From what I can remember, I have always struggled to cope with my ADHD and as a result it has proven to be a burden in my life. When I first came to my new high school in the tenth grade, I found myself struggling to control my behavior and manage my ADHD, which throughout my life has even given me several close calls with law enforcement. At the time, I wanted to go to the U.S. Military Academy (U.S.M.A.), so I decided to physically condition myself and keep my mind occupied in order to stay out of trouble. To achieve these goals, I decided to run cross country. I joined my school’s cross country team in the summer. At the beginning we performed pre-season workouts. The training was tough, but my proud personality and the very thought of what I had to gain kept me motivated and helped me push through the pain. Every time I felt like giving up or quitting, I would say to myself, “This pain is only temporary; remember that the reward will be permanent, and it will be worth the pain that I endure today.” I was able to push through the …show more content…
Cross Country would leave me tired and low on energy at the end of each day, wearing me out and leaving me in a non-hyperactive state of mind. The season eventually came to an end, but I still continued to run during the off-season, although not as often as I did during the official season. Eventually this lack of constant training took a toll on my conditioning and with the cold weather rolling in, I finally stopped running altogether. As a result, my health worsened; my cholesterol level rose and I suddenly found myself struggling to maintain control of my ADHD again. The spring came, and I found myself running again, hoping to finally make varsity in the fall. I tried to train as hard as I could, but I simply couldn’t make any progress in that short amount of
Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder, otherwise known as ADHD, is the most common psychiatric condition effecting 9.5% of school-aged children in the United States (intuniv, 2013). If the disorder goes untreated, it will cause more long-term side effects and difficulties for the individual as an adult. Adults who have this condition face several adversities in every day life, such as impulsive behavior, low self-esteem and poor work performance. People are not aware of the complications that come with ADHD in adults. Not knowing the symptoms of the disease can cause people to not be sympathetic when they are interacting with someone with disorder.
In many ways, I partially subscribe to the world-view that my parents hold. As such, until recently, I've been skeptical of my brother's diagnosis. In particular, at the time, it seemed to me that distractibility was something that I too suffered from. I didn't enjoy forcing myself to concentrate, but I did it because I knew that I had to. In addition, my brother seemed perfectly capable of concentrating when he was playing soccer, watching the Discovery channel or playing video games. In my mind, his problems appeared to be that he was spoiled and didn't like being told what to do. In addition, I think that ADHD gave everyone in my family the excuse that they needed.
One of the most controversial parts of ADD/ADHD is how it is diagnosed, for one and as stated earlier there is no physical tests to confirm you have the disorder. Secondly, there is no established single cause and the existing method of assessment is not standardized meaning one psychiatrist may use a written test while others may depend on what parents and teachers say, and what one psychiatrist classify as ADHD another may not. Thirdly there are other problems, which can cause behavioral concerns such as dyslexia, hearing problems, family problems, depression and anxiety (Rutherfor...
My daughter will graduate from school in 2016. She benefited from all the actions implemented during her growing up and except for occasional overwhelm; she is able to manage her ADHD well. With my nursing background and my own extensive knowledge of ADHD I have continued working in Colombia with ADHD adults, children, their parents and professionals in education while my own children advance their education. I give conferences to parents, teachers and any person interested in learning about ADHD. As for me, I obtained my certification as an ADHD consultant from AIHCP in 2013 and currently I am ADHD coach-in-training at the IACTCenter. I will be finishing my certification on March 2016 and start working toward the International Coach Federation Certification. It has been a long way as you can see. For the last 20 years learning and implementing my Knowledge. Now I can offer my ADHD coaching services based on science, knowledge and personal experience to help you discovering what works for you or your love one to manage ADHD as I have done with myself, my children and my extended ADHD
Have you ever had a day when you feel like you were wired backwards? Do you ever feel like you are charged with so much energy that you will go mad if you don’t get it out? Do you find yourself reading a question and then rereading just to soak it in? For someone living with ADHD these are daily struggles. There are thousands of people who must carry this label and new diagnoses every day. Both children and adults are stricken by this disorder. Giving them the label causes greater problems than the disorder itself. Individuals with the label of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder experience increased peer related issues, have a higher documented rate of injuries inflicted, and are known as defiant and disobedient due to the implied symptoms of this disorder.
Frank Coppola once said “ I prefer to distinguish ADHD as an attention abundance disorder. Everything is just so interesting...remarkably at the same time” and this is completely true. Having ADHD is rough, especially as a younger kid. A barrier that I faced was trying to get through having ADHD; commitment and determination guided my path and I was able to preserve just like Jackie Robinson.
Joining the High School Cross Country team was a huge risk for me because I am quite shy and didn’t have friends on the team. I was the fastest girl on the team, but very slow in comparison to other schools. I was disappointed, and although I gave it a good effort, I knew that I could try much harder. I didn’t quit that year or the next because I knew that people expected me to keep running and I hate giving up, but there were many times when I wanted to quit. However, I decided that if I was going to keep running, I might as well give it more than just a good effort, I would give it my best effort and see if I could shave five minutes off of my 5k time. I started to work much harder and learned to persevere when it was hard and I wanted to
Physical activity has been linked to lower obesity, longer life, lower risk of heart disease, lower cholesterol, and reduced risk of stroke. More importantly for ADHD patients, exercise and physical activity has been proven to cause the brain to release more dopamine. As stated above, increased dopamine is effective in treating ADHD. Aside from the increase in dopamine production, certain exercises require the whole brain to be focused on multiple issues. These activities include running, biking, and other aerobic movements. (Stewart 1). There are many professional athletes with ADHD. Many of these athletes began their training to help manage the condition, such as olympic athletes Michael Phelps and Justin Gatlin. It is estimated that 10% of athletes have ADHD/ADD, double the amount that the general population has. Sports can turn ADHD from a hindrance to an advantage. Mike Stabeno, author of The AD/HD Affected Athlete, says that “While some activities require intense concentration, that’s not the case with athletics. Everything happens instantaneously. You’re in there for 10 minutes, you’ve got five people trying to take your head off, three referees, four teammates. You need to take everything that’s going on all at once. That’s how people with ADD go through life. So it makes sense that they thrive on the field”. (Dutton 1). Sports also give the bodies of ADHD affected persons a
In 5th grade I was diagnosed with with ADHD and auditory processing. For years I struggled in school. My parents tried everything to fix this problem, from tutors to bribing me to do my homework. In 6th grade it became a lot more difficult, and teachers seemed to have just given up on me. I had to get three tutors, five days a week just to keep up. One day my dad came home from work and started talking about a school he heard about, that school was Shelton. Shelton specializes in teaching kids with learning disabilities how to control there ADHD, while also encourage it. I enrolled in 7th grade. Immediately I was welcomed and teachers were eager to help me. I went from having C's and D's to straight A's because I didnt want to let them down.
I found out I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in 5th grade. I could not focus on what I was told to do and would forget as soon as I was asked or just get sidetracked altogether. Living with ADHD can be really frustrating for me at times. Although I take medicine itself use to cause problems for me when I was just starting and still creates problems now. For example, the medicine has a way of making me feel sad sometimes, as well as I would always lose my appetite and would refuse to eat during the time my medicine was in effect. Eating while on my medicine for ADHD was challenging for me because even though the medicine causes me to lose my appetite once the pill wore off. I found myself feeling sick from not eating enough food. So throughout the years, I have learned how to push the thought of my lost appetite and, pushing myself to eat even if I was not hungry just to help me not get sick or feel dizzy.
Growing up, I always tried to be one of the boys. I wanted to play any sport possible. I wasn’t scared to play tackle football in the backyard with the neighbor boys, I ran around right alongside them. My parents never really helped me pursue any sports, and being just a kid and not able to drive, I couldn’t sign myself up for anything. I began running cross country in seventh grade. It was really my first chance to get myself involved in something. I had never even heard of cross country before, until a book I read involved the main character being involved in the sport. When I began running, I never imagined that I’d still be running my senior year. Not only did I think I’d still be running, I never even considered the idea of running varsity. I believe that my six years of running has proven, at the very least, my commitment to things
Living with ADHD is difficult but there are a few things you can do to make your life easier. The first thing you should do if you have ADHD is make a schedule. Make this schedule your daily routine and keep it consistent from when you wake up till you go to bed. Keep the schedule
Growing up I always knew that there was always something I had that made me different than to those in my grade. Different in other aspects, such as the way I think and the way I am in school, in terms of attentiveness and learning. It increasingly got difficult as the years went on, this was not just increasing laziness as my family and I had presumed it to be, as even when I had attempted to try and improve my grades in school, with all the extra help and all the studying that I could do it just was not enough. It was something wrong with me, I could not concentrate and keep things in my mind, I had always been very good with memorizing things, I always had an extraordinary memory, and then it happened, a day that changed my life forever,
IF you happen to glance at my application, you can see that I am your average high school student, achieving exemplary grades, participating in clubs, top ten percentile of my class and all of those inspiring attributes/achievements. However, if you scan the inside of my medicine cabinet, you’ll find miscellaneous orange bottles with prescriptions written to me, Erin Michelle Garcia. Adderall, Dexedrine, Ritalin, Concerta. People who see kids with ADHD assume it is a phase of their youth. They assume that these kids are just troubled children, that they’ll grow out of it eventually. For me, ADHD is not just a phase, or a temper tantrum, or hormones, it is a burden that I will live with for the rest of my life.
The summer after sophomore and junior year, I worked at Aim High teaching math, but I feel like I did so much more. I worked one-on-one with a student named Deshawn who has ADHD and has difficulty focusing in class. What I learned through working with him is he wanted someone to care and pay attention to him. I developed a behavior plan for him where he would get prizes and we worked away from the larger class. Deshawn is one of the most intelligent kids I have ever met. Through working with him I know I want to fight for kids who need more attention and are struggling to find that in public education school systems. I remember on one of the last days of program he said to me, "You are like a sister to me because you always help me " and I