Living with ADHD : My experience

ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is a disorder that is getting more and more diagnosed these days. In fact, there has been a 53% rise in the past decade in people getting diagnosed with ADHD/ADD. I actually am one of these people. I was diagnosed in 2011, quickly after I moved to Canada. In France, the country I was born in, this disorder isn’t even recognized, the best solution you can get is Ritalin which is for extreme cases of hyperactivity disorder, which, even though it’s included in the initials ADHD, has actually nothing to do with the kind of behavior characteristic of people suffering from ADHD.

Back to the subject at hand, when I was diagnosed, it wasn’t the first time I showed symptoms of this disorder. I obviously didn’t start having symptoms when I was 11 after 10 years of smooth sailing. In fact, the problems started at the same time I started school when I was 3 years old. Like any 3 year old kid my attention was limited, but for me it wasn’t just limited, it was just not there at all. As soon as a teacher started teaching stuff, she lost me in the following seconds. At that age, you don’t care one bit what people think of you or what the teacher is gonna do if you misbehave, at least I know I didn’t. There was one time I even picked up my desk and turned it around, to signify that I’d rather look at the wall than listen, which to be fair, was a clever and ballsy move from 3 year old me and I’m still proud of that one to this day. Long story short, that’s when the problems started. If I had to describe ADHD/ADD in one sentence, it would be the following : when you have ADHD, it's like having a brain that is constantly telling you "That sucks ! Let's do something fun !" or "Don't you have anything better to do or to think about than this ?".

My parents were being told all the time about how I was a problem at school and how they needed to see a psychologist for me, but since ADHD wasn’t even a thing in France, no doctor or expert could see anything wrong with me. After trying for a few years and constantly being told the same thing by doctors, my parents understandably gave up on this never ending loop and focused on helping me get through each year without too many problems.

Thankfully, my attitude problem ended pretty quick because I faced far more authoritative teachers, and I was not stupid enough to pick a fight I will 100% lose. This attitude was probably the result of the frustration from not be able to follow anything of what was going on in the class if I had to give a theory. But still, I was able to use my smarts to compensate for my lack of learning skills, and do the bare minimum every year.

There was one year though when I was 9, where I had amazing and fun teachers that made it easy for me to follow the course and I had insanely good grades, pretty much acing every test from start to finish. Which made me realize that when it’s fun, I all of a sudden have no ADHD anymore, it was one of the first stress-free years of my life since I started school. Unfortunately, that quickly was put to an end when I started the next school year, and it was back to struggling to keep my head above water again.

When I got diagnosed, I was prescribed a medication called Vyvanse. This thing made me laser-focused but had all sorts of side effects that made me stop taking it, until I retook it again after I was drowning the first semester of the school year. After that I completely aced the rest of the year and the years after that until I reached the university level, a place where it’s almost impossible to ace every test. I stopped taking the medication again 2 months before getting my diploma and I almost crashed face-first into the ground right before the finish line, but not without luck I managed to make it through.

The side effects that I was feeling from Vyvanse were dry mouth (I had to take like 3 gums a day or else my breath smelled like ass) and lack of hunger. It also made me feel like talking to people was an absolute pain. The dilemma was : taking the medication and being a functional member of society or not taking it but being yourself all day and possibly never finding a decent paying job as well as probably never being able to get any kind of decent diploma.

I think this is the dilemma for anyone that suffers from ADHD/ADD. It still messes up my head to this day. This disorder is very complex and as long as there isn’t any real treatment for it, more and more people will suffer, because the system is not made for people like us.

If anyone is going through it and would like to know more about my experience and how I can stay productive, feel free to contact me by mail, and I will also release a new article about that in the following weeks. I'm also very curious to hear your experiences, whether it is with ADHD/ADD or with any other learning deficit. Thanks for reading.