I don't really like to share this with everyone I meet. It's not something that just comes up in casual conversation, even with most of my friends. There's some stigma that Attention Deficit Disorder is either made up, not a real problem, or a cry for attention. Believe me when I say it is a very real thing. Trust me when I say you've known someone who has struggled with it. It's me.
I like to feel I am very self-sufficient. I like being able to solve things on my own. For the longest time, I refused to ask for any help. I don't feel like it was an act of avoiding showing weakness, but it can sure seem that way sometimes. Whether it's doing a homework problem, a financial situation, a decision I have to make, I never liked having to ask for help.
Then I started struggling. School. Grades. Life.
I finally woke up and realized that I needed help. It was probably the hardest thing I've had to do in my life so far, but also probably the most significant. To this day, I still feel like I would have failed out of the college of engineering without some sort of intercession. Yes, that serious.
For me, I never struggled throughout grade school with anything. I was reading in kindergarten. I was getting scolded for finishing novels before the rest of the class had finished a handful of chapters. I had to do the stupid math computer programs all by myself in the library because I "graduated out" of the ones the rest of the class was in. I was always held up as one of the smart kids. I was in some weird program that had me take the SAT when I was in the 7th and 8th grades (sure I got a combined 1000/1600, but come on...). I went to one of the most academically challenging high schools in the state, graduated with a 3.5 overall. No real problems there. I really should stop sounding like I'm trying to brag...Then I hit a wall. Sure, high school was challenging, I had to put a lot of work into learning and finishing homework (but hours and hours of homework each night was expected at where I attended).
That wall. Whatever it was, I wasn't used to it. Everybody always said you shouldn't expect college to be as easy as high school. This, somehow, was different. I was having trouble absorbing and remembering the most basic concepts. The calculus series was hell for me. We could go topic to topic, and I would feel that I understood what was going on. Get to exams, completely blank. I often describe my learning disability is like having memory gaps: I literally can have no recollection of what I've learned. Because of this, I am an extremely proficient note-taker. Firstly, it helps me keep on task by having a constant activity to keep me engaged in doing something. Second, because of these gaps in my memory, it is extremely helpful to have plentiful examples. Lastly, I completely forgot my other point in the process of writing this paragraph. Maybe it will come back to me later. All I can say is that it really, really sucks.
I can do well enough to fake it. That's why the doctors were so surprised. Usually patients with these issues can only cover it up for so long before the cracks begin to show - for someone to get to college before collapsing was a large abnormality. And yes, I will use the word collapse. My education, my being, my entire life was being built with shoddy materials. It was a losing battle, and I just couldn't keep up anymore. Seeking help finally saved me. The stress, the pain, the frustration was unreal. Maybe eventually I can talk about that more. With ROTC and the extra classes I was taking, I was pulling 20, 21, even 22 credit hours, and barely keeping it together. In my process of getting help, I planned to spread my curriculum out to graduate in 5 years.
Spreading my curriculum, seeing a psychologist, and starting medication saved my academic career. It saved my sanity. It saved my life. I will say with absolute certainty that this is not a prevented-suicide "saved my life;" that thought has luckily never, ever entered my head. Instead, I became a mostly reclusive video gamer. I look back upon most of my college social career with extreme regret. Yes, I had plenty enough friends and aquaintances, but I feel like I neved did anything. Outside of the digital realm, I was non-existent. All I did was play video games with that tight circle of friends, and hardly anything else. Not to offend any of you who fall into the afforementioned circle, of course. I just feel like, although I had plenty of fun, those were somehow empty years.
My senior year here at college, I've really fallen out of the whole gaming scene. I still play games new and old, but not as much as before. I've met new friends, I do things for entertainment outside of my computer chair, and study and work harder at learning than I ever have before. I've changed. I hope for the better. Some have noticed. I've worried some. I've forgotten some. I'm sorry for some.
I recently added up all of the "calendar hours" (timeslots that I am committed to be doing something) that I have in this, my last, term. Between 18 credit hours, 11 hours of work, and senior design, I have 40 total hours every week. Yes, forty. This is BEFORE any homework, studying, or projects outside of senior design. Remembering how I struggle, and how it takes me much longer to finish any tasks, and you have a recipe for stress! I disappear for hours to complete tasks that should only take one. I can't concentrate late at night; instead I wake up early to get work done. I'm still recovering from a 5-hours-of-sleep-night followed by a wake up at 6 am to get work done on a day that went from 6 am to 4:30 pm with no breaks in between engagements.
It's the little things in life that are the best. Although I really like to think myself as a forward-thinker, I really tend to live in the immediate moment. I like to have plans, but improvisation is one of my strongest suits. I think it comes with the condition. I can often describe what it's like as my brain going too fast for me to keep up. Mumbling, slight stuttering, dyslexic-like mistakes, they all happen because I can't articulate quickly enough what my brain is spewing forth. It's really frustrating to have two or three great thoughts at once, and lose one, two, or even all of them at once just because I can't get them out before they slip away. I was once told that if you interrupt ADD people while they're doing something and ask them to do something else, one of those 2 things wont get done. Sometimes both. This is very true.
Before I ignore my homework any further, and before I write a textbook, I shall stop for this post. More on this subject will come later. My hand hovers over the publish button. Nobody knows I'm writing this. Submit. It's done now.
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