I'm not dumb... I have ADHD

Many of my closest friends & family members, not even my mom, I think knows that I’ve struggled with ADHD since I was a child.

Prior to our crazy SkyDiving experience for our anniversary, I actually opened up to my girlfriend about what I was going through, & it was honestly such a heavy weight off my shoulders just to talk about it, because for the majority of my life, I always felt like something was wrong with me.

I always struggled with focusing or concentrating.

I always had to be doing 2 or 3 things at once.

Maybe this was why it was hard for me to comprehend information, or why I had such a short attention span when it comes to certain things.

IDK. I don’t know why I sometimes have these impulsive behaviors that I can’t control.

Looking back on my time in school, from kindergarten to 12th grade, I can say I had a pretty good experience.

I never got bullied, I was never usually an outcast… I listened to my teachers, I usually always TRIED to my hardest, but there were times where I would get so frustrated mainly because I just could not concentrate or comprehend many things I was learning.

As someone who’s considered a smart kid, paying attention & staying focused was something I struggled with daily.

Or could it be my selective learning. I don’t know… it’s confusing when you don’t really understand why you can’t control how you want to think.

I really feel like I memorized my entire way through school because I realized I lacked basic comprehension skills… & it honestly really made it 100x tougher for me, but since I didn’t understand why, I just figured I had to work even harder.

I would compare myself to my classmates, my friends… they were just like me, but why were they able to consume information & knowledge & be able to relay their message a lot better than I could…

I always thought it was odd that I just was not capable because I just really had a hard time understanding things.

At times, I did feel dumb, I did feel less intelligent than many of my peers.

But they didn’t know that.

Reading an book in english class or skimming through a large history textbook was my kryptonite…

I’m sure many of you listening to this could relate, but even after just reading 2 sentences, my mind would just start wandering off, thinking about

Even if you put me in a quiet, empty room…

There were NO external distractions, yet my mind always created internal distractions for itself… if that makers sense.

I was easily overwhelmed, often spaced off in space. My brain just did not want to cooperate.

Trying to get my brain to focus on something I was not excited about was impossible.

Or while I was doing one thing, I would always feel the need to procrastinate & do multiple things at once.

And as organized as I am, my mind always felt disorganized & cluttered.

Random fact... I have an experience with note pad paper.

All while starting my first online business, there were so many things I had to learn & implement & it was so much on my plate.

One way of getting organized was of course to write down a check list, or writing notes…

I literally had trouble organizing my list…

My writing always had to change, the format, it had to be a certain way, if not i had to start over.

Every time I wrote something down that seemed “ugly” I would completely trash it instead of just crossing it out.

This was one of my constant battles… with fricken note pad paper. & still struggle with it till this day.

I’ve also had 6 planners in less than 3 years.

It was a constant battle with disorganization that was persistent & keeps catching up to me.

Anxiety is secondary to ADHD because their ADHD makes them feel incompetent & so you start to have performance anxiety, social anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, which keeps adding on to all the other anxiety symptoms

So we have to figure out how, & why, & what we can do about it.

"ADHD is like your brain keeps switching between 30 different channels & someone else has the remote." Brett Thornhill

Most of the time, I want to focus, I just can’t.

The most recent memory I had of chronic ADHD is when I used to network with people.

I would be talking to someone or just telling them a story & all of a sudden, start talking about a whole different topic mid sentence… I would slur

So guys, learn about your ADHD, learn about your symptoms. learn about your brain.

Implement different strategies that have worked for other people.

Have you dealt with ADHD throughout your life?

What was your experience like?