ADHD AND COLLEGE – “MY EXPERIENCE & COPING MECHANISMS”

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Being an undergraduate student with ADHD is like being caught between a rock and a hard place both when you wake up and right before bed. My immediate thoughts when I check my emails are the slog of people I’m going to have to respond to, explaining what I forgot to do, where I forgot to be, and how I forgot to do it. Even when I write things down and try to remember them, they slip my mind.

My wallets and keys are fitted with trackers because I know I will lose them at some point. I lose my card and ID at least twice a week. My housemates give way to me when I pace around the kitchen and the living room. These are all minor things, but nothing compares to how we deal with university work. I’ve always had a massive sense of impostor syndrome when it comes to my ADHD.

I would be ashamed, assume that I was just lazy, and think that I just wasn’t good enough. It makes you feel stupid—being reckless, forgetting things, social awkwardness—just a chronically consistent lack of attention that caused my brain to scatter whenever instructions were supposed to be followed.

School was a nightmare: being labeled as an idiot for being late or as a naughty kid for making decisions without thinking. It wasn’t until I got my formal diagnosis that I realized that I had nothing to be ashamed of, and nobody else does either.

The problem with accepting that my brain was just wired differently was also accepting the fact that, in life, I’m probably just going to have to play catch up. This is fine; it’s just the way my life is. But with this also came the acceptance that I need to come up with some ways to cope soon, or my university experience will be wasted.So here are some of the ways my ADHD affects me and how I deal with them.

Clean Your Room: While I’m probably the guiltiest of having a messy room, when it’s clean, it becomes an oasis for my ADHD. When it’s filthy, it’s a reminder that I am disorganized. Waking up to a clean room is calming for the mind, and it usually makes me feel like I’ve already ticked off my list for the day; my first thought isn’t

Billy Darlington

immediately that I need to clean my room at some point. I can sit down and just relax for a bit before challenging the day.

Have a Routine: Easier said than done, but trying to wake up at the same time every day makes things less of a slog and allows productive things that normally would be a struggle to become just a habit.

A routine with university isn’t the easiest as lecture times change every single day, but small things like waking up and getting out of bed within the same hour every day or trying to get to sleep before midnight really will help. It doesn’t have to be every night—just enough to make it out of the ordinary when it isn’t followed.

Don’t Develop Bad Habits: When I say don’t get into bad habits, I mostly mean things like skipping lectures, having a takeaway instead of cooking, and getting an uber instead of walking. It sounds small, but when given a meter people with ADHD tend to take a mile. Once something that makes life less stressful happens once, it will happen forever. My worst example is leaving work till the last minute; people with ADHD have poor time conception, and I am no stranger to it. I will put off that work until it’s 9 a.m.; I’m writing my 3000 words that are due at 3pm. I once woke up at 8am to get my work done but was unable to do it until late at night.

I stayed up until 5 a.m., showered, went to work, returned at 11 a.m., and handed it in at 3 p.m. 31 hours awake, fueled by Redbull all because I had not spoken to anybody for help. If you are struggling to get your work done because you cannot get yourself to start, speak to your personal tutor or module convenor. They will help you. They helped me.

Don’t dive too deep: With ADHD, it is very easy to find a new interest, jump headfirst into it, and dedicate the next week or two of your life to it. You’ll realize very quickly, as I did, that these responsibilities will add up. Whilst all the different roles and responsibilities will look pretty on your CV, there is a lot of stress involved when dealing with these sorts of things.