There are no windows and my gaze rests on the orange door of my classroom. My foot moves up and down and my attention goes from one side to the other. My teacher is just a few steps from me, but in my head I only hear his voice as background noise. The focus of my attention changes from the PowerPoint presentation displayed at the front, to the pencil that just fell from my classmates desk; my mind then races to try and decode the random scribbles that are on my desk. The questions and comments of my classmates; daily conversation surrounds me and fills the room but my mind is filled with that and everything else going on around me.
It’s not that the lesson is boring, It’s about mental health and exercise; I’m very interested but I can’t maintain the focus needed. Appreciate I am for my teacher as she constantly makes an effort to participate by telling us interesting and entertaining stories.
Like a ball, my attention bounces from one place to another; I never seem to be able to focus in one specific thing. What is being discussed in class seems to be the last thing on my brains mind and I am trapped in the chaos surrounding me. This is one of the challenges any person who experiences ADHD and also studies, deals in their everyday life at school. This is one of the many challenges that anyone who struggles with ADHD can relate to, and studies have gone on to prove that attention deficit disorders are a serious issue that can impede growth if gone without treatment.
I grew up hearing my parents constantly telling me and repeating themselves simply to catch my attention. ‘Santi look twice before crossing the street’ , ‘did you clean up your messy room yet?’ ‘don’t do this’ and ‘don’t do that.’ Seems rather normal and like the dealing of any common parenting; normal things that parents tell their kids all the time, but in my case my parents really had to repeat things to get me to do or finish something that I started.
My childhood memories consist of constant psychiatric consultations, always in and out of therapy sessions. My mom, aware that I needed help with my impulsivity and constant struggle to focus did everything in her power to offer me the resources that I needed to succeed. I recall spending my recess, mornings, afternoons going to therapy, a routine that became second nature. Regardless, as I became a teenager, school started getting much more intense, challenging, and demanding and my constant struggle with ADHD only becomes more apparent and something I have to constantly work towards to ensure I stay on track.
No matter how long or difficult our assignments were, I’ve always needed double the time than the rest of my peers. Things as simple as reading test instructions take me at least five attempts to fully retain and comprehend the information. My parents eventually came to road blocks where they did not really know how else to help me; private tutors, therapy, simple things like double checking all my homework, things started to get rough when the school presented my parents the idea of me testing for ADHD. That day is when everything changed; I had to reevaluate myself, get to know me better and this newly introduced side of me that had made things so difficult for myself.
I found out I had ADHD, and along with those tests it was discovered that I also had difficulties with processing speed, visual memory and functional memory. The diagnosis changed my life for the better. After years feeling disadvantaged, I was able to get academic help and accommodations that I so desperately needed to ensure my success down the road.
I never hesitate to tell people who have been evaluated to know if they had learning difficulties, that taking that test was the best thing I could have ever done. ADHD does not define me, but it helps me understand who I am.
Learning disabilities can be tricky because there is no ‘before’ or ‘after’ that helps demarcate them. They are part of who you are. When I was in middle school I realized that perhaps I felt ‘different’, but since ‘different’ was my normal, I did not think it too much. I have been told that everyone experiences occasional symptoms ‘similar to ADHD’. But it is the frequency and severity of the symptoms that ADHD feels to me. Everyone can get distracted sometimes, but I have to constantly strive to stay focused. And it can be frustrating because I do not always achieve it.
ADHD have had a big impact through my whole life long before I was diagnosed, from following a conversation for a long time to small things such as never remember the combination of my locker or even more challenging, keeping it organized and being able to find what I look for in it. And he constantly borrowed pencils because he never brought one to class.I did not do great in middle school. But in high school, the difficulties in concentrating and paying attention to me surpassed me.
Once I finished High School I decided to keep working on my studies in the US. That is the biggest step I took in my life, and that this time I was going to be taking by myself. I am born and raised in Barcelona, Spain. At first I felt overwhelmed, not just by the idea of moving out from home, but doing it to another country. Once I crossed the Ocean and I was far from my loved ones and home it was not easy, I felt like over the years I was learning how to control and live with it, but it just felt like it got emphasised all at once. I was getting a lot of anxiety from all the responsibilities I had to embrace and all the pressure I was carrying on my shoulders. tools commodities.
It is not about idealizing the disorder or the people who suffer from it, because patients with ADHD suffer a negative impact on a daily basis as a result of the symptoms. It is more about opening your eyes and discovering the good things that can be presented and enhanced. or they have to impact only negatively on the lives of patients. In addition, as in many other aspects or conditions of life, a symptom can be converted into an opportunity to differentiate and highlight. Every human have their difficulties, and it is about helping them overcome and control their medical and emotional difficulties, to reduce the impact on their daily lives. It is a task that requires understanding, patience, perseverance, dedication and work, but it is really worthwhile when the results are observed. We as a society, have the obligation of understanding that each person experiencing ADHD or any other disability has individual personal and contextual characteristics and that this disabilities can also be presented in a lot of different ways, so that each case is unique, and you can not generalize and expect a unique behavior and response.
