Post by soldierseekinghelp on Oct 28, 2008 14:33:26 GMT -5
Im currently 17 years old, a senior in high school and a soldier in the Michigan Army National Guard. Ive got a few questions about adhd and whether i have it or not.
Ive never been a stupid person, i score really high on every test ive ever taken, but my school records do not reflect this. Growing up I was a pretty rowdy kid but i come from a very military and authoritarian family so i guess i was kept in line during my younger years. Starting around 7th grade is when my parents went through there divorce, that is when my grades seriously started to drop because i was living between each parents the highly structured lifestyle i grew up with was no longer there. Ive never been a bad kid, i never maliceously did anything and I have a clear sense of right in wrong but all through high school i just couldnt focus through classes, I knew the material and i scored high enough to get into my advance classes but i could never sit down and force myself to get my work done, and once i got my car it was hard to even force myself to go to school when i felt i was finally free.
Well around halfway through my junior year i felt it was time to grow up, that i was done with wasting my time and doing the stupid things young teenage boys do, that now was the time to become a man. My entire junior year i struggled, i worked harder but things werent getting any better i still couldnt focus on any task at all. I couldnt even focus on what the teachers were teaching in class my mind wondered so easily. Some of my family members are teachers and offered me learning strategies, like note taking strategies and focus points, but none of them seemed to work, it seemed the harder i tried the more frustrated i got, to the point of getting headaches over school and feeling aweful over my terrible grades.
All the time i was made to feel this was my fault, that i had no self discipline, that I was week. Well I wanted strength and discipline, I wanted to feel successful and I had always planned on going into the armed services some point in my life so i joined the army near the end of my junior year. I went to basic combat training in Fort jackson South Carolina for 11 grueling weeks, but I made and my family was never so proud of me, I felt now i could finally be the man I wanted to be, that now I could achieve the success I always wanted. I started school back up again and was thouroughly disapointed. I had the discipline to sti down and try and do the work, homework assignments, essays, but I still had no ability to focus, to the point of forcing myself to headache and extreme frustration. I was turning in the work but it was of extremely low quality. It was at this point one of my family members suggested I might have adhd. I was a little offended at first but she explained it to me and told me how successful some of her students have been through therapy and medication. We had talked about this almost a year before but the meds would have made me unelligible for the army.
Well what ended up happening is i had a friend give me 3 adderall pills. I took one in the morning when i first wolk up and I felt like a completely different person. I felt like i could do anything and for the first time in my life I felt like i didnt struggle to go through a day of school.
I went to my family doctor and explained my situation for him and i go in for my evaluation this thursday but im a little nervous, and Im still wondering if I do have adhd or if it is just me.
Im asking anyone out there to offer me some advice. What does it mean to have adhd? Is there hope for a good future for me even though ive near flunked out of high school but I have SAT scores that could get me into Harvard. I guess Im just uncertain about whats going to happend and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
-Private Christopher
Ive never been a stupid person, i score really high on every test ive ever taken, but my school records do not reflect this. Growing up I was a pretty rowdy kid but i come from a very military and authoritarian family so i guess i was kept in line during my younger years. Starting around 7th grade is when my parents went through there divorce, that is when my grades seriously started to drop because i was living between each parents the highly structured lifestyle i grew up with was no longer there. Ive never been a bad kid, i never maliceously did anything and I have a clear sense of right in wrong but all through high school i just couldnt focus through classes, I knew the material and i scored high enough to get into my advance classes but i could never sit down and force myself to get my work done, and once i got my car it was hard to even force myself to go to school when i felt i was finally free.
Well around halfway through my junior year i felt it was time to grow up, that i was done with wasting my time and doing the stupid things young teenage boys do, that now was the time to become a man. My entire junior year i struggled, i worked harder but things werent getting any better i still couldnt focus on any task at all. I couldnt even focus on what the teachers were teaching in class my mind wondered so easily. Some of my family members are teachers and offered me learning strategies, like note taking strategies and focus points, but none of them seemed to work, it seemed the harder i tried the more frustrated i got, to the point of getting headaches over school and feeling aweful over my terrible grades.
All the time i was made to feel this was my fault, that i had no self discipline, that I was week. Well I wanted strength and discipline, I wanted to feel successful and I had always planned on going into the armed services some point in my life so i joined the army near the end of my junior year. I went to basic combat training in Fort jackson South Carolina for 11 grueling weeks, but I made and my family was never so proud of me, I felt now i could finally be the man I wanted to be, that now I could achieve the success I always wanted. I started school back up again and was thouroughly disapointed. I had the discipline to sti down and try and do the work, homework assignments, essays, but I still had no ability to focus, to the point of forcing myself to headache and extreme frustration. I was turning in the work but it was of extremely low quality. It was at this point one of my family members suggested I might have adhd. I was a little offended at first but she explained it to me and told me how successful some of her students have been through therapy and medication. We had talked about this almost a year before but the meds would have made me unelligible for the army.
Well what ended up happening is i had a friend give me 3 adderall pills. I took one in the morning when i first wolk up and I felt like a completely different person. I felt like i could do anything and for the first time in my life I felt like i didnt struggle to go through a day of school.
I went to my family doctor and explained my situation for him and i go in for my evaluation this thursday but im a little nervous, and Im still wondering if I do have adhd or if it is just me.
Im asking anyone out there to offer me some advice. What does it mean to have adhd? Is there hope for a good future for me even though ive near flunked out of high school but I have SAT scores that could get me into Harvard. I guess Im just uncertain about whats going to happend and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
-Private Christopher
I was about to conquer the world but then I got distracted by something shiny.
