In April of 2015, I walked into Meadowbrook neurology center at St. Mary’s hospital to receive a diagnosis after taking a grueling 5 hour test on my mental capabilities. My diagnosis was a learning disability in math as well as Attention Deficit Disorder, more commonly referred to as ADD (obviously it really helped me make the honor roll at school). At the time I had no idea what ADD was, so I did what any person with a new diagnosis would do: I googled it. I learned that ADD is so much more than a weird compulsion to point out the tiny animals passing by; it is a condition that causes both hyper focus and inattentiveness (depending on how much a person is interested in a certain task).

It may sound harmless, but ADD can cause some serious damage to a person’s life. Guys are more likely to have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (so they are hyperactive and inattentive) and girls are more likely to have ADD (so they are more inattentive). (Way to point out stereotypes). Because a hyperactive boy is a lot easier to spot than an inattentive girl, girls usually don’t receive a diagnosis until they are adults. Growing up with an undiagnosed mental disorder, specifically ADD, leads a person to have a very low self-esteem because they don’t have a reason why they can’t do the same things as a neuro-typical can (a person with no diagnosed mental disorder).

If you were to look up the symptoms of ADD, you would see a very long list of things a person with the disorder can’t do. It’s important to remember that ADD is manifested differently in each person who has it and also that it is a spectrum disorder (this means that there are various severities of it ranging from borderline ADD to severe ADD). The symptoms that are specific to me are that I am very forgetful, I don’t have a concept of time, and things are either “now or not now.” This is also why a lot of people with ADD don’t wear watches. Maybe that’s why I’m always late to things.  I tend to underestimate how long things will take, I need to constantly be visually or mentally stimulated, I have a really hard time with deadlines, and I can’t pay attention to things that I’m not interested in. As you can imagine, ADD really conflicts with my schoolwork as a Cairn student; working on an assignment that I’m not interested in can be nearly impossible and make me feel like I’m trying to roll a thousand pound boulder up a hill.

When I first received my diagnosis, I was thrilled to have it finally confirmed that I’m not lazy or stupid (although my brother has repeatedly been telling me the latter). Growing up, I bought into the lies that society typically tells people with ADD. People like me are told that we won’t do well in school because we are easily distracted and can’t hand things in on time; we are told that we will develop anxiety because we know that we are different from other people and that the things that make us different are a bad thing. We are also told that we can’t have good relationships with people because we don’t seem to care about people, and lastly, we are constantly told (in one way or another) that even our best will never be good enough (thank you, society for giving me that warm and fuzzy feeling). When you are constantly told something, you start believing it, no matter what the actual truth is. ADD doesn’t have to be a bad thing. People with ADD are right-brain dominate: this means that we are very creative and can “think out of the box.”

Studies have shown that a lot of famous athletes have ADHD. The hyperactivity gives them the energy and the hyper focus that comes with ADD/ADHD and gives them the ability to focus on their sport. Michael Phelps is an example of this. And a lot of famous artists (in all senses of the word) and business people have ADD– it allows them to be inventive and to be more impulsive than others. The Wright Brothers were thought to have ADD, and were called crazy for thinking they could make their machine fly.

Many advocates for ADD, including myself, believe that the term “Attention Deficit Disorder” is very unfair. I do not have an attention problem; I merely have a hard time paying attention to something that does not interest me. When I’m not interested in something, I shift my attention to something that does.

Society sees ADD as a problem that needs to be fixed and professionals try to repress ADD with medicine. Culture tries to make people with ADD like everyone else and stresses the need to pay attention to their surroundings, no matter how boring. Taking medication for school is a very controversial subject and is often debated. Many believe that there are various kinds of learning types (this is the idea of multiple intelligences) and that’s all ADD is: another learning type. If that be the case, the environment of the school and the teaching strategies should be the ones to be modified, not the individual.

I am still learning my strengths and limitations with ADD and how to manage my diagnosis, but I have found a few things that work for me. To keep track of time, I use music (it’s a lot less boring than looking at a clock). I know that the average song is about 3 minutes; it is a very clear sign to me that time is passing and tells me approximately how much time has passed. If I am in a position where I can’t use music, I use analogue clocks, because ADD people tend to prefer them over digital clocks. (Analogue clocks allow you to actually see time passing.)

I have also learned to schedule everything I have to do. It’s very important for a person with ADD to stick to a schedule or things will never get done. For schoolwork, I recently found out a new method called the Pomodoro Technique. Basically, you set a timer for 25 minutes and during that time you do what needs to get done. Make sure to keep a notepad nearby to write down any thoughts that will distract you, and by writing it down, you let the thought go (you’d be surprised by some of the weird thoughts that go through your mind). When the timer goes off, set it again for 5 minutes and let yourself do one of the things you wrote down or think about something you wrote down. After following this pattern 4 times, increase the break time to 15 minutes.

The ADD mind is constantly jumping from one thing to another, so constant breaks are imperative. I also take a form of Adderall to help with the distractibility, but medication always works better alongside a treatment plan. With the combination of the two I can make it seem like I have my life together. At its worst, ADD can make life really hard to deal with; it can take a long time to find which method works best for you. But at its best, ADD can give you the freedom to change the world, as it has done with countless other dreamers.

It is my goal in life to try to destigmatize ADD as much as possible and educate the people around me about ADD. I want neuro-typicals to stop throwing around the term ADD. I hate when people say things like “I’m so ADD” just because they were momentarily distracted by something. I also really hate all the ADD related humor and how society typically sees it as a funny character trait. This is something that affects my everyday life and I want people to understand the complexity of ADD and to be more sensitive to it.

Mental health in general is nothing to quickly dismiss. It is my belief both as a person with ADD and as a psychology major that we should make it easier for people to seek help for any mental concern. A person with mental health issues should not feel ashamed. The destigmatization of ADD starts with educating the public.