Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly known as ADHD, is one of the most prevalent and widespread mental ailments that is found in children throughout the globe. It is often believed that ADHD affects only children and does not affect adults. This however is a complete lie as I found first hand over the course of the last 5 years. When I was 18, I started entering into a major and manic depressive phase of my life owing to numerous family issues. Since I belong to the so-called Internet savvy generation, I mapped out my symptoms and did a Google search about them. While some sites claimed that I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown (thankfully the sites were idiotic), I decided to dig deeper and found out that most of my symptoms are matched with other people suffering from ADHD and bipolar disorder. I consulted a local therapist and 10 sessions and a few hundred dollars later, he confirmed what I already knew.
It was then that life began to go downhill. Not only was I depressed, but I also had to live with the added ‘guilt’ of suffering from bipolar disorder and ADHD. Things starting going down, the concentration level was almost down to zero, I had the attention span of a hummingbird. From being a national level quiz winner, I woke up to find myself failing in almost 7 papers in college. It was then that I realized that it had to go. I had already taken a lot of medicinal drugs for the ailment, all of which gave excellent initial results but after a week or so, there was no further effect. I made up my mind and found out about the positives of having ADHD. Silly as it may sound to some, every ailment comes with a few positive points. That may be my optimism talking but that’s just how I am.
So what are the positives that one can take from ADHD? There are quite a few, the biggest one of them being the ability to multi task. ADHD is characterized with a steep fall in concentration and the inability to remain focused on one thing or task for a long time. I decided to use these traits to my advantage. I made a time table of sorts in which I had an 18 hour work schedule. Match that up with 4 hours of sleep and 2 hours of eating and my day was ideal. I know I could have slept more and I wish I do but I am too used to this now. In those 18 hours of work, I not only got my grades back on track (I now have a CGPA of 3.4 and improving), I also managed to lose the excess weight on my body along with managing a 1500 score on my GRE exam.
The key to making this work is to find out what you want to do. If I would have shuffled between two subjects of college, I would’ve gotten dead bored. Instead, I used to switch between studying for college and a few good strategy games to sharpen my mind. Then head out for the gym with my iPod in order to listen to some music to map out the drum patterns. I also managed to clear my Trinity grade 6 exams because of this habit. Find your goal and do all that is possible to achieve it with your limitations and strengths in mind and before you know it, depression and other ailments will be long gone.I must stress the fact here that I am not a doctor. All that I listed above is from my own experience and not from any clinical researches carried out. If you follow what I wrote above, the chances of you harming yourself are low and the benefits are numerous. Have fun with your life and you’ll be fine.
