Necessary to be medicated?

[pinkyxmcgee]

I just joined this website, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s felt the  the annoying, class clown, silly, air head one of their own group of friends? I have been diagnosed ADD my entire school life, but in 2012 I got tested and the test results show I have a very severe case of ADHD. I’ve been on medication for just over a year now, and when I first started it I didnt notice and bit difference but the people around me though I was tired or upset the whole time. Now I am afriad to be around people without my ADHD meds. I feel like I am too annoying. That when people meet me without my medication they meet some unruly idiot who has a speach impediment, who is impulsive, who is stupid…… but when I begin to think about this more thoroughly, its just someone who has no self confidence. I have a great memory (for super random facts), I have a 97% in grade 12 university math (which most hairdressers never use), but because of all the random knowledge ive retained from the last couple of years, i know i can be great at my job. i found the right places.

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Pinkyxmcgee, meds alone aren’t enough. They’re not “magic pills”; they’re more like training wheels on a bike. They’ll help keep you upright, but you still need to learn how to ride that bike.

The more you learn about ADHD, the better you’ll understand how it affects you, and the better you’ll be able to figure out how to make the most of your incredible ADHD strengths, while minimizing the effects of the incredible ADHD weaknesses that go along with them.

And ADHD does come with incredible strengths, in situations that are interesting enough to get your brain firing on all cylinders. But if the situation isn’t interesting enough, you’ll have trouble.

That’s all ADHD really is. We have a brain that’s driven by what’s interesting, while most other people have a brain that’s driven by what’s important. It’s like being left-handed in a right-handed world…or the only 7-foot-tall pygmy in the tribe.

Just being able to see it that way, take off a lot of the pressure we put on ourselves. And that pressure makes it even harder for us to function.

I know that when I’m being scrutinized, I turn into a complete idiot. But, when I feel like I’m “in the zone”, my ADHD powers amaze even me.  You should see me when I’m playing along with Jeopardy.  I’ll bet, with your memory for random facts, you’re amazing at Jeopardy, too!

Part of learning to work with your ADHD is building up your self-confidence. It comes gradually, in steps that are so little, that you may not even realize how far you’ve come until someone else points it out to you. Because we ADDers aren’t great with self-assessment.

That difficulty with self-assessment also tends to make us believe that we’re screwing up, when, in fact, we’re doing just fine!

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[pinkyxmcgee]

Thank you, that really means a lot to me <3

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[jojosephine]

@pinkyxmcgee Thank you. I was diagnosed with “mild” ADD in grade 6. So I guess they decided meds werent for me. It was back in ’84 so I don’t know if they thought Ritilan was for hyperactive boys only and ADD ended when you graduated from highschool?!? I continued to struggle in school medicore grades with learning strategies and extra time on tests. When I became an adult, my daily and life responsibilites grew enormously (not just school and a part-time job anymore).  For 20 years of my adult life I failed at everything over and over again [post secondary school, relationships, jobs, career, friends, home, family etc..]. I know realize my failure is attributed to only my untreated ADD. I am waiting for medication. I can’t wait to see if this helps me to use the tools I have developed over the years and all the exciting new ones.

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[Wgreen]

Interesting comment about “Jeopardy.”
I’ve never heard anybody claim that a good memory (for trivia) is an ADD asset. On the other hand, if a racing brain does anything—apart from drive me around the bend—it perhaps helps me find interesting patterns in what others would consider random factoids or data points.

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[wanderquest]

I relate to the random factoids memory. It’s about the only kind of memory I seem to have. I LOVE Jeopardy.

 

 

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