Reply To: The ADHD diagnosis

[Patte Rosebank]

@Leeatbe, those are good questions!

The first place I’d start would be the Videos section:  http://www.totallyadd.com/videos.  There, you’ll find answers to your questions…and some very reassuring laughs.  When you can laugh at something, it’s a lot less scary.

While everyone can have “ADD moments”, it’s only a disorder if the symptoms are strong enough, long enough (going back to your childhood), and in enough areas of your life to cause real problems for you.

That’s why a proper diagnosis involves a variety of tests, and delving into your life history.

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ADHD is situational, because the ADHD brain is driven by interest, not importance.  I could spend all day studying “The Films of Laurel & Hardy” because they’re fascinating to me…but I can barely manage 15 minutes of Math because I find it so deadly dull & confusing.

And ADD’ers need structure to keep us in-line.  Elementary and high school are very structured, with homework due every day.  But university is very unstructured, and nobody cares if you show up for class or not, as long as you score well on the term papers & exams.

Also, ADD’ers are generally 30-40% younger socio-emotionally than they are physically.  This means that an 18-year-old ADD’er is actually more like a 13-year-old.  And a 13-year-old is definitely not mature enough to be able to function on his/her own in the world.

Plus, many students are pressured to go straight from high school into university, and to study for a career of the parents’ choosing, instead of the student’s.

So, you have a 13-year-old with an interest-driven brain, pushed out of the nest too soon into a totally unstructured environment, taking courses of very little interest to him/her.  No wonder so many of us crash & burn so spectacularly!  And I was one of them.

If you’re succeeding so well, that tells me that you’re taking courses that genuinely interest you.  And that, you’re able to do your learning using the methods that suit you best.  Not everyone learns in the same way.  I’m quickly bored in a lecture setting, but I thrive in a small discussion group where everyone interacts.

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As for the meds, they’re not “cheating” if you genuinely need them.  If you were diagnosed with a physical condition, like diabetes, you wouldn’t regard insulin or metformin as “cheating”.  ADHD is just another physical condition.  It just happens to involve the brain instead of some other organ.

Meds are not a magic bullet.  They’re more like training wheels for a bike.  They’ll help you stay upright, but you still need to learn how to ride that bike yourself.

The more you learn about your ADHD, the better you’ll be able to figure out how to work with it.  For one thing, it’s really cool to be able to spot things that other people miss (like money, on the ground), and to be able to grasp concepts almost intuitively!

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