My oldest son was diagnosed with ADHD and a few other issues when he was a baby. Dealing with him has been a challenge and we have had to use several different parenting methods when it comes to keeping him focused on his school work and chores. He was a handful when he was a toddler, he was like dealing with 2 or 3 kids at a time. The minute you turned your back for a few seconds, the boy was into something. As a mom, I was hoping that he would grow out of it or learn some coping skills so that he could be successful in life. When he was younger, he was treated with Stratera and his doctor later took him off of it due to increased risk of suicide. So today we use a very small dose of blood pressure medication to help him sleep at night. This has worked great over the years. Sleep is very important and if he wasn’t taking the medication he would be up half of the night and get up before the crack of dawn.
Today, I wanted to share an anonymous story on how ADHD has affected someone who has dealt with ADHD for a majority of his life, including adulthood.
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes only. If you or your child struggle with ADHD, please see your doctor for more information and treatment options. Please call 911 in the event of an emergency or if you or your child is threatening to harm themselves.
I’ve lived my entire life with attention deficit hyper activity disorder, which is commonly known as ADHD, or sometimes just ADD. I’ve heard every joke about being hyper or unable to pay attention, I’ve experienced every sort of doctor, and I’ve come out the other side – successfully – in spite of my condition and/or what others may have thought or said. I’m living with ADHD, and you can too.
The problem with ADHD, besides the common ignorance that most people share when it comes to understanding the condition, is that it’s not the same in all people. That means that my ADHD could be very different from your ADHD. Because it’s such a hard thing for most people to understand, I want to clear up some misconceptions about the disorder, and life with ADHD.
Medication Can’t Fix ADHD
My first foray into ADHD drugs was as a child, when a doctor prescribed me Ritalin. This worked for a while, but as I reached my late teens and left for college I found that it was no longer doing the trick. I started seeing a counselor to see if there were additional drugs that I should be taking, and I discovered the yin to my yang at an online directory called Therapy Tribe. Finding ADHD counselors at TherapyTribe.com was actually a pretty simple undertaking, and after finding my new counselor, I learned that drugs could only take me so far. The rest of my journey was going to have to be through behavioral modification.
Comments
6 responses to “6 Things Most People Don’t Know About ADHD”
I have a friend whose son is diagnosed with ADHD. She tells me it’s no walk in the park, raising a boy with ADHD who is now entering the stage of puberty.
It is no walk in the park. Just remember when a child has ADHD they feel that they are different so they will act out because they are some what confused about why they feel this way. I have always felt different and it was always confusing as a child because of my ADD.
ADHD can’t be cured even with drugs, I have two nephews who have it and they control it themselves.
Behavior modification is what ultimately helped my nephew. He is living a productive life doing what he enjoys doing-luckily he can make a good salary while doing it.
I agree that medication won’t solve ADHD and it doesn’t go away with childhood. It is a brain wired differently. My husband is ADD and it all works out because I am left brain for some issues and right brain for others.
Every word you wrote is soooo true!! Two of our kids are diagnosed with ADHD, and they are nothing alike. My daughter has different problems than my son. She has a hard time focusing on school work, whereas my son does not (usually). She was placed on Vyvanse a couple years ago, while he had different medication. What works for one, may not work for another.