Imagine this, one moment you have a giant essay that is due very soon and you tell yourself “you got time”, “you got this”, “time to lock in cuh!”. You than write a paragraph or two than get a text from a friend asking if your free tomorrow, which than leads to “well I can take a brain break”, which than leads to “I got five days before its due, I’ll pick it up tomorrow”, which then leads to cramming in a whole 6 page essay on Sunday due at 11:59 that night. This is unfortunately a common occurrence for me (as a matter a fact right now) and other students with ADHD. According to the Neurotherapeutics journal "an estimated 2 to 8 percent of college students have ADHD in the United States." College already is already a pretty big and scary change when compared to K-12 education. Then add ADHD into the mix is really like turning on hard mode in this weird and complicated game called higher education. Before we begin I feel it’s only right to explain what ADHD Is, The National Institute of Mental Health states that, ADHD is a developmental disorder characterized by an ongoing pattern of one or more of the following types of symptoms.

• Inattention, such as having difficulty paying attention, keeping on task, or staying organized

• Hyperactivity, such as often moving around (including during inappropriate times), feeling restless, or talking excessively

• Impulsivity, such as interrupting, intruding on others, or having trouble waiting one’s turn

In this blog post, I will share my personal experience with being a student with ADHD as well as learn of the struggles that we students with this diagnosis must face which includes the struggle with academics, how our mental health maybe affected, the rise in self-diagnosis, and finally share with you a specific group of students whose stories don’t always get told or shared . As well as to give you and other fellow students with ADHD tips to quell the tendencies and to share some resources you can always visit on campus, all to make your new college life much easier, you are not alone. 

Welcome to my Draw my Life 

Ok major brownie points If you remembered this trend, but obviously your reading so I physically can not draw for you but why am I writing about the struggle of college students with ADHD? Well as the great Willem Dafoe once said, “I’m something of an ADHD college student myself!” (Yes, I know that’s not the line) but to begin, I was first Diagnosed with ADHD back in second grade, the reason for the diagnosis was because I was a bit of a “Troublemaker,” someone who would talk a lot, not sit still, or wander off in my head and not pay attention to the lesson plan. This lead to my teacher having the school put me in special classes during the regular class time to learn how to be a better student, which in the early 2000’s was very common and although it was seen a helpful effort from the school to help with my disability, I felt ostracized–it didn’t help that It was also my first year in a brand new school. After the diagnosis, naturally the next step was to go see a psychiatrist and get prescribed medication to help me be a better student, because giving a seven-year-old child high dosages of Conserta is such an amazing Idea. When speaking with Patrick Johnson, Student Disabilities Services Coordinator at North Central College, he was not surprised, stating that, “In the early 2000’s, there was an increased trend in parents, teachers and doctors seeking out doctors seeking out and then physicians prescribing Ritalin, Adderall and Conserta and that was viewed as the treatment and treatment alone for ADHD.” Since then, I’ve been living with ADHD. I stopped medicating after fifth grade, which in retrospect wasn't the long-term solution but I wanted to do better on my own, which leads us to today and my battle of college experience..

Learning in College with ADHD

In the best case scenario most students are well aware going into college that they have ADHD and can prepare adequately for the challenges, but unfortunately some students they don’t even know they have ADHD, BMC Psychiatry claims that ADHD is a hidden and marginalized disability. They back this up by stating that “Mental health provision for university students with ADHD is often inadequate due to long waiting times for access to diagnosis and treatment in specialist National Health Service (NHS) clinics.” Which helps us understand even across the pond getting a diagnosis is difficult which could lead to delayed diagnosis. These delays stop students from bettering themselves sooner, especially when we attend a system that isn’t designed to work at a flexible pace or rigor of work. Now I don’t want to make it sound like I’m trying to scare people, but in a college setting failing classes hold a lot more weight because of the financial burden they create and with ADHD being a disability that requires us to try even harder, every day counts. Now I got to talk to a fellow North Central College theatre student, who asked to remain anonymous but we’ll name them Dax. They had a later in life diagnosis only getting it roughly about two to three months before this interview, and when asked what their biggest struggles were in college they stated “before treatment, it really affected my higher education, like really pretty severely. I was constantly late to classes. I skipped a lot of classes. And I didn't turn in homework. I would not study for final exams. All this stuff, it was especially stressful and confusing because I didn't know what the problem was. And to me, my heart was always in the right place where I wanted to succeed, and I wanted to make the grade, and I wanted to take the time to studying.” Even though our student eventually got the diagnosis he needed, obviously it would have probably been better to have learned earlier. 

College Students with ADHD can Never Catch a Break: The Mental Health Struggle

As stated earlier, when you have ADHD the classroom feels like a battlefield, trying to focus on either the professor's lecture or completing a blog post for your digital marketing class. No matter what, you always have to try harder, even when distractions lead to unfortunate circumstances; Frances Prevatt conducted a few studies and concluded that had lower GPA's, dropped classes, never fully completed tests on time and had worse studying habits compared to students without ADHD. With all this pressure to succeed it could lead to a lot of other mental health issues brewing inside someone for example Soo Jin Kwon, YooJung Kim and Yeunhee Kwak Claim that Students with ADHD, "have been shown to be more depressed and anxious, to be more easily angered or to suppress emotion, to have achieve less academically." Again, it is an unfortunate result that ADHD sometimes has on us students. Having to study harder than the student that doesn’t have it can mentally exhaust us and imagine having to deal with that for four years of high stakes education. Our fellow NCC student also has had a brush with these experiences saying, “For me, the biggest problem I had was like self hatred, man. Like, being really upset, like, thinking negative thoughts about myself because of my inability, because of my struggles with the executive functions. There was a dissonance between like how I wanted to be and who I was able to be before I found treatment, and that was that was stressful for me every day, you know...” and when asked if after diagnosis and treatment if college life was easier he said “immediately” things were a lot better, which can give us hope because if one of us can overcome the struggle than we all can.