Another article about ADHD. I find that talking about my experiences the constant war against ADHD helps others who are struggling in some way to realize they are not alone. Where you are an Adult, Teenager, or Child struggling with ADHD you are not alone because the struggle is very real and what you feel is valid because I get it. Even though everyone's experience with ADHD is different to some degree I will understand what you are going through. If you are a person that supports someone with ADHD, I want to say thank you because whether you know it or not, it means an awful whole lot when the support is effective and healthy for the person. I do not think I would have come as far as I did without the support (thank you, Aunt Sally, for the contribution you made in teaching me to read) I received growing up and throughout my education from my family and various people in the school system. My last article was written during and after a series of up and down emotional feelings in the span of several hours. I have a clear head now. I am going to attempt to talk about what that event was like.

I'm not sure what started it, but I think it was the realization that I had fallen behind on the "Write an article a week" concept of being a content creator for Odyssey just after a was given the CE (Contributing Editor) position for the campus community. I'd also been contending with a series of bouts of writer's block while juggling classes and a seemingly non-existent social life. I did discover a trick for me to remember if I turned in an article, I normally set it for the Monday of the following week at 1:30 pm (which if you did not know was peak share time online), I set my articles, depending on the content, to post to twitter or Facebook. I liked having the position I was in. I set myself to get it when I heard that one was needed and was, as I believed, in danger of losing the position of leadership I valued. It was a nightmare for me, but I put in my headphones, played some music, and started busting out and article about what I was feeling which turned into the article about the struggle of ADHD I was feeling.

Writing that article unearthed a lot of feelings I was not aware I felt about the tag I was given as a child. In writing that article I managed to experience for the first time such low self-esteem that I cried several times. I went from being cripplingly upset and crying my eyes out to being moderately okay in the span of several hours. I think at one point I might have been edging toward a panic attack, I know what those feel like. I have had them before. What I experienced with ADHD up to that point was high energy levels, impulsiveness, being insanely scatterbrained, hyper focus, and missing social cues even on my pills. I had minor issues with myself esteem in the past, but they were never that extreme for me. I had been thrust out of the comfort zone for what I was used to with my ADHD and reminded that what I had was something that constantly changed. ADHD is like a game where you do not know the rules and once you figure them out the rules change and the playing field changes. The process of writing that article and going through those feels made me realized that I had a repressed dissatisfaction for the working relationship I had with my ADHD.

ADHD is hard. Writing this article is hard for me mentally and emotionally at times. I have to take breaks when writing this because it's difficult for me to express the troubles I am having with my ADHD because I never really believed it would affect me as bad as it has been in recent weeks. It's been affecting me socially in ways I am unable to remember happening before. It's affecting me emotionally because I feel emotional instability due to low self-esteem. I feel alone from time to time and I feel a terrible amount of sorrow that if I try to talk about the struggle I am having with my ADHD to a person who does not experience it they would not understand the way I feel. I am yet to understand why I had this changing monster forced upon my mind, but I feel that letting how I feel marinate in the back of my mind and letting my thoughts and feelings beat me up inside because I feel uncomfortable discussing what I am going through... I feel that writing about my struggle, even with the pain it brings up, is a better alternative that silently suffering alone.

There are days when it feels like my ADHD doesn't even exist, but there are also days where my ADHD is on the forefront of my mind as I try and go throughout my day. ADHD is just something I have to live with. I am stuck with this constantly changing thing and I'm not sure how I feel about it.