living with ADHD

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 6-years-old. To say it's misunderstood both by people who have ADHD and people who don't have it is an understatement.

What people need to understand about me, is that many people have ADHD but I'm not like the next person you know or meet with ADHD we are not all alike. We are all different in our ways because many people think those with ADHD all have similar symptoms and challenges, we don't often get the ability to understand and share the feelings with another, And the support we need.

ADHD is something I live with every day, hour, minute. It can destroy my life and because you don’t know me personally you may not even be aware of it. ADHD has caused me a great deal of being frustrating and annoyed it’s a horrible, & infuriating disorder to live with

It's like my mind is constantly going at 100MPH whereas yours would be going the average speed, I’m extra clumsy, I don’t think before I speak sometimes, sometimes I get emotional really easily and other days I don’t get emotional at all, some days I can be really productive and get stuff done and other days I don’t have the up and go to even move and I find things ten times more difficult than I did the day before.

one of the reasons ADHD is so misunderstood because it's anything but simple. Whenever someone brings up ADHD. It makes it seem like it's is just an issue of distraction. Wrong! For example, I can read 2-3 books a week, or sit and watch a film time and time again, or I can write for hours upon hours and I don't know many people with ADHD can do that. But for me taking clothes out of the dryer & folding them, or putting clothes away, or cleaning up, or doing tasks that need to be done asap that's like climbing Mount Everest

People with ADHD we don't need your sympathy; we need your empathy. We need you to understand that we are capable of so much but we just need you to understand what our limits and challenges are. We don't want you to see my limits/challenges as an excuse. They’re explanations!

for example, people will often say that people with ADHD tend to delay doing something. That is a total a misunderstand and confusion of what ADHD is about. Procrastination makes people think, people with ADHD are intentionally putting something off for various reasons. We don't want to be this way. For people with ADHD, the issue is often the difficulty of concentration and getting in the right mindset to start things. It is so challenging for me, in certain categories, like, keeping organised, also expressing my emotions is hard sometimes, ( even this was hard to write, but I felt like people need to know what ADHD is really like) The most simplest of things can be exhausting and feel impossible to begin/finish. It's the stuff that doesn't make sense to people who haven’t got ADHD

People with ADHD hide a lot of shame in and we hold it in because people don't understand our diagnosis. Because of this shame, we don't talk about ADHD generally. As we feel like a Burden or not good enough etc. We may talk about it with close family members or a GP but we don't talk about it with our friends. People rightly fear that they could be seen differently at college/work and fear we may or may not get assignments we deserve. This is a step-by-step process that will take a while...but it's so important because ADHD has such a big an impact on people being successful at work/ college or even getting a job or timekeeping with easy tasks you would find easy when to them it’s difficult, but we can do it, if we're allowed just a little bit more time and people have more patience and understanding with people with ADHD

Some people think ADHD is overdiagnosed... I don’t know if it is or it isn’t as I’m not a doctor, but I can tell you if it is, it's over-diagnosed in kids I know that much. (they just label naughty kids with ADHD nowadays and it’s not just being naughty, because for me, as I’ve gotten older I’ve grown up and gotten out of that naughty stage, it is more the concentration and expressing my emotions and getting things done for me. ) and in adults, It's underdiagnosed more. We know that if someone isn't diagnosed as a child, they're less likely to be diagnosed as an adult. Many people see ADHD (because of the hyperactivity component...which not all people with ADHD have) as a boy/man's disorder...which leads many women to not be diagnosed. Women are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.

At home ADHD can have a big impact on relationships, we can have a hard time staying organized and tidy. This can have an impact on relationships... What I have learned about ADHD is that it can be very destructive if you let little things slip. For example, I knew if I kept dropping the towel on the floor, and left my clothes in the bathroom after a shower, I wouldn't make my bed, or I wouldn't put my clothes away, or I wouldn’t take my plates and cups downstairs from the night before, and when my life starts to get overly messy and unorganised Then, that would lead me to get depressed, then that would lead to me to not eating, showering and then that would then bleed into college life, friendships, etc. I have had mixed success explaining my triggers to people. Some think I'm making excuses or they just don't understand why a simple thing like hanging a towel or making a bed or just cleaning up is generally a challenge for some with ADHD But I'm not going to stop explaining it

something could catch my eye on the tv, or I could see a text come in from a friend or I got asked to do something, I would tell them I was focused on work and they would often say "it'll just take a minute!" and what they didn't get if I gave them that minute, that there was a good chance I wouldn't be able to get back to work, or what I was previously doing. People would get annoyed and think I was being difficult. When in fact I wasn’t trying to be difficult at all. we have things that challenge us, things that may seem simple/silly to you, but they're things that can quite take over and destroy our lives if not addressed in the right way.

People with ADHD usually don't work with tough love; we work well with support. We need you to understand that we don't intend to upset you with what seem like failures to you. We don't mean to let you down. When you have ADHD it's like seeing what you want in a glass case you don't have access to. We want to accomplish so much; we just need the keys to do so.

What we need you to understand is ADHD is our daily/hourly burden. It is a complex disorder that we can work with but we need you to understand that we often know how best to work with it, you don't. We need you if you value our work and value us as friends, spouses, to learn from us what our challenges are. We have so much to offer you if you give us a chance.