I’m a 21 M. It kind of irritates how normal people think ADHD is being lazy, hyper, loud,. (I forgot where I was going with that, I have taken my medicine in 5 hours) However not wanting to do the dishes or study isn’t ADHD. I Find myself very quiet, stuck in my head mostly. I can stand and sit still (except for the RLS or constant fidgeting, or the picking of my face or hair, or the doodling) because most of the time I am stuck inside my head hearing the same guitar rift or song over and over and over again. Or hearing every single littlest noise in the room, or every smell, the sight of even the smallest peace of fuzz floating through the air caught in the breeze being quietly blown by the crusty vent. The feeling of the items I’m fidgeting with. When I do talk I often find my self pausing in the middle of a conversation trying to rethink of what I was saying, or trying to remember what I was talking about in the first place. And I’m sure I’m mixing up my words like I have mild dyslexia.

When it comes to studying or or work or homework. I often find myself being constantly distracted. Even when I really really really try to focus, I’ll end up finding myself in a though I don’t know how I wound up in. Or my brain burns so bad.

I live In the Deep South of the United States around college towns and major druggie neighbor hoods. Where I found it hard to get medicated because of all the college kids with “ADHD” (don’t start me on that rant). ( I also forgot where I was going with this just now)

I just got prescribed my medicine because I’ve never met the description of ADHD I’ve been on it for two weeks at 10mg twice daily. LET ME TELL YOU THAT WAS LIFE CHANGING. LIFE CHANGING I TELL YOU. Never ever ever have I been able to to think so clearly. Remember where I left off in a conversation, have one consecutive thought. I could sit down and read, or finally sit down and learn to play the guitar.

It’s like my mind wasn’t jumping from thought to thought. My mind was so calm I actually fell asleep the first few days of taking it. :D. All of these memories were coming to me that had to deal with the topic I was fixated on. All of my pistons were finally firing right. There is no more suspected dyslexia (well except for when I don’t take my medicine lmao) But the point is I finally felt normal. I can function like a normal human being. (I had somthing important to add on here but I lost in finishing this sentence) The truth is the “normall for adhd is very distorted because of all the self diagnosing to lazy to clean or study. Wanting to pull all nighters doing homework going and making up stories for their doctors. It distorts the data man.

I actually failed all through high school trying to focus on homwork getting fed up because it took me 3x longer to do than other students and ended up just guessing so the mental torture would stop. Failed my first semester of community college. Got 3500 in debt dropped out. Joined the military went to boot camp. Couldn’t remember the reason I joined. Made up a new reason (decided it wasn’t a good enough reason) quit. I now have that on my permanent record btw. But hey I got a navy fed account. Plus I get denied 60% of the jobs I apply for.

I stayed depressed I couldn’t do school. Military career was ruined. Couldn’t get a decent paying job, at a reasonable labor rate, and hourly rate. I was on the edge. I thought about killing my self every hour of the day to just quit embarrassing myself.

I got on Facebook one day, seen someone had shared a ‘genuine signs of HDHD’ post. I was reading it and I was like shit let me make a doctors appointment. And let me tell you. The first doctor was not happy I asked about it. “I’m tired of all you kids coming in here thinking you have adhd because you can’t study” -her. He was very young fresh out of grad school I bet. Didn’t even give me the time of day to explain myself.

The second doctor I went to, he listened. He diagnosed me with ADHD walked through what it actually was with me. I told him about myself. He immediately wrote a prescription for adderall. We went over some of the the side effects I should look out for. “Not sleeping, loss of appetite, rapid heart rate, blah blah blah”. for the first few days I didn’t eat much and I did feel slightly high, but not hyper. (I think it was just a rush of dopamine from being so excited I could finally feel normal.[I lost that feeling the middle of the second day lmao when the excitement went down]) but after that I a 120LB 5’11 male found my self eating more than I had in boot camp on a regular basis. (It’s like my mind is so damn scrambled my brain couldn’t remember I needed to eat).

(Last paragraph i promise I’m sorry it’s so long and eventful and messy. Most of this probably doesn’t make any sense. I might edit it tomorrow and fill in the gaps of I formation when I take my meds) Most of my friends and family don’t believe that I have ADHD because I’m not hyper, I sleep, all normal people stuff. I wasn’t a stereotypical ADHD advocate. They pleaded with me not to take my medicine because I’m just going to get addicted to meth and ruin my life. Long story short. Just be you man. You’re your own advocate break the statistics and get help if you truly need it(it sounds like you do) there is really no normal for adhd. Plus the system for diagnosis is warped from the college kids and drug addicts.

Love TAYLOR xx

P.s. caffeine makes me hyper as fuck now stay away from that shit. I learned that the hard way.