Here I am going to talk about my old school days and how I went through..
ADHD and my public school days
One moment I remember, I was sitting in my classroom and was a 4th grader. I put my hands under my legs and stumbling my legs consistently through out all the lectures. Often I was swinging my body left and right with my hands under my legs during the class. I was alway nervous going to school because I always thought that I might have forgotten a school supply, homework, a home key or my lunch box. I felt rather comfortable at home because I knew that there were not "missing" items. I hated sitting in the classroom and always wanted to walk out of the room but I also knew that it's not allowed. Thus i ended up daydreaming and worrying for some small stuffs while I was in school. I had not concentrated on my classes at all. The worst thing was that in my literature class, the teacher gave a paragraph to summarize the contents into a sentence. Guess what, I had never got it correct because I couldn't get what's important and what's unimportant in the paragraph. All seemed to be equally important to me...
Another moment, I was in my high school and still hated going to school. But i was not brave enough to quit the school and do homeschooling. Through out the school years, I had never learned anything from school because i was daydreaming all the time as I mentioned earlier. But I could learn materials from tutoring centers and private tutors. They were good enough explaining things so that I can get good grades in English, Math and Science. At some point in my high school days I realized that i need to go to a good & well-known college for my future, meaning that I needed studying hard and harder than any other kids thanks to my lack of concentration. College entrance exam was pretty different from school exams so I got 30 points out of 100 points in my first mock exam in Math + AP math. What a bummer! So I had to put more efforts. What I did was that I was sitting down in my desk for 10 hours solving math problems everyday for 3 months. I know that all kinds of distractions can ruin my efforts so I was blocking left and right side of my desk and have one light for my study on in my dark room. No cell phone, no music, no friend, no chatting. Just me and math book. Staying still for 10 hours is difficult enough for neurotypical kids and is extremely difficult for ADHDers. Exhausting myself with 10 hours of studying i ended up sleeping for 12 hours. With all the efforts I ended up going to a well-known college. Success!
Getting in to College and another challenge
As I went through my public school years, I believe that once I go to college,
1) I have less classes to take
2) then I can focus more on what I want to study.
What I realized is, however, that in some extend taking less classes was right. Instead 10-12 classes in the high school, I only needed to take 5-6 classes per semester. So 1) was good.
Then did it lead to more focus? The answer is NO. Why? Too many things going on!!!
In college, you have so much freedom and opportunities. There is no specific path that you have to take and so many possible ways to explore. Fliers for clubs for music, dance, culture and so on and for internships/partime jobs/research opportunities EVERYWHERE!!!!
What I chose to do is to try everything!!! My goal was "I am getting the most out of this college so I am going to try every possible thing!!!" Looking back it was not the best decision for my ADHD. Unfortunately I didn't realize that I have ADHD at that time and had no idea how to manage my life. I ended up taking 21 credits in one semester, was in a music band playing base guitar, doing part-time job as a SAT tutor and commuting back and forth for 2:30 hours everyday. On top of it, I didn't understand classes like my high school days, didn't do my homework by myself and had to ask friends how to solve those. I put all my efforts into my life but nearly everything that I had tried didn't produce good results. Now I know why. All the efforts were all spread into many things and nothing got full attention.
To be continued...
