I first got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 15 years old. The idea that my brain was different from everyone else’s didn’t make sense to me. Put yourself in my shoes. Imagine being a freshman in high school and your parents and teachers are telling you that something is wrong with your brain. It was scary and trust me when I say that I never asked for this.

I will never forget the first time I took vyvanse. I remember going to school and not wanting to talk to any of my friends, but I didn’t understand why. People assumed that I was just being rude, but I couldn’t help it and I didn’t understand it enough to explain it. The way that this medicine was controlling my body was terrifying. The longer I took this medication, the more it started to make sense. Eventually, I accepted the fact that my brain was different and there was nothing I could do about it. The way the medicine controlled me never changed, but I learned to cope with the way it made me feel.

I'm sure you have all heard the argument that ADHD isn’t real. (If I had a dollar for every time I was told that "it was all in my head") The sad truth is that a lot of people make assumptions about individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder without being fully educated on what this disorder actually is. Other people simply don’t understand what its like to have ADHD. So, let me try to explain.

A normal persons brain is like a hallway of doors, and each of those doors are in charge of letting in and blocking out certain information. One “door” might be in charge of listening to what your teacher is saying in class, while another is in charge of hearing the noise of someone tapping their foot, and another is in charge of seeing the cars drive by outside of the window. In a normal brain, when someone doesn’t want to hear or see a certain thing, the “door” for that thing will close, and their brain will be able to ignore it. That person’s brain will stop hearing the clock ticking, and it will stop paying attention to the cars driving by. In contrast, the brain of someone that has ADHD cant control what information goes in and out. Its as if all of the doors are always open and you are always hearing and seeing everything around you. People with ADHD struggle to shut out things like a clock ticking, when a normal brain would ignore that information out after a few minutes.

Sounds a little annoying right?

Well, this is what is going on in my head all the time. My brain makes focusing on one thing incredibly difficult, but not impossible.

That leads me to the solution for this problem, vyvanse. Some people that don’t have adhd will try to get their hands on vyvanse in order to study for a big test, or to get a lot of work done. Its common that these people enjoy the feeling they get when they take this medication, and its common for me to hear that they are jealous that I get to take it every day. But, i don’t GET to take Vyvanse every day. I HAVE to take it every day. Taking medication for ADHD makes it easier for me to focus, but if it were up to me, I wouldn’t take this medicine at all, and let me tell you why.

The “rush” that you get when you take vyvanse is nothing like the feeling I get when I’m on it. Having adhd is like having 20 tv’s on at one time, and taking medication is like finally being able to turn 19 of those off. Anything other than what I’m doing becomes invisible to me. I walk to class and pass 20 of my friends without noticing them. My brain doesn't even give me the opportunity to say hi. Having casual conversation with people requires effort when im medicated. My personality can even sometimes come off as rude because of the antisocial persona I give off when I take it. I also never want to eat. Its not that I’m not hungry, because i am, and those feelings don’t go away. I just forget about them, and food seems unnecessary to me until late in the day when my stomach stings from hunger pains.

Its no walk in the park, and while you might enjoy taking it for a day or two, imagine if your whole life felt controlled by a little, blue pill.

I didn’t write this article to make people feel pity for individuals with ADHD. I wrote this to explain once and for all what it is like to live with a brain like mine. I wrote this to explain to the world why people with ADHD sometimes act the way they do. Why it sometimes might seem like we’re ignoring you, or that we forget everything you say. I wanted to share with the world why the attention deficit disorder population can’t just “pay attention” or “sit still”. We notice more things at one moment then you might in an entire hour, and it makes focusing on one thing difficult, but not impossible.

My brain makes life harder for me, but it also makes me who I am. The way I see it, having ADHD is a blessing in disguise. I don’t always enjoy the way my brain processes information, but I wouldn’t be the same without ADHD. I wouldn’t be as energetic, I wouldn’t be as creative, and i wouldn’t notice half the things I notice. It took a few years, but i now accept that the way my brain works is different, but special, and i wouldn’t have it any other way.