“You’re Lazy.” “Try Harder.” “Do Better.” “Why can’t you just…” These are not common phrases that everyone hears, but for a particular community, this type of criticism is heard multiple times a day from childhood through adulthood. Imagine being criticized on an average 12 times more a day (maybe more) every day. Then think about that people in this community are giving 100% effort all the time, but still they fall behind or fail to meet the set standards in many cases.
This is what people diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD (or ADD) go through daily. ADHD symptoms generally start in childhood. However, not every person with ADHD receives a diagnosis in childhood. Many people go undiagnosed for long periods of time. ADHD falls into the class of spectrum disorders. A spectrum disorder has a wide range of symptoms and severity with which the disorder affects a person’s life. There are over 18,000 symptoms of ADHD. Hyperactivity is only one symptom of ADHD but is not always present. One-person can experience ADHD symptoms that they handle quite well as where another person can have symptoms that affect their lives in a major way.
A Different Perspective
ADHD is not so much a disorder of not being able to focus. ADHD is more of living on two extremes of focus on everything or intense focus on one thing with no sense of time. However, here is the catch, the regulation of these two extremes is random. This is a very simple explanation that does not tell the whole story.
To give an example, say you are watching your favorite movie. You get excited as the movie starts. As the movie starts you hear the laundry in the washing machine that you started. Additionally, you hear the previous laundry load in the dryer. Moreover, you see a light in the hallway on. Then an ambulance drives by. The toilet starts to run and make noise. Someone who lives in your residence walks in the front door and closes it. The microwave goes off with the popcorn you made. A text message comes through on your phone and you hear the notification noise. Kids outside playing start yelling at each other as they play a game. Now imagine all this happens at the same time and your brain tries to process it all and then splits your attention between everything at once. And while your brain is trying to do all that the person that just walked in tells you something. If you were in that situation would you remember what the person told you?
My guess is there would be a high chance that you would miss some piece of the conversation. Another problem with ADHD and almost all mental illness is that the illness is invisible. We cannot tell by looking at someone what they are dealing with inside. Additionally, since ADHD falls within the Spectrum Disorder category. ADHD can affect every single person at a different level of intensity. Some people function very well and ADHD does not hinder their life to an extreme. However, other people have their lives affected greatly by ADHD.
How can we help people who have diagnosed with ADHD?
Be a support system. Everyone needs a support system. A support system helps to encourage and lift up that person. When you act as a support system offer understanding to the person. Lend them your open ear and allow them to express what they are feeling to you. Help them by focusing on solutions and not the issue. Work with them to find alternative ways that can help them finish the intended goal can be of great help to them. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Take time to learn what symptoms actually affect them. Every person is different. Ask the person what symptoms they experience and gain an understanding. This can help to understand where the person might need assistance. Being diagnosed with ADHD is not an excuse, but the diagnosis gives us an explanation. Once we have an understanding of what symptoms affect a person then we can work at finding what can help them the best.
Have patience. Finding what can help a person diagnosed with ADHD can take time. Helping that person can take a great deal of trial and error. It’s really no different when dealing with any new challenge. We have to test out probable solutions, see which solutions work and which ones do not. Having patience while going through this process will be of a great help.
Be positive. The old saying that “No one likes a Negative Nancy” rings true to form. Whether young or old, a person diagnosed with ADHD receives a lot of criticism throughout their life. Constructive criticism is fine, but putting someone down for the sake of putting them down does not help. Keep a positive attitude even when they make mistakes. Help that person to get up and succeed in the challenge. People diagnosed with ADHD have a lot of awesome traits and we will never know when one of those traits will shine the brightest to help us in return by keeping a positive outlook.
Final Thoughts
There are many other things that we can do to help someone diagnosed with ADHD, but if I listed everyone then this article would be much longer. I would like to say to the ADHD community that you are all amazing and beautiful people. Despite the challenges you may face, you each have awesome talents that make you a unique and special person. To those that are not diagnosed with ADHD, we can all seek out different resources to gain a better understanding of the diagnosis and what we can do to help those we encounter that deal with significant challenges because of ADHD. Even if we have already done this, we can continue to learn additional information. Listed below are some resources to help everyone reading this to learn about ADHD.
Resources
- Additude Magazine:www.additudemag.com
- CHADD:www.chadd.org
- ADDA:https://add.org/
- Dr. Russell Barkley: http://russellbarkley.org/
- Dr. Ed Hallowell: http://www.drhallowell.com/
- Attention Talk Radio: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/attentiontalkradio
- How to ADHD: https://howtoadhd.com/
