Inside my brain, it goes zoom.
Jun. 24th, 2010 02:01 amIn the words of ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gchick, "I have never EVER seen such a perfect PERFECT look at how the inside of my brain sounds".
Okay, some backstory here: around the age of 10 or so, I was diagnosed with ADHD, commonly known as that thing that makes kids climb the walls and behave like utter shits. I was given Ritalin, and I took that for about four years, I think - although when my mum decided to take me off them because she was concerned about what she was reading in the papers about it, it was about six months before I even noticed I wasn't taking it anymore.
When I eventually did notice, I kind of assumed that I'd been undiagnosed and went on with life believing that I just had epic issues with concentration that I had to just deal with. In reality, I was never formally discharged from the CAMHS unit, but now that I'm an adult, the tricks I learnt as an unmedicated teenager are all I have left.
At university, I knitted my way through lectures and student union meetings because having something to do with my hands kept my brain better focused. I set alarms to remind me to do things like eat and sleep because otherwise I wouldn't get around to it. I went into rooms, repeating to myself over and over why I was going in there so I didn't forget. I still use a lot of these tricks now, because it often feels like my brain is going eleventy billion miles an hour and without them, I wouldn't be able to keep up.
That's the easiest way to describe it. I'm thinking of two or three things whilst trying to work on a fourth, and then it's 3am and it turns out I forgot to go to bed. It's a constant battle to stay focused long enough to be able to do anything, and it's not that I can't be bothered or that I'm lazy: it's the exact opposite: I'm trying my damned hardest just to keep on task, let alone do it right.
Ask me to do something, and if I'm busy, I'll say "sure, in a minute" because I know that if I drop what I'm doing, it'll never get finished... but of course you can bet that that thing you asked me to do? You'll have to ask me again in half an hour, or an hour, or a day, because I'll have forgotten it 30 seconds later.
Whenever I get up from a seat on a train or a bus, I stop and look around to make sure I wasn't playing with my phone and put it down somewhere. I have a mantra for leaving the house: "wallet, keys, phone, Oyster". Whenever I need more than that, I pack my bag the night before. Then I check it again the next morning to make sure I didn't take something out and forget to put it back.
It's not all bad, though. I'm less hyperactive than I was when I was younger, but I still have the ability to hyperfocus, and I work well under stress and in noisy environments because I've learnt to block out external distractions. I'm rarely bored, and when I read fiction, I feel like I'm transported to another world because there is nothing in my head but me and the storyline. It's been noted that people with ADHD are generally determined, imaginative individuals with a great sense of empathy and intuition, that they're original and creative and when they meet a wall, they bounce back quickly - and I'm glad for having those traits, even if it means I have to put up with...
oooh, a shiny!
gchick, "I have never EVER seen such a perfect PERFECT look at how the inside of my brain sounds".Okay, some backstory here: around the age of 10 or so, I was diagnosed with ADHD, commonly known as that thing that makes kids climb the walls and behave like utter shits. I was given Ritalin, and I took that for about four years, I think - although when my mum decided to take me off them because she was concerned about what she was reading in the papers about it, it was about six months before I even noticed I wasn't taking it anymore.
When I eventually did notice, I kind of assumed that I'd been undiagnosed and went on with life believing that I just had epic issues with concentration that I had to just deal with. In reality, I was never formally discharged from the CAMHS unit, but now that I'm an adult, the tricks I learnt as an unmedicated teenager are all I have left.
At university, I knitted my way through lectures and student union meetings because having something to do with my hands kept my brain better focused. I set alarms to remind me to do things like eat and sleep because otherwise I wouldn't get around to it. I went into rooms, repeating to myself over and over why I was going in there so I didn't forget. I still use a lot of these tricks now, because it often feels like my brain is going eleventy billion miles an hour and without them, I wouldn't be able to keep up.
That's the easiest way to describe it. I'm thinking of two or three things whilst trying to work on a fourth, and then it's 3am and it turns out I forgot to go to bed. It's a constant battle to stay focused long enough to be able to do anything, and it's not that I can't be bothered or that I'm lazy: it's the exact opposite: I'm trying my damned hardest just to keep on task, let alone do it right.
Ask me to do something, and if I'm busy, I'll say "sure, in a minute" because I know that if I drop what I'm doing, it'll never get finished... but of course you can bet that that thing you asked me to do? You'll have to ask me again in half an hour, or an hour, or a day, because I'll have forgotten it 30 seconds later.
Whenever I get up from a seat on a train or a bus, I stop and look around to make sure I wasn't playing with my phone and put it down somewhere. I have a mantra for leaving the house: "wallet, keys, phone, Oyster". Whenever I need more than that, I pack my bag the night before. Then I check it again the next morning to make sure I didn't take something out and forget to put it back.
It's not all bad, though. I'm less hyperactive than I was when I was younger, but I still have the ability to hyperfocus, and I work well under stress and in noisy environments because I've learnt to block out external distractions. I'm rarely bored, and when I read fiction, I feel like I'm transported to another world because there is nothing in my head but me and the storyline. It's been noted that people with ADHD are generally determined, imaginative individuals with a great sense of empathy and intuition, that they're original and creative and when they meet a wall, they bounce back quickly - and I'm glad for having those traits, even if it means I have to put up with...
oooh, a shiny!
