Imagine you have a quiz on Friday and you decide to prepare for it in advance. But every time you sit down to study, a strange sound, like a record player crackling, echoes through your head. The noise gets louder and louder until you can no longer concentrate. You sleep three to four hours a night and study late because your brain shuts down to the scratchy sounds during the day. When morning comes, you wake up early to repeat. Instead, spend hours scrolling on your phone to relieve the stress.
“People used to tell my mom, ‘She’s so smart, but if only she could focus better,'” says Rola Fawzy of her early suspicion of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She is a third-year student in Communications, Culture, Information and Technology, and Professional Writing and Communications at the University of Toronto, Mississauga (UTM). Fawzy loves spending time with her friends, participating in club activities on campus, writing in her journal, and dancing to unwind after school. But Fawzy is also a struggling student who struggles to pay attention in class, remember her deadlines, and turn in her assignments before the deadline.
After two years at UTM, Fawzy was diagnosed with ADHD. “I knew that back then,” she admits. “I have seen it many times in my immediate family. But because my sister has ADHD, my parents always said, ‘No, not another child.’”
ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders. It causes inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Scientists don’t fully understand the risk factors for ADHD, but current research shows that genetics play an important role.
Children with this diagnosis usually have trouble paying attention and controlling impulsive behavior. They talk too much, forget and lose things, and struggle to make friends. As they grow up and become teenagers and adults, they often fail to get jobs done or form lasting relationships with other people.
For many young women like Fawzy, ADHD is the reason why college is extremely difficult for them. Because ADHD manifests differently in girls than in boys, diagnosing it is more complicated. In the end, young women often don’t even know why they work so hard.
Thankfully, because of Fawzy’s sister, the diagnosis came as no surprise. She immediately began to change her lifestyle. Now Fawzy has curfews on all her electronics and social media apps. For the first two hours of her day, she tries not to answer the phone and meditates instead. “I feel like my brain just doesn’t like it when I don’t meditate for an hour every morning,” she says. “Otherwise everything becomes blurred. And you’re like, ‘When did I start watching TikToks? How was the hour and a half?’”
Fawzy often goes out like this. It took her time to realize that asking countless questions would help her stay focused during lectures. And yet some UTM professors see this as a disruption. She says that even after registering with UTM’s accessibility services, teaching assistants sometimes argue with her about extensions to assignments and tests, claiming that all students should have equal deadlines.
Every day she continues to learn how to deal with the blur in her head. But sometimes Fawzy’s anxiety is triggered by small things, like losing a U passport just before class. “There is no quick fix for ADHD,” she explains.
According to clinical psychologist Arthur Anastopoulos, college students diagnosed with ADHD have more emotional difficulties than their peers without the diagnosis. They are less willing to engage in the independent and sometimes isolating facets of student life. They do less well in school and tend to have poor support in their friendships. Students with ADHD have fewer close friends to open up to because not everyone can empathize with what they deal with on a daily basis.
“I have disappointed an incredible number of friends in my life. I tell people I’ll be somewhere at a certain time, and then I forget or reschedule appointments,” says Fawzy. “Some people see me and think that with all my emotions I’m too much for them. And that’s not bad, because that way I can easily find out if they’re ‘my people’ or not.”
Fawzy refuses to continue to see herself as a victim because when she did she hated herself. She has accepted that sometimes it takes her longer to complete tasks and can’t wait for her turn to to answer a question in class. “I should take responsibility if I do something wrong. But I also think it’s better to learn how to manage ADHD properly,” she says.
She says the creativity that often accompanies ADHD has healing powers. It’s Fawzy’s overflowing emotions that make her writing so vivid and relatable. The distance from reality bothers her during lectures, but also helps her to develop ideas that others may never think of. She says writing, therapy, and the occasional good cry help her the most to overcome her anxiety and anxiety.
“U of T tends to emphasize the rush culture. Do not do that. It has never worked for me and many of my friends with ADHD. Don’t force anything and take your time. Also, take advantage of your 20 free sessions with a consultant,” she says.
Fawzy’s final piece of advice for newly arriving UTM students with ADHD is to never think the world is ending, even when everything seems bad. Only through multiple failures and heartbreak is it possible to develop insights that can help to accept the diagnosis and learn to love it.
#loud #blurry #Medium
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