'I wonder how different my college experience would have been if I had been diagnosed earlier.' ADHD
The scene was set. The coffee shop was quiet, but not too quiet. My essay outline was open in front of me and my computer was on airplane mode. All around me, students sat in front of laptops, typing their way to another successful semester while sipping overpriced lattes. I, too, was about to join their ranks.HamiltonI’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between procrastination and ADHD.
shaken out of his or her complacency by the panic of approaching deadlines. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that just keeping up shouldn’t be this hard.It’s not that I didn’t try. I always loved learning, and I desperately wanted to be a better student. For years, I scoured the internet for productivity tips and followed them religiously . I eliminated distractions . I saw a therapist, who told me that I couldn’t concentrate because I had anxiety .
The internal pressure crescendoed when the time came for my senior thesis. This was the capstone of our undergraduate career, a 30- to 40-page research paper meant to show off our writing chops. For me, the pressure was extra high: I was editor-in-chief of our department’s academic journal, so I was in charge of reading other students’ theses and deciding which ones were worth publishing. Now, it was my turn to show the world how it was done.
Instead, I lost it. All study techniques went out the window in the face of the enormity of the assignment. Justabout it made me queasy. As graduation approached, the stress became so overwhelming that my immune system went on hiatus, meaning that I spent the last months of my senior year with a case of chronic tonsillitis that had me in and out of urgent care more times than I can count.
Getting diagnosed with ADHD didn’t fix everything: Finishing my thesis was still difficult and concentrating hasn’t gotten any easier. What the ADHD label did provide me with, however, was legitimacy. For the first time, my problems didn’t feel like the complaints of an overworked college student. They felt real and, most importantly, surmountable.
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