ADHD: what is it? Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorder in which there are significant problems with attention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. People with ADHD have an excruciatingly hard time concentrating. It's not that they don't want to pay attention; it's that they almost can't.
I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until my junior year in high school, and I think it's a damn shame. On every report card and parent-teacher conference growing up, the teacher always said, "Grace is exceptionally bright, she just needs to pay attention and try harder." It broke my heart every time. I tried my absolute hardest, but I was never as good as the other kids in my class and I was always behind. I wanted nothing more than to succeed, but I never could. I graduated from high school with a GPA of 2.5 and it probably could've been a 3.5 if I would have paid attention in class.
It troubles me when people say the ADHD isn't real. Do you really think I want to live my life like this? I come from a very homeopathic family. I've tried numerous remedies and supplements with failure. I've even tried therapy. Have you ever had a therapist tell you there was nothing more he could do without medication? I would do anything to be able to focus without taking a blue tablet every five hours. I don't want to have to take Adderall for the rest of my life and I wish I could pay attention on my own, but I can't. As ridiculous as it sounds, I wouldn't be able to attend college if it wasn't for my medication. There is no way in hell that I would be able to pay attention in any of my classes on my own.
A lot of people ask me what it's like to actually have ADHD. To be honest it's almost like you're high. You're in a daze or a fog that you can't seem to get out of no matter how hard you try. Imagine that everyone is walking on two feet but you're stuck crawling. You know that you should be walking on two feet like everyone else, but you can't seem to do it no matter how hard you try. You don't know why you're like this, but it's been like this forever. It's all that you know. That's life everyday, how it's been for years. For doctors to say that it's not a true disorder is a lie. How can you say that the fog I've been living in is a lie and that everyone has it? Everyone did better than myself but they had the same attention problems as me?
I could understand this theory if we were talking about children. Children naturally are more energetic and have a short attention span. It could be very hard to identify ADHD in a child when you have no idea if this child is just simply acting like a child or actually has a problem. I'm not a child, though. I'm an adult who can't pay attention long enough to grasp anything while everyone else is fine. That is clearly a warning sign that something is wrong and it's not made up.
