senior in college.

[Anonymous]

So, I was just diagnosed with ADHD on Monday of this week!!! YAAAAAAAYYY!!! It has been an EXTREMELY long process trying to explain how I felt to my parents/ teachers/ leaders. No one seemed to “get it.” Except for one of my professors who has ADHD himself (i did not know this until I told him that I was diagnosed with ADHD and he simply replied, “Welcome to the club.”).

A couple weeks ago I remember having an emotional breakdown while meeting with him in is office. I was crying, upset, and mostly frustrated because my whole life I have felt sooooo inadequate. So unable to simply sit through a class without wiggling around. So incapable of concentrating long enough to write a five-page paper. After I calmed down for a bit (and stopped sobbing long enough to breathe adequately lol), he simply suggested this: that we are capable of regulating how we feel about things. Just as we don’t turn the water on scalding hot to wash our hands, we are able to adjust the “hot and cold” emotions in our lives…

This absolutely BAFFLED me. I had never thought of the fact that I could simply will myself to use my “inside voice” during an everyday conversation. That I could/would be able to contain my excitement about everything.This was an instant challenge for me.

He also suggested that I talk to a counselor here on campus. After many days of putting it off, I finally gathered up the courage to schedule an appt. After the first meeting, my counselor immediately suggested that I get tested for ADD. In my mind I knew it was right. I knew that this could explain why I was always (and still am) told to be quiet, to sit still. This explained why my parents ALWAYS said, “You’re not trying hard enough. You give up too easily,” while I worked my tail off just trying to keep up. All the symptoms were there blaring, “THIS IS ADHD!!!!!” I had always known it. There was always a reason. My two brothers also have ADHD and I wondered why I could relate to them so well..

And this brings me to the happiest moment of my life, when the psychiatrist said, “You have ADHD.”

So now begins my journey. As a senior. In college, for goodness sake!!

different and liking it,

musicteach

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[munchkin]

Awesome Musicteach I quit my music degree in my Junior year – (now I’m 40) it’s really refreshing to hear someone getting help earlier in life. Many of us ask “what if?” What if we could have gotten help – would things have turned out differently? Good Luck I just got diagnosed about 2 months ago, and it’s been a roller coaster, but I can already start to see an overall improvement. Things getting just a tiny bit more organized, easier time emotionally, etc.

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[kc5jck]

You’re just as welcome here as slop in a pigpen. I was tested a week ago Saturday and sawbones wrote out my very first prescription today. I’m 59.

Good luck in school and otherwise.

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[Anonymous]

Also a university music major drop-out (mid-70s), I’m 56 years old now. Have only been able to hold down a job for 5 years at most so I’ve held over 25 jobs or more in my life (the latest is going on 6 years now but I am self-employed). I’m usually working below what I am capable of doing, but nowadays I enjoy what I am doing. Am on meds and it’s helping me focus and do what I should be doing rather than being all over the place and excessively tired all the time.

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[Anonymous]

Welcome, I am 60, finally diagnosed in September, taking Wellbutrin andStraterra, side effects for the first week or so, mostly gone away now. Pestered with “could do better if only he would apply himself”, lost count of the jobs, do really well, get bored in a year or so and leave, a few complete meltdowns convinced me that offices and management were a bad idea, at 50 started line cooking, loved it but anxiety/depression messed up how many orders I could remember. Classic .. lunch hour and I can’t remember what goes into a Club Sandwich .. oh well. Learning weaving, it focuses me in the present moment, may be able to sell scarves. Good Luck.

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[Anonymous]

My husband always said that his ADHD forced him to reinvent the wheel everytime he did something that he did infrequently. I also have/had similar problems with memory and can’t figure out how to do something that I used to be able to do with ease. It’s very frustrating and a bit scary at our age – is it early-onset dementia?

Example: we used to build a frame for the tarp over our sailboat (sold it last year). Every year he would have to start from scratch and redesign it. Never mind that our sailing mates were using reusable aluminum frames that they simply unscrewed each year and stored. We had to have an all-wood hastily-constructed-at-the-last-minute with much swearing and cursing version that inevitably got dumped in the scrap heap the following spring because nobody knew what the heck it was when they were moving the boat cradles.

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