I don't know if anyone will read this. Actually I don't care if anyone reads this.
I have ADHD. I have thought I did for a long time, ever since my early teens. My parents always put it off as me being undisciplined or unmotivated. even when i tried to tell them something was wrong with me they never would listen, they just pretty much had a "fix it yourself" and "ADHD isn't real" attitude. All throughout my teens I had problems. I couldn't ever finish my homework, I would put off doing my chores until right before my parents got home, I could never keep my room clean, I would forget to water or feed the dogs, I would even forget about personal hygiene, like showering or brushing my teeth, I always was losing stuff--Sunglasses, hats, keys, backpack, wallet, even my Dad's tools. My parents always would get so mad at me because of these traits and many others I constantly displayed. I pretty much failed High School because I couldn't ever remember to finish my homework. My teachers would get so frustrated with me because I would Ace EVERY test they gave me, but I just never could finish my homework. I never could do well at sports because I couldn't focus on what was going on. My mom has videos of me Playing with flowers in the grass in the outfield or messing with my shirt at the goal line. I really struggled in pretty much every aspect of my life growing up. The ONLY place i felt like made sense was at punk rock shows. Finally there was a place where there was so much going on that I could actually focus. between the mosh pit, the loud music, the crowds, the crazy clothes and hair; I FINALLY felt like I could just be me. Of course this led to destructive behavior that is innate with any of the underground music scenes.
After I got out of school and moved out on my own it didn't get any better. Within a year of living on my own I had multiple accounts in collections, I was behind multiple months on my rent, I had negative balances in 2 checking accounts and maxxed out credit limits on 2 credit cards. I had held and lost or quit over 12 jobs and couldn't pay my bills because i couldn't find work. My house was constantly a disaster, Dirty dishes piled up, garbage all over, I even remember a potted plant spilling over and never getting cleaned up. I got to the point where the power and water had been turned off, and they were in the process of evicting me from the place.
When all this happened, i knew something was obviously wrong with me, and i knew i needed to do something. My solution was to join the Air Force. They say that with ADHD when you have an idea you have to act on impulse and do it right away. Well that was entirely the case with me joining the Air Force. I was laying in bed one night at about 3 am, worried sick about how far behind I was on all my bills and trying to figure out what i was going to do. The thought came in my head that i should join the military. My first thought was to join the Navy, but I decided that I didn't want to be on a boat and I had always heard the Air Force treats you better. So I decided I was going to join the Air Force. I couldn't wait though. I got up at 630 AM and went to the recruiters office, of course he wasn't open yet so i looked at the hours and made sure I was at his door at 9 am when he opened. I didn't want to wait, i wanted to get on the plane that day and leave. Unfortunately I had to go through a whole process and wait for a job to come available. I moved back in with my parents while I was waiting to join and Suddenly I had a combination of both the problems I had growing up and the problems I had when living on my own. I always was behind on paying my parents the rent we had agreed on, I still couldn't stay at a job, I struggled with cleanliness, and I was always getting in trouble for not finishing the chores i was assigned.
I finally got to Basic Training in July of 2007 and I thought for sure it would help me fix all my problems and finally learn some of what i thought was a lack of discipline. As it turned out I struggled all the way through basic training also. I failed multiple inspections, Constantly struggled with drill, I would get called out all the time for all sorts of attention to detail things such as strings on my uniform or my wall locker not being arranged perfectly. I always thought i had done everything i needed to do , but then I would end up failing another inspection, or forgetting to lock my security drawer and ending up in trouble once again. I made it through basic by the skin of my teeth and went on to Tech school. Of course I struggled in Tech School, Forgetting to study for the following days test or getting so distracted I wouldn't fall asleep until super late and then not wake up on time for reveille. Some how I graduated Tech school and made it into the Operational Air Force.
Little did I know My first assignment would be hell for me. I was sent to the Air Force Financial Services Center, Which was a new centralized center for processing all Air Force Finance Transactions. I was assigned to travel and was expected to sit quietly in front of a computer and repetitively input data into a computer system hundreds of times a day. there was absolutely no variation in my job. day in and day out for 49 months I was expected to do the same task over and over and over again. Anyone with any experience with ADHD knows this is the worst possible thing you can have us do. We need to be able to do multiple tasks, to keep moving and going from one task to the next. I absolutely failed at everything about this job. I consistently didn't meet any of the metrics, I would fail to process as many documents as I was supposed to, I couldn't keep my accuracy anywhere near what it was expected to be. Day in and day out I would see my name at the absolute bottom of all the boards with stats on them. I saw all my peers get promoted to auditor or team lead, and people who came in years after me move past me while i still sat there attempting to do a task that I just could not do. I finally got a break in 2010 When I was slated to deploy to Iraq. I feel like this was the first time I ever excelled at something. I remember my supervisor telling me that I was the one person he was most worried about deploying with, but that i turned out to be his number one troop over there. The reason for this was clear to me. It was a high stress environment with a ton of things going on at once. When "normal" people felt like they were drowning in stress, I felt like I finally could actually work and use my brain in the way it was made. I absolutely loved being deployed. Dealing with lots of customers and having a hundred things going on at once kept me motivated and working hard. Unfortunately, after that 6 months in Iraq I had to return to the Finance Center and go back to staring at a computer. My Biggest struggle became getting distracted. One little thing would pop into my head and I would HAVE to go right then and Google it. Before I even found the answer I wanted something on that page would spark my interest and I would click on it, or google that, then before I knew it I was 15 pages away from what I originally needed to look at and had just wasted 40 min. of my day. I got moved to be right next to my supervisors so they could keep an eye on me, but that didn't really help either. I would get so distracted or lost in my thoughts in the middle of a voucher that i would sit in the same voucher for an hour even if it should have only taken 15 min. If I got a big voucher it would seem so overwhelming to me that I would just try to avoid it as long as possible. I constantly was being told that I pretty much sucked and couldn't do anything right. Of course that just made the situation worse because I would get so frustrated with myself that I just hated even being at work. This all just kept getting worse and worse. It was like a was on a slide that was greased with Crisco and trying desperately to climb up but just kept sliding further and further down. I also constantly struggled with paying my bills. I would always impulsively buy stuff and end up not having enough money for rent or for my electric bill. I got my electricity or water turned off multiple times and ended up back in debt again. I struggled with keeping my house clean. I had an extra room in my house and it would always end up just absolutely filled with junk. so bad that you couldn't even walk around. The problem was always the same. I would try to keep on top of something like my bills or cleaning, but after a few weeks or a few months I would start to let it go, then it would get to the point of where I saw it as overwhelming so I would just give up and ignore it until it was SOO bad that I had no choice but to take care of it.
I have constantly, Since I was a kid, had problems with speaking out of turn, interrupting people, and not being able to stay quiet. If people are talking I always feel like I have to join in. If there is a chance to ask questions in a class or in a meeting i feel like I have to ask something. The worst is that I don't even notice a lot of time that i am doing it. I constantly push people away because of this. All the rest of my ADHD related problems seem minor compared to this. I have had supervisors just explode and verbally attack me because of this. I have ruined countless friendships and relationships because of this. If I could only change one thing about myself it would be the way I communicate. There is nothing I hate more about myself than this. I wish I could just tell all the people I have annoyed or made mad that I am sorry and that I wish I could fix this about myself.
I finally decided in the spring of 2011 that I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. I started doing research online and was absolutely amazed to find out that there were other people that had almost exactly the same struggles and problems I have spent my whole life dealing with. I was really biased going into this because my parents had always given me the impression that ADHD wasn't real and it was just something made up. But the more I read the more I realized that there is tons of scientific evidence proving it is real, and that I had ALL the signs of it. I finally scheduled an appointment with mental health and saw a psychiatrist. The Psychiatrist knew almost right away that I had ADHD just from our first meeting. He formally diagnosed with me with it and started figuring out treatment. I have tried medicine, but I didn't notice much of a change. I quit the medicine and decided I wanted to try to fix it myself. I felt like a huge fog had been lifted and I finally could see exactly what was wrong with me and learn to live with it.
After I was diagnosed with ADHD I was so relieved to find out what was wrong with me and I felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and I could finally put a name to my problem. I wanted to tell everyone I knew that I have ADHD and I wasn't just weird or messed up. I started telling people, starting with my own family. The first person i told was my Mom, and she told me she doesn't believe I have anything wrong with me. And as I told others almost everyone reacted in a way that made it seem like it was just a trivial thing, that I was stupid, or that ADHD was just made up and it was all in my mind. This really hurt. I felt like I finally could understand what was wrong with me and I thought that it will help others to see why I act the way I do. Instead I just got rejected and Mocked by those closest to me. After this I pretty much started hiding my ADHD and didn't like to tell anyone about it. It stunk not to be able to tell anyone though, because if I didn't tell people my personality would just push everyone away, but if I did tell them, then they would treat me like I was making stuff up. hiding it just seems like the easier option.
Since then I have moved from Ellsworth to a different job at McChord. I now am doing much better at work. In this job I deal with customers and have a bunch of different tasks to accomplish everyday. My ADHD has really helped me to excel at work. My supervisor tells me that I am her number 1 out of 9 airmen under her. I have been able to come up with multiple innovative solutions to problems we had around the office, or just better ways to do little things that I discovered. My mind allows me to skip the analytical part of going through a problem and see the shortcut or get directly to the solution. When other people spend time going in a linear path from one step to the next through something I can see it all at once and jump straight to the conclusion. I usually cant tell you how I got there, but I just know that I did. I guess I don't really understand how " normal" minds work so I cant really describe the difference, I just know there are something I can figure out faster than most people and without having to go through a lot of silly steps.
I have found that written plans, budgets, timetables, schedules really help me to stay focused a lot better. The problem that I have is that I will get an idea of how to fix this problem i am having (Create a budget and track all of my expenses on my smart phone so i can stay on top of my finances) and I will focus completely on that and get it all set up and ready to start using, then I will do it for a few weeks and slowly I will stop doing it and revert back to the old ADHD me. I really want to figure out how to take all these ideas I have, put them into practice and then make it habit to where I just do it and stay focused on it and actually learn to control my ADHD.
The other problems that i have is with time management. I will get so distracted by something such as the Internet or facebook or the news or whatever that I will completely forget what I am supposed to be doing and focus entirely on that thing. In my mind I say "oh it will only be one minute, its no big deal" but then before I know it, it has been 25 min and I end up late or i missed something. A perfect example of this is that one time last summer Bree and I were going to go do something, so I picked her up after work and we drove to my house so I could change. She decided to wait in the car while I changed and said to me "please don't take forever" So on the way to my door I thought to myself "OK, I am not going to look at anything, I am going to change and get back out there as fast as I can." well I went in to my room, got my blouse and one boot off and thought about something i needed to look up on my phone. I grabbed my phone to "just look at that one thing real quick" well before I knew it she was knocking on my door, and it had been 20 min. When I went and opened the door I had upset her so much that she was crying and telling me to take her home. The worst is how I hurt others. Specially Bree. I try so hard to always make sure I am not going to hurt her and when i do something like that it makes her feel like I forgot her or something, which hurts her really badly and in turn makes me Feel like Crap. I ahve tried to talk to her and explain to her how my brain works, but she just cant understand and I know it frustrates her that I am this way. She has told me multiple times to get help, but I really think the best help I can get is to have her and others actually try to understand me and help me work through my flaws.
I am deployed right now, and i have spent the last 3 months of this deployment really trying to work on my self discipline. I have been actually staying on top of budgetting my money, paying off my debt, and creating and sticking to a daily routine so I can get in all the things i want to be doing done. Now there have been days where i have gotten off course, but i feel like they are getting fewer. I really hope I can continue this when I get home. What I really hope is that people will read this Blog and see how much i truly struggle with this and will try and help support me. I promise I am trying as hard as I can to fix myself, but I just really could use help from those around me. I know the The LORD is always with me also, he gave me this "disorder" for a reason and he has used it to bless me in huge ways. I know he is guiding me and I love that through my weaknesses he shows his strength. His Grace is Sufficient for me.
One last thing. ADHD and ADD are real disorders. They are not made up, they are not some ploy by the drug companies to sell more drugs. They are real and the earlier someone is diagnosed the better chances they have of learning to lead a productive life and actually live well with the hand God dealt them. If you think you, or youre Child has ADHD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get it checked out. Nothing has helped me more than actually beign able to put a name to what I had going on inside me and realize that I am not alone in my struggles. I am worried about a lot of kids that I see that remind me of myself so much, People like my little brother, who have a lot of the same problems I had, and havent been diagnosed. Rates of everything from suicide to crime to drug use to gang membership is higher with kids that have ADHD. The only way to help these kids is to get them diagnosed and actually start treating them and working with a behavior therapist to find ways to cope with the issues.
I am sure that most of the people who read this will just keep thinking ADHD is made up, or just a trivial thing some kids have. but ADHD, including adult ADHD is very real and seriously affects me and many others day.
This article really helps to explain how it feels to have ADHD and if you really want to try and understand those of us with it, you should read it: http://www.healthyplace.com/adhd/articles/whats-it-like-to-have-adhd/having-adhd/
I have ADHD. I have thought I did for a long time, ever since my early teens. My parents always put it off as me being undisciplined or unmotivated. even when i tried to tell them something was wrong with me they never would listen, they just pretty much had a "fix it yourself" and "ADHD isn't real" attitude. All throughout my teens I had problems. I couldn't ever finish my homework, I would put off doing my chores until right before my parents got home, I could never keep my room clean, I would forget to water or feed the dogs, I would even forget about personal hygiene, like showering or brushing my teeth, I always was losing stuff--Sunglasses, hats, keys, backpack, wallet, even my Dad's tools. My parents always would get so mad at me because of these traits and many others I constantly displayed. I pretty much failed High School because I couldn't ever remember to finish my homework. My teachers would get so frustrated with me because I would Ace EVERY test they gave me, but I just never could finish my homework. I never could do well at sports because I couldn't focus on what was going on. My mom has videos of me Playing with flowers in the grass in the outfield or messing with my shirt at the goal line. I really struggled in pretty much every aspect of my life growing up. The ONLY place i felt like made sense was at punk rock shows. Finally there was a place where there was so much going on that I could actually focus. between the mosh pit, the loud music, the crowds, the crazy clothes and hair; I FINALLY felt like I could just be me. Of course this led to destructive behavior that is innate with any of the underground music scenes.
After I got out of school and moved out on my own it didn't get any better. Within a year of living on my own I had multiple accounts in collections, I was behind multiple months on my rent, I had negative balances in 2 checking accounts and maxxed out credit limits on 2 credit cards. I had held and lost or quit over 12 jobs and couldn't pay my bills because i couldn't find work. My house was constantly a disaster, Dirty dishes piled up, garbage all over, I even remember a potted plant spilling over and never getting cleaned up. I got to the point where the power and water had been turned off, and they were in the process of evicting me from the place.
When all this happened, i knew something was obviously wrong with me, and i knew i needed to do something. My solution was to join the Air Force. They say that with ADHD when you have an idea you have to act on impulse and do it right away. Well that was entirely the case with me joining the Air Force. I was laying in bed one night at about 3 am, worried sick about how far behind I was on all my bills and trying to figure out what i was going to do. The thought came in my head that i should join the military. My first thought was to join the Navy, but I decided that I didn't want to be on a boat and I had always heard the Air Force treats you better. So I decided I was going to join the Air Force. I couldn't wait though. I got up at 630 AM and went to the recruiters office, of course he wasn't open yet so i looked at the hours and made sure I was at his door at 9 am when he opened. I didn't want to wait, i wanted to get on the plane that day and leave. Unfortunately I had to go through a whole process and wait for a job to come available. I moved back in with my parents while I was waiting to join and Suddenly I had a combination of both the problems I had growing up and the problems I had when living on my own. I always was behind on paying my parents the rent we had agreed on, I still couldn't stay at a job, I struggled with cleanliness, and I was always getting in trouble for not finishing the chores i was assigned.
I finally got to Basic Training in July of 2007 and I thought for sure it would help me fix all my problems and finally learn some of what i thought was a lack of discipline. As it turned out I struggled all the way through basic training also. I failed multiple inspections, Constantly struggled with drill, I would get called out all the time for all sorts of attention to detail things such as strings on my uniform or my wall locker not being arranged perfectly. I always thought i had done everything i needed to do , but then I would end up failing another inspection, or forgetting to lock my security drawer and ending up in trouble once again. I made it through basic by the skin of my teeth and went on to Tech school. Of course I struggled in Tech School, Forgetting to study for the following days test or getting so distracted I wouldn't fall asleep until super late and then not wake up on time for reveille. Some how I graduated Tech school and made it into the Operational Air Force.
Little did I know My first assignment would be hell for me. I was sent to the Air Force Financial Services Center, Which was a new centralized center for processing all Air Force Finance Transactions. I was assigned to travel and was expected to sit quietly in front of a computer and repetitively input data into a computer system hundreds of times a day. there was absolutely no variation in my job. day in and day out for 49 months I was expected to do the same task over and over and over again. Anyone with any experience with ADHD knows this is the worst possible thing you can have us do. We need to be able to do multiple tasks, to keep moving and going from one task to the next. I absolutely failed at everything about this job. I consistently didn't meet any of the metrics, I would fail to process as many documents as I was supposed to, I couldn't keep my accuracy anywhere near what it was expected to be. Day in and day out I would see my name at the absolute bottom of all the boards with stats on them. I saw all my peers get promoted to auditor or team lead, and people who came in years after me move past me while i still sat there attempting to do a task that I just could not do. I finally got a break in 2010 When I was slated to deploy to Iraq. I feel like this was the first time I ever excelled at something. I remember my supervisor telling me that I was the one person he was most worried about deploying with, but that i turned out to be his number one troop over there. The reason for this was clear to me. It was a high stress environment with a ton of things going on at once. When "normal" people felt like they were drowning in stress, I felt like I finally could actually work and use my brain in the way it was made. I absolutely loved being deployed. Dealing with lots of customers and having a hundred things going on at once kept me motivated and working hard. Unfortunately, after that 6 months in Iraq I had to return to the Finance Center and go back to staring at a computer. My Biggest struggle became getting distracted. One little thing would pop into my head and I would HAVE to go right then and Google it. Before I even found the answer I wanted something on that page would spark my interest and I would click on it, or google that, then before I knew it I was 15 pages away from what I originally needed to look at and had just wasted 40 min. of my day. I got moved to be right next to my supervisors so they could keep an eye on me, but that didn't really help either. I would get so distracted or lost in my thoughts in the middle of a voucher that i would sit in the same voucher for an hour even if it should have only taken 15 min. If I got a big voucher it would seem so overwhelming to me that I would just try to avoid it as long as possible. I constantly was being told that I pretty much sucked and couldn't do anything right. Of course that just made the situation worse because I would get so frustrated with myself that I just hated even being at work. This all just kept getting worse and worse. It was like a was on a slide that was greased with Crisco and trying desperately to climb up but just kept sliding further and further down. I also constantly struggled with paying my bills. I would always impulsively buy stuff and end up not having enough money for rent or for my electric bill. I got my electricity or water turned off multiple times and ended up back in debt again. I struggled with keeping my house clean. I had an extra room in my house and it would always end up just absolutely filled with junk. so bad that you couldn't even walk around. The problem was always the same. I would try to keep on top of something like my bills or cleaning, but after a few weeks or a few months I would start to let it go, then it would get to the point of where I saw it as overwhelming so I would just give up and ignore it until it was SOO bad that I had no choice but to take care of it.
I have constantly, Since I was a kid, had problems with speaking out of turn, interrupting people, and not being able to stay quiet. If people are talking I always feel like I have to join in. If there is a chance to ask questions in a class or in a meeting i feel like I have to ask something. The worst is that I don't even notice a lot of time that i am doing it. I constantly push people away because of this. All the rest of my ADHD related problems seem minor compared to this. I have had supervisors just explode and verbally attack me because of this. I have ruined countless friendships and relationships because of this. If I could only change one thing about myself it would be the way I communicate. There is nothing I hate more about myself than this. I wish I could just tell all the people I have annoyed or made mad that I am sorry and that I wish I could fix this about myself.
I finally decided in the spring of 2011 that I wanted to figure out what was wrong with me. I started doing research online and was absolutely amazed to find out that there were other people that had almost exactly the same struggles and problems I have spent my whole life dealing with. I was really biased going into this because my parents had always given me the impression that ADHD wasn't real and it was just something made up. But the more I read the more I realized that there is tons of scientific evidence proving it is real, and that I had ALL the signs of it. I finally scheduled an appointment with mental health and saw a psychiatrist. The Psychiatrist knew almost right away that I had ADHD just from our first meeting. He formally diagnosed with me with it and started figuring out treatment. I have tried medicine, but I didn't notice much of a change. I quit the medicine and decided I wanted to try to fix it myself. I felt like a huge fog had been lifted and I finally could see exactly what was wrong with me and learn to live with it.
After I was diagnosed with ADHD I was so relieved to find out what was wrong with me and I felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and I could finally put a name to my problem. I wanted to tell everyone I knew that I have ADHD and I wasn't just weird or messed up. I started telling people, starting with my own family. The first person i told was my Mom, and she told me she doesn't believe I have anything wrong with me. And as I told others almost everyone reacted in a way that made it seem like it was just a trivial thing, that I was stupid, or that ADHD was just made up and it was all in my mind. This really hurt. I felt like I finally could understand what was wrong with me and I thought that it will help others to see why I act the way I do. Instead I just got rejected and Mocked by those closest to me. After this I pretty much started hiding my ADHD and didn't like to tell anyone about it. It stunk not to be able to tell anyone though, because if I didn't tell people my personality would just push everyone away, but if I did tell them, then they would treat me like I was making stuff up. hiding it just seems like the easier option.
Since then I have moved from Ellsworth to a different job at McChord. I now am doing much better at work. In this job I deal with customers and have a bunch of different tasks to accomplish everyday. My ADHD has really helped me to excel at work. My supervisor tells me that I am her number 1 out of 9 airmen under her. I have been able to come up with multiple innovative solutions to problems we had around the office, or just better ways to do little things that I discovered. My mind allows me to skip the analytical part of going through a problem and see the shortcut or get directly to the solution. When other people spend time going in a linear path from one step to the next through something I can see it all at once and jump straight to the conclusion. I usually cant tell you how I got there, but I just know that I did. I guess I don't really understand how " normal" minds work so I cant really describe the difference, I just know there are something I can figure out faster than most people and without having to go through a lot of silly steps.
I have found that written plans, budgets, timetables, schedules really help me to stay focused a lot better. The problem that I have is that I will get an idea of how to fix this problem i am having (Create a budget and track all of my expenses on my smart phone so i can stay on top of my finances) and I will focus completely on that and get it all set up and ready to start using, then I will do it for a few weeks and slowly I will stop doing it and revert back to the old ADHD me. I really want to figure out how to take all these ideas I have, put them into practice and then make it habit to where I just do it and stay focused on it and actually learn to control my ADHD.
The other problems that i have is with time management. I will get so distracted by something such as the Internet or facebook or the news or whatever that I will completely forget what I am supposed to be doing and focus entirely on that thing. In my mind I say "oh it will only be one minute, its no big deal" but then before I know it, it has been 25 min and I end up late or i missed something. A perfect example of this is that one time last summer Bree and I were going to go do something, so I picked her up after work and we drove to my house so I could change. She decided to wait in the car while I changed and said to me "please don't take forever" So on the way to my door I thought to myself "OK, I am not going to look at anything, I am going to change and get back out there as fast as I can." well I went in to my room, got my blouse and one boot off and thought about something i needed to look up on my phone. I grabbed my phone to "just look at that one thing real quick" well before I knew it she was knocking on my door, and it had been 20 min. When I went and opened the door I had upset her so much that she was crying and telling me to take her home. The worst is how I hurt others. Specially Bree. I try so hard to always make sure I am not going to hurt her and when i do something like that it makes her feel like I forgot her or something, which hurts her really badly and in turn makes me Feel like Crap. I ahve tried to talk to her and explain to her how my brain works, but she just cant understand and I know it frustrates her that I am this way. She has told me multiple times to get help, but I really think the best help I can get is to have her and others actually try to understand me and help me work through my flaws.
I am deployed right now, and i have spent the last 3 months of this deployment really trying to work on my self discipline. I have been actually staying on top of budgetting my money, paying off my debt, and creating and sticking to a daily routine so I can get in all the things i want to be doing done. Now there have been days where i have gotten off course, but i feel like they are getting fewer. I really hope I can continue this when I get home. What I really hope is that people will read this Blog and see how much i truly struggle with this and will try and help support me. I promise I am trying as hard as I can to fix myself, but I just really could use help from those around me. I know the The LORD is always with me also, he gave me this "disorder" for a reason and he has used it to bless me in huge ways. I know he is guiding me and I love that through my weaknesses he shows his strength. His Grace is Sufficient for me.
One last thing. ADHD and ADD are real disorders. They are not made up, they are not some ploy by the drug companies to sell more drugs. They are real and the earlier someone is diagnosed the better chances they have of learning to lead a productive life and actually live well with the hand God dealt them. If you think you, or youre Child has ADHD PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get it checked out. Nothing has helped me more than actually beign able to put a name to what I had going on inside me and realize that I am not alone in my struggles. I am worried about a lot of kids that I see that remind me of myself so much, People like my little brother, who have a lot of the same problems I had, and havent been diagnosed. Rates of everything from suicide to crime to drug use to gang membership is higher with kids that have ADHD. The only way to help these kids is to get them diagnosed and actually start treating them and working with a behavior therapist to find ways to cope with the issues.
I am sure that most of the people who read this will just keep thinking ADHD is made up, or just a trivial thing some kids have. but ADHD, including adult ADHD is very real and seriously affects me and many others day.
This article really helps to explain how it feels to have ADHD and if you really want to try and understand those of us with it, you should read it: http://www.healthyplace.com/adhd/articles/whats-it-like-to-have-adhd/having-adhd/
