Depending on who you are, you’re likely in one of two camps: You either buy into this thing we call ADHD, or you think it’s a truck load of Tagro. I frequently talk to people who are in the latter party. Many times when you talk with these people, you often find yourself asking if you accidentally became involved in a political or religious debate. What just happened?! Tons of passion, lots of “back in my day,” and “well I’m not giving my kid drugs.” And it goes on.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health and numerous scientific studies, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is as real as anxiety or depression. The NIMH recognizes ADHD as “one of the most common childhood disorders [which] can continue through adolescence and adulthood.” Researchers have even shown that some children with ADHD “have thinner brain tissue in the areas of the brain associated with attention.”

For more detailed information (and less informal commentary from me) check out their website.

Come on! Keep up!

For those of us with ADHD, it’s really not ever a question of reality. It’s just life. We do run at a different pace from most other people, and it’s frustrating when others can’t keep up. We’re always interested in what’s happening next. We’re constantly impatient! That’s why we speed, run everywhere, and interrupt everyone. I’ve been apologizing for interrupting others for a long time. For a while I just blamed my family culture, because at our house if you never interrupted, you may not have had the chance to speak.

Adults with ADHD might not even know they have it though, because it’s hard to know what’s going on. Since these symptoms occur on a spectrum, you might be experiencing some symptoms and not others, like hyperactivity, which is primarily a childhood manifestation, and discount ADHD all together or blame it on other environmental factors.

What’s Wrong With You? What’s Wrong With Me?

It’s likely that if you live with someone with ADHD, you probably don’t know what to do with them either. You might think they are lazy, distracted by stupid stuff, and don’t really know what they want to do with their life. You might also think they were never taught to have manners.

I didn’t know about my own ADHD until adulthood. I always blamed my lack of concentration on stress or a lack of sleep. As a kid, I always compared myself to my peers who could get their assignments done by the due date or even get to class on time. I always felt stupid!

Life can be difficult for everyone, but for ADHD’ers there are specific challenges that are common for us. Most profoundly, school is a nightmare! We have to sit in one place and make believe that we are attending to the one subject being taught. Yeah right! In business, meetings are often difficult, unless we can talk, doodle, or move around. Walking meetings? Yes, please. Every time! Writing literally hurts sometimes, especially when you have a dozen ideas, and a mental list that looks like a flock of monarch butterflies in flight.

Life In The Fast Lane

Life goals are particularly hard in the fast lane of ADHD. Probably because so much of the world is so crazy awesome and amazing, it’s almost impossible to focus on one goal at a time. I have a list of future hobbies about a mile long, And with the internet and having information so readily available, I don’t see it ever getting shorter. YouTube is God’s gift to ADHD! You can literally go from one moment of amazingness to the next. The problem is, the next thing you know it’s three or four in the morning and you have to get up in three hours to give a presentation that you may or may not have prepared for. That’s OK. You’ll wing it! Right!? It was worth it, because you now know exactly how to build an electric car and how long a bee will live and how much honey it contributes to the hive. You really should have studied archeology in college, because you could really see yourself toting a putty knife and hand brush, buried up to your knees in ancient mayan artifacts, unearthing the next apocalypse date. I’ve got to get one of these kits!

People Don’t Get Me

When I try to explain what this is like to people (who are not ADHD’ers) they laugh, because it just seems ludicrous, as they see it, that someone would not be able to control or focus their mind. For me, and many others like me, we can’t get enough! We don’t see it as a lack of control; rather it’s just the way we move through life.

But there are things you can do to improve your ADHD symptoms, whether it’s therapy, medication, both, or just being diagnosed. Simply being aware of what is going on with me has changed my life and how I see myself. Any or all of these interventions can greatly improve the quality of life for someone with ADHD and for those who love them.

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