As part of celebrating ADHD Awareness Month, Unlocking ADHD is inviting ADHDers and family members to share stories about their ADHD journey to give insights on what ADHD looks like, and how the strengths of ADHD can be unleashed in their lives. Let’s Reframe how we see ADHD, Rediscover the strengths within, and Rise to new heights of empowerment together!
When did you get diagnosed?
I went to see two separate psychiatrists – one diagnosed me unofficially four years ago and the last one diagnosed me officially about two years ago, giving me more access to medication.
What was life like before diagnosis?
It has been a long journey where I often felt different and handicapped by some of my characteristics and perceived weaknesses. After several decades, I have personally come to accommodate these traits and have built up enough internal systems to deal with them on a day-to-day and on-going basis. However I was constantly bugged and troubled by why I behaved and felt so different compared to so many people around me. My loved ones and people around me also learnt to accommodate my seeming differences, never putting a name to the issue or problems. Essentially, life goes on for myself and the people around me.
What was life like post diagnosis?
There is a greater understanding and awareness of why things developed and became the way they were. I am more accepting and grateful of my differences due to my ADHD. It helped me come full cycle and to terms with issues and problems arising from ADHD that had arisen from my past and acceptance of how they have shaped and continue to shape me.
Greater awareness about ADHD helped me craft my life in a more meaningful way rather than assume there were no issues or differences. I can now adjust and make allowance for my ADHD traits allowing the problems that arise from it to be more minimized while some of the advantages and strengths that can arise from having ADHD is maximized in a more deliberate and controlled manner.
Medication also helps me on days and periods when I need to be less ADHD in nature and increases my productivity and effectiveness on those days when I take the medications. This allows me to function better in life and work.
What do you think are your greatest ADHD strengths?
My ADHD mind has given me the ability to investigate complex issues and problems with their many factors, variables and conditions, all intermeshed and intertwined with one another and find order and sense in the chaos. I know what the next thing or steps that I need to take to help resolve the situation or problem. It is an intuition I myself find very hard to figure out or understand but it works time and time again especially in critical moments or crises.
I am often impatient for results and outcomes and hence use that furious energy to get things moving faster to drive things forward and make progress today rather than tomorrow or later.
ADHD’s impulsiveness also presents me sometimes with the curiosity and courage to take risks and chances that others would be hesitant to take. This, however, needs to be balanced with it being a calculated risk with good odds of success but ADHD reduces the hesitation and fear that most people would face hindering them from taking those chances. I can also find ways to take risks with the strategy along with learning how to reduce the downside or risks associated with them.
How do you manage ADHD in daily life?
I take medication on perhaps 3 or 4 days out of a week, especially on days I need to be more productive. It is a judgement call each day. I even have a system to remind myself to make that judgement call.
I am also able to feel the impulses of ADHD and have learned to navigate these impulses more carefully so it doesn’t propel me in the wrong impulsive direction during some testing moments that could come in a day. Sometimes taking a deep breath and slowing down is more important than giving in to your ADHD impulses.
How would you advise your younger self?
I would advise my younger self that I have ADHD – It’s going to cause frustration and pain, but it is also going to shape me to become a better and stronger person in the future. I would advise myself to seek a diagnosis earlier and learn to deal with the condition better. At the end of the day, everything is going to make more sense once I understand the condition and things will be all right.
Complete this sentence: ADHD is……
ADHD is viewed by many to be a liability and curse, but it can, with the right mindset and right help, be adjusted to become a condition that is livable with and in some ways, a superpower. It is better to accept and embrace the condition than to rail and resent it as it is real and here to stay.
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