enraged when people don’t understand me, because I want them to understand, but struggle in explaining myself. I work three times as hard as the person next to me, but under-deliver, and become so overwhelmed that I throw in the towel altogether. I jump from place to place when I feel lost, and distance myself from people out of fear they will end up slipping away from me. Everyone’s experience is different. For me, ADHD is so much more than a “focus” problem. It encompasses my environment, relationships, mind and soul, and sometimes, quite literally, “I can’t even.”
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