Living With ADHD

Often times, I will here people jokingly say they have ADHD just because they sometimes have a hard time focusing for an extended period of time or they tend to make decisions too quickly. Many of these times, these people aren't actually diagnosed with ADHD. I want people to understand that there is a difference between being unfocused and having a disorder.

For those who don't know, ADHD stands for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It is characterized as a chronic condition including attention difficulty, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. Unfortunately, the cause of ADHD is unknown, but there are treatments that can help ease the symptoms of it, like taking medications and going to therapy.

The big thing is, being unfocused is random and temporary. ADHD is mostly permanent. I say mostly because I have slowly begun to grow out of mine. I still have it, I always will, but the extent to which it affects my life has lessened over time. But if you have ADHD, it is something you live with for your whole life, and you can see it affect your actions in daily life.

My experience of living with ADHD has changed as I have gotten older. In my first few years of elementary school, I had a hard time making friends and getting classwork done. The school was worried that I wasn't going to be able to move on because I never did any work. When we did the IQ test, I scored in a very low range, because I couldn't even sit still long enough to take it. The school called my mother into the office to discuss my issues. I would get in trouble at home a lot, because I could never settle down to eat a meal or do my work, or even have a conversation with my parents without getting distracted or going off on tangents. I really struggled connecting with people. The summer between 3rd and 4th grade, my mom took me to the doctor to be tested, where they diagnosed me with ADHD and started me on medications.

Never have I had such a small thing change my life in such a drastic way. This one little pill I take every morning turned me into someone else entirely. I could sit and do work, and I found out I actually really enjoyed school. I was excited to go. I started to make friends, people stopped getting annoyed with me because I acted just like everyone else. The school had me retake the IQ test, and I scored one of the highest in the class. I had a better relationship with my family.

Before the meds, everything moved too fast. My thoughts would race by so quickly that I didn't even know what I was thinking, which made staying on any topic more than a few seconds really hard. I always had too much energy; I remember in preschool when we had to take naps, I would lay there awake and never sleep because my brain would not stop working no matter how hard I tried. I was unhappy because people didn't understand me.

When I started on the meds, time seemed to slow down. I could stay on a thought for as long as I wanted. I didn't feel like I was crawling out of my skin with energy. It's like someone who struggles waking up in the morning taking their first sip of coffee. It's like an adrenaline junkie going down the first large hill on a roller coaster. It's like a bird finally flying for the first time. It just felt right.

I have never wished away my ADHD. Yes, I have struggled through parts of my life, but it has made me a better person today.