My love/hate relationship with ADHD

I haven't posted in a few weeks but fast forward to the end of the semester... Its finals week. As I'm laying in bed, I'm thinking about my day, contemplating all the conversations I had today. I remember talking to many different people about how they study and how they prepare for their finals and/or final projects/assignments that are due prior. Everyone is talking about how they have to stay up all night, til 3 in the morning, sometimes until the sun comes up. How much coffee do I need to stay up? How many trips to Starbucks will I make before I finally hit the sheets? I'm thinking to myself.. How in the WORLD can you be spitting fresh ideas at 4 O'Clock in the morning?!? My brain won't allow me to proceed on once I get distracted, and that's during normal day time hours! Plus, I need my sleep. I start comparing my study habits to others': why am I not buried in my books? Am I studying enough? Should I feel guilty for laying in my bed right now as ...

I don't know what I'm feeling right now. It started in my first class today when I just didn't seem to grasp what was going on; the instructions were not very clear and I felt bad making the teacher come back and forth to help (she doesn't get it). Plus I didn't do so hot on a midterm that I thought I studied enough for. I guess I could have studied a little more; nothing like feeling so prepared and failing. School is such a struggle for me. We had a quiz today in another class, only 15 questions. I studied; I was studying today before the class. I think I did pretty well, but we know how that goes. Last time I thought this, I got a C. As I was studying I noticed I couldn't focus on what I needed to study. So... I opened my desk drawer, grabbed my bottle of medicine, shook out one pill, stared at it for a second, thinking to myself "what am I about to do?" then threw it back with some water. For the first time this semester, I had taken my medicine. ...

Today was going well. I woke up and went to my 9:30 class (tired as ever) and then went to the cafe around 11 to eat some lunch. Now I'm sitting in my 2:00 class finding it hard to pay attention. But this is weird.. I don't think this is something my medicine can fix. It may be able to help me focus but it can't just shut off my brain like a light switch, though I wish it could. My mind is racing! There are so many things going on in my head. There is some unnecessary drama from the past that I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about past arguments with my boyfriend, past issues I've dealt with, what I ate for lunch yesterday, what to plan for this coming weekend, and that I have to remember to grab my co-worker a sub from subway when I get dinner before work. Plus my heart is hurting for a friend that I can't help because all I ever want to do it be there for my friends when in need, so that's weighing on me.. I can't process all this and its drai...

Well today, not much has happened. I haven't taken my medicine for a while and I'm still not. I'd say I'm still in the rebelling mindset. I have a full bottle, ready when I need it, but I don't want to. I had a test today that I frantically studied for, and it was unbelievably, ridiculously, and unnecessarily difficult and took up the whole hour and 30 minutes and I still did not answer a couple questions. BUT... oh well, I did my best! Anyway, even though Tuesdays are my longest days this semester, I feel I can keep myself awake and focused. But when I can't seem to handle myself, I have a friend here on campus I can talk to and for privacy, I'll just call her H. She works in the disability office here on campus. Who knew college had resources that assisted those with disabilities?! I mean, I figured they assisted people with physical disabilities and such, but nothing like ADHD; because I thought no one looked at ADHD as a serious mental disorder, just li...

To this day, I am still dealing with the social constraints I have been dealing with all my life. I still get the feelings I get when with friends, and my relationship struggles as well, but I'm trying my hardest to manage that part of my life. But aside from the negative aspects, there are so many good things about ADHD. The H in ADHD stands for 'hyper-active'. I am very fidgety. if you see me in class, I'm either playing with something, tapping my leg, or swiveling my chair from side to side. My mind may wonder also but being fidgety helps me concentrate a little better, because I'm staying busy, while able to take notes. I like to talk. I talk a LOT! So I can usually keep a good conversation, if interested. I am a very adventurous person. I like to be outside. I like to be active. In fact, to try and keep me busy, I talked to the softball coach. But after being told basically it wouldn't be worth it trying out because they were only losing one senior, I rat...

So here I am at Frostburg. This school was perfect for many reasons. It was one of the cheapest schools in my state, it wasn't big at all (division 3), and it had an intimate class setting, meaning my biggest class could be about 30 people. I'd be able to have a relationship with my professors, given my disorder. Coming up here, I had some friends from high school that were here (not super close but close to where I could say hey and maybe have lunch with them). Plus, my boyfriend had chosen this school for some similar reasons as me and had made the football team; so he was up here too! By now, I'm 20 years old and I know I have a hold of this college thing, as far as the work load. And the doctor an I had finally chosen a medicine that would still kinda mess with my moods if I really let it, but I would take a pill on an 'as needed' basis; once in the morning, then it would wear off in the middle of the day, around the time I was done with classes, so I'd be ...

So I'm back on medication. It was a hard decision to make given the side effects I had experienced in the past, but I needed to focus. I went through trial and error again, testing different meds that would work for me and would not work for me. Walking through the halls, I'd look like a zombie, I'd show and feel zero emotion. I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't talk... but my grades are looking good, so shouldn't I be happy? Wrong. I was far from happy. My second year into college, I'm feeling like I've got this college thing down. It also helped that I was joined by my boyfriend (he had spent a year talking to colleges that decided not to take him or cost too much). He had started college that year and we took a couple classes together, others not together. We developed a routine that helped me manage my work, and in turn also helped him. We would go to school, go to my house after, and do our homework for the day (a work now, play later idea). This helped me...

When approaching graduation, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. It wasn't until April that I realized I hadn't chosen a college or anything. I felt so little of myself because all of my friends had chosen 4-year universities and were all set, and here I was with no plan. I enrolled in community college, but I still felt like this was all I was going to do with my life; I wasn't going anywhere.  On the first day of college, I was nervous (as anyone would be on the first day of school). When i got my first syllabus in my English class, I immediately realized high school hadn't prepared me for this at all. I panicked. I went home crying to my mom thinking, "All of this stuff is due now! I don't know how to right a paper, not to mention 4 of them! What is a thesis?!" College became difficult really fast. Assignment after assignment, paper after paper...I couldn't handle it all. I couldn't focus long enough to start my introduction sectio...

I'm pretty new to this, but I decided to create a blog to try and cope with a disorder I have had since I was 4 years old: Attention Deficit Hyper-active Disorder (ADHD). This disorder prevents me from focusing on a certain task for a long period of time. Depending on how interested I am in the task, my attention span could last about 10 minutes, before my mind wonders off into space, taking all focus off the task and onto "why is that cloud shaped that way?" Let's go back to when I was first diagnosed. I was in pre-k when I started showing signs of ADHD. As my mom tells me every time I ask, my teacher had talked to her during a parent teacher conference, telling her, "I've never had a student who has to stand at her desk and dance while she colors." That may seem normal for any 4 year old child, but I, for the life of me, could not stay in my seat when it came time for assignments such as coloring or writing my alphabet. From then on, I was put on med...