I know it's weird to start a blog about travel and then immediately change the subject on my third post. I want this blog to be primarily about travel, but because there are a lot of other things I am passionate about, I decided to dedicate one day to off topic posts. So welcome to Off Topic Tuesday!
I wanted to write about something today that has been showing up frequently in my Facebook news feed: ADHD. Usually I keep my mouth shut about controversial topics because I am not a person who likes to argue. I also respect that people are different and that it's impossible to make everyone agree on everything. I value my friends and I understand that we have differences, so as long as those differences aren't affecting the way we interact with each other, then I see no reason to argue about them.
That being said though, this is one thing that I can't stay quiet about any longer.
Recently I have seen numerous articles being posted about how ADHD isn't real. Most recently an article about why French children don't have ADHD, but American children do, is what caught my attention. Before that, an article where a doctor makes claims that ADHD simply isn't a real condition circulated around for a while. The general gist of these articles is that ADHD is a made up condition, used as an excuse to overlook other problems. The article about French children points out that French children have very structured schedules and that is one reason why they don't have ADHD.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I am not a therapist. I do not have the ability to diagnose anyone or tell anyone that their diagnosis is correct or incorrect. However, I do have my own personal diagnosis so I can and will speak to my own experience.
I am a 34 year old female. I have ADHD. Don't tell me that it isn't real.
I will be one of the first people to admit that I think American children are often incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD. The reason I think this is because people tend to think that ADHD = Hyperactivity. Therefore, a hyperactive, out of control child MUST have ADHD! While I am not a doctor, I can say with absolute certainty that that is not always true. Can a hyperactive child have ADHD? Of course. Do all hyperactive children have ADHD? No.
The fact that ADHD often seems be used as an excuse for a child's bad behavior is a huge factor in why people are starting to think that this condition doesn't exist at all.
Here is my story:
I started kindergarten when I was 4 years and 4 months old. I was a smart, intelligent kid. I was a straight A student throughout all of my elementary school years. I was always the youngest kid in my grade, and younger than some of the kids in the grade behind me, yet I was at the top of my class academically.
In Middle School I remained a straight A student in everything except Math and Science. Once 7th grade rolled around, my grades started to slip in those two subjects. By the time I started High School, I was an average student in every subject. I got B's and C's and the occasional A. This frustrated my parents. They constantly told me that they knew I was smart enough to get straight A's and that I wasn't working to my full potential. My teachers said the same thing. I constantly forgot to either do my homework, or to turn in my homework. My parents implemented a series of punishments on me - everything from no TV and more study time to being taken off of a senior class trip to Florida. I cried and screamed and we fought - a LOT. My grades never improved.
When I started college, my grades continued to decline. What no one seemed to understand was that I WAS working as hard as I could. I knew that I was smarter than what my grades were showing, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't grasp what everyone else around me seemed to be grasping. I felt spacy. I felt like I couldn't pay attention to the teacher who was lecturing. I couldn't sit at my desk long enough to finish a homework assignment. I started to feel like there was really something wrong with me, but I didn't know what it could be. Depression and anxiety started to overtake my life.
It was my college adviser who finally caught on to something. I came to her to sign a drop form for a math class that I was taking. I had dropped the class first semester and here I was dropping it again. I was failing the class and there was no hope of NOT failing, so dropping it and trying again during another semester was my only option.
Thankfully, my wonderful adviser, sat me down and asked me why I was dropping the class again. I told her that I couldn't pass the class, no matter how hard I tried. She looked at me, asked me if I had every been tested for a learning disability and when I said "no" she seemed surprised. She promptly sent me off to be evaluated for one.
I was angry at her. I couldn't possibly have a learning disability! Could I? Why hadn't someone caught onto that before my freshman year of college?
So I went to the evaluation. I spent several hours having several different evaluations done. In the end the result was this:
I have an Auditory Processing Delay.
I also have ADHD.
I was shocked. I was pissed off. I told the lady who evaluated me that she was insane for diagnosing me with ADHD. I was NEVER a hyperactive child! I was never the kid who was bouncing off the walls and running around like a lunatic. I was the quiet girl, who loved to lock myself in my room and read a book for hours. I was well behaved. I followed the rules. I argued with my parents like any kid does, but in the end, I always listened to them. And now this stranger is telling me that I have something called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? I don't think so!
She explained both conditions to me. The Auditory Processing Delay made complete sense. I have an approximate 5 second delay when I hear something. It's the reason why I started falling behind in my classes. I would start to take notes, but because I was writing AND processing at the same time, I would start to fall behind what the teacher was saying, which resulted in my notes turning into scribbles and then doodles, because I was completely lost. Working with a counselor at my college resulted in me learning a trick. I have become EXCELLENT at listening. LISTENING. Not processing. They are two different things. I do not have a hearing problem. I have a processing problem. Once I learned how to listen without processing I excelled at note taking. To this day, I can still write down, almost word for word, what anyone says to me. But don't ask me to explain it to you as soon as I finish writing. I trained myself to write down everything the teacher was saying. Then later on, I would go back to my dorm room and rewrite everything. At that point, I would read it and process it as I rewrote everything. It may seem like extra work to some, but it is exactly what I needed to do. I can process written words incredibly fast. I can't process them easily when I listen though. This is why rewriting my notes, while reading them, helped me process what had just taken place in my class.
It turns out that people with ADHD often have a processing delay to go with it. Some people have a visual processing delay, which is the opposite of what I have. Those people can process spoken words very easily, but written words are harder. Once I calmed down about being diagnosed with something that I never thought I could have, I listened to what the evaluator was telling me and began to accept it.
It turns out that "hyperactivity" in ADHD doesn't necessarily mean that you are a physically hyperactive person. It can also mean that your brain is hyperactive. Once I understood that, I realized that my diagnosis was correct. My brain IS hyperactive. It always has been. At any given time I have at least 5 different things on my mind. I excel at multitasking because my brain can't focus on only one thing at once. However, while I excel at beginning projects - several at one time - I find it very hard to finish most projects because my brain starts to wander and I lose interest.
I was put on Adderall XR to help me deal with the ADHD. It was explained to me that there are certain things that help people with ADHD that have the opposite effect on a person without ADHD. Since there is no definitive medical test to diagnose this condition, a series of trials and errors involving medications usually take place, after the initial evaluation. Adderall XR is known to help an ADHD mind focus. It helps the ADHD mind clear any "brain fog" that it may be experiencing. People without ADHD often use Adderall illegally, as a way to make them stay awake. Staying awake isn't an effect it has on me. I don't feel wired when I take it. I feel calm and focused. Coffee is a similar "drug". Most people assume that drinking a lot of coffee will make someone wired and hyper. For people with ADHD, it has the opposite effect. Coffee helps my mind focus. It calms my mind down. It doesn't give me a wired, hyper feeling. It helps focus my brain instead. Basically, stimulants focus the ADHD brain, which is the opposite of what it typically does to everyone else.
Within a week of being on Adderall XR, my grades improved DRASTICALLY. In one particular class, we were graded on a weekly project on a scale of 1-10. Most students averaged 7 and 8 on this assignment, so when I was getting nothing but 7s, it didn't phase me because that was normal. However, a week of Adderall, and suddenly I was earning 10s on my weekly assignment - the highest grade I could get. My doctor told me that I wouldn't feel much different, but that people around me would notice a difference. It was the teacher who gave me that first 10 on an assignment, who pulled me aside one day and told me that he could tell that the medicine was working.
Adderall pulled me out of my average grade funk. I went from being a B and C student back to a straight A student. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this medicine worked for me.
It angers me that no one ever picked up on this before I got to college. Because of the fact that I wasn't a physically hyperactive child, I don't think people paid much attention to me. But the reality is that it's not always the physically hyperactive kids who have problems. Sometimes the quiet, well behaved ones are battling a condition that no one takes any notice to.
I agree with the people out there who say that American children are overdiagnosed with ADHD. We do need to stop looking at a child's behavior and diagnosing a serious disability by doing so. I truly believe that most out of control children CAN be "fixed" by having more discipline or a structured schedule. That being said though, I also firmly believe that some of these kids DO have ADHD (or other problems). We need to start looking at what this condition is and diagnosing it CORRECTLY. Overdiagnosis is causing people to not take it seriously and it IS serious.
For me, I was lucky. My grades were still average and I was able to get into college. But not everyone has that result. ADHD can be debilitating, especially if it goes ignored. I knew that something was wrong with me for a long time, but I never knew what it was until it was almost too late.
It's my wish that people stop telling people that ADHD doesn't exist. IT DOES EXIST. It's hurtful, demeaning and insulting to hear people, some of them "experts", tell me that my condition doesn't exist. I am living proof that it DOES exist. Once I had a diagnosis, I was able to get help. And that help made a huge difference in my life.
I heard a story from a friend recently about a 7 year old boy who was diagnosed with ADHD. His parents didn't believe the doctor because they fell into the "it doesn't really exist" mindset. But they put him on medicine as an "experiment". The result was that this boy's behavior, grades and overall life improved. But his parents still weren't convinced. They took him off of his medicine and he started declining again. He went to his mother - a 7 year old - and asked his mother to put him back on the medicine. When she asked him why, his response was "Because when I take my medicine, I can think. I can't think without my medicine." In his case, his mother listened to him and that simple plea from him changed her mind about ADHD being a real thing. Not everyone is so lucky though.
It's time to take away the stigma of this disability and speak the truth about it. Stop telling people that it doesn't exist. ADHD DOES EXIST. Learn more about it. Do some research before you go spouting off about something that you have no experience with. I'm the proof that proper diagnosis and proper treatment can be more beneficial than I ever imagined.
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