Growing up with ADHD
The first time I encountered ADHD was when my friend pulled out some pills during exam season, called “study drugs”. I was amazed. I started questioning him, “What do these pills do? Do they make you smarter? Is it like limitless?”. He explained enthusiastically, “it’s for people who can’t concentrate”. I thought to myself, I haven’t been able to concentrate for the majority of my life. It sounded like these pills were made for me.
After some conversing he told me that doctors actually prescribe people with these drugs, as a treatment for ADHD, to help them engage in life. So I started my own research, what was ADHD and why do sufferers need drugs to focus? I identified two common symptoms of ADHD, being unable to focus aswell as not being able to control impulses.
Impulses are basically having the urge/idea to do something, but not thinking through why you’re going to do it and what the consequences could be. As a child I used to get into a lot of trouble and it all started to make sense to me. By the time I was 15, I’d worked my way (by troublemaking) into the lowest classes for maths and science. Teachers wouldn’t take me seriously, but that was because I couldn’t take myself seriously.
So, what was the teacher’s solution for these kids that can’t seem to pay attention in class and have a bit too much energy to stay sat. Simple; Put all of these kids with these “behavioural problems” and “low attention spans” into one class. Sounds like havoc, right. Well it was. How was I supposed to learn anything in a class full of kids like me?
Now I’m not writing to complain about the education system, the aim of this article was to write about my life growing up with ADHD. When I was 14, I’d started boxing here and there and by the time I was 15 I’d realised the mess that I was in. Boxing really allowed me to take out that excess energy I had and channel most it into something positive. By the time I was 15 I’d started training 3-4 days a week and because I was training so much, I had to work out a schedule to balance my life between school and boxing.
At 15 I'd been training six days a week for 3 months solid, my coach made sure of training us like athletes. Something tells me he knew how to deal with kids like myself. When I had a routine, my life was going great. Every day I would come home from school to study from 4-5:30pm for my GCSE exams, eat at 5:45pm just before watching ‘The Simpsons’ and then head to the gym . I’d also have a shower every night after training as I would train from 7-9.30pm most days.
Routine was what helped me cope with living with ADHD, I got my exam results and not only was I amazed but my teachers were also amazed. They moved me up to the top class for science and I got the highest score in my maths class. However, at this point I still didn’t know I had ADHD. When I was 17 and about to starts my A-levels, I stopped boxing because I had overworked my body. I took the year to recover, and that’s where everything started to fall apart. I started missing lessons and didn’t have much of a drive to study anymore.
I feel like the fact that I stopped boxing meant that there was no way of channelling that excess energy I had, so I ended up wasting a lot of time as a result. Somehow I made it to uni but that routine was gone out of my life. That’s how I grew up with ADHD. I feel like the most important part of growing up with ADHD is acknowledging that you have it and figuring out your own ways of overcoming your daily problems. Exercise and routine is the most important way of overcoming it.
I also hope parents read this and understand how to deal with their hyperactive kids.
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