Re: Diagnosed 9 mos ago, still in denial, scared about meds, studying problems… :(

[Misswho23]

“Um. What you’ve been doing, and the way you’ve been doing it, isn’t cutting it anymore, you’re stagnating. Something has to give. It all sounds so familiar, most all of the symptoms… maybe this is what ADHD-I looks like, quietly making itself known.”

That sentence so well sums up my undiagnosed experience with ADHD. It was getting to that point over and over that I finally gave in and decided to try the meds. Took my therapists 6 months to get me to take meds. Even after I accepted the ADHD. Also m y job at the time was coming to a crashing end with the undiagnosed symptoms.

A few important things I have learned after staring medication.

1. It’s not a cure all. It will help and for me they really do a lot. But I still have off days.

2. Have some goals set as to what you would to see in your life/work etc. in relation to the meds working.

3. Consistency along with being on the right ones.

4. What times of day are my peak times when the medication and my mind seem to be firing the best. Use that time to set out to accomplish the most. Lower level times to work on less demanding things. I thought I should just be “on” all of the time.

For me I need a low dose of adderall and a low dose on citalapram. Took me a while to see the difference but now when I’m off them I can really tell.

Also although it may seem not so great to find out you have this I wish I would have had treatment when I was 27 in school for a design degree. My intelligence had already caught on that I could not learn the same way that was taught in the public school systems here in the US. I know instinctively I had to go about things different in order to learn. From an early age I seemed to know that I did not learn the same way as everyone else. And that didn’t make any less smarter than anyone else. Overall I did well in college and was on the Dean’s list when I graduated. But I think medication could have sorted out a lot of the stuff that was still causing a lot of stress. And could have made somethings easier. Some stuff I probably would have still stressed over. As it is my way. LOL

For hard classes or ones I could not learn in a lecture environment so I would find a tutor or a coach. Usually a student who got it better but also ones that had a desire to share what they knew. I could ask them to explain what part I didn’t get. Which usually was just a missing component but I knew the rest of it. I just needed the”connector” of the information.

For some web design I find I do well if I can watch and listen to a video and then replay it as much as I need to. For math problems I have to be able to work the problem with someone and then do it over and over until it clicks. Otherwise I will not remember how I did it even 5 minuets later. I have to practice this type of thing. Much like how you would practice playing the piano. Which I do. I may have picked up on that learning as a child. in order to know the song you had to practice it.

Hope this made sense. I didn’t really have time to re read it. Keep up the good work.

REPORT ABUSE