What I've noticed is that once you get to college, some people have a hard time focusing. There are a million reasons to get distracted and a million things you'd rather do. Just from observing my friends and peers, it seems that the go-to is self-diagnose yourself as ADD or ADHD. Because obviously if you can't concentrate, you're ADD, right????

Wrong.

College is a ton of work and it's hard to keep your priorities straight. But if you weren't diagnosed before college, chances are your attention span isn't any less than it was prior to college starting.

I'm not saying that just because you haven't been diagnosed that you don't have ADD. But I am saying that you probably have no idea what it's like to actually have ADD aside from the fact that you're getting distracted easily.

My parents had the hunch that I had ADD when I was in first grade. I couldn't sit still and couldn't finish my homework, even when the tutor was hovering over me. I spent probably over 9 hours having tests run and spent countless days with my psychiatrist (at age 7) thinking something was wrong with me because I couldn't remember things like my friends did. Being as young as I was, I didn't realize that medicine could fix me. And the older I got, I realized that I still wasn't fixed, regardless of how high my dosage of Vyvanse was.

Having ADD is like being on a carousel that never stops spinning. Because that's exactly what your mind is doing- constantly spinning. It causes you to overthink, analyze every little detail, and be hyper-aware of your surroundings. You can't sleep; the second you dose off, you have an anxiety attack because you think you forgot to do something. Then you forget everything you were just thinking about because the next set of random thoughts pops into your head.

By taking my ADD meds, that's my attempt to get on the same level of mind-capacity as the rest of you. I can only hope to be able to process information the way most of you do. You could give me directions four times and I'd still miss a turn. I could study twice as hard as you do and still get a worse grade because my brain doesn't function like your's does.

So why would I give you my medicine? Maybe it's selfish, but I'm not about to give you even more of a lead than you already have on me.

While, yes, I could really use the money, I will not sell you my ADD meds. You don't need them. And if you do, go get prescribed.