| ADHD Directory |
| ADHD Printables |
| ADHD Guides |
| Expert Answers |
| ADHD News |
| Tools and Checklists |
| ADHD Topics A-Z |
| Book Reviews |
| Podcasts |
 |
| ADHD Groups |
| ADHD Discussions |
| ADHD Blogs |
| Share Your Story |
| E-Newsletters |
| ADHD Events |
| ADHD Videos |
|
| Subscribe |
| Give a Gift |
| Current Issue |
| Archives |
| Buy Back Issues |
| Buy Booklets |
| Customer Service |
| Contact Us |
| Advertise |
|
|
|||||
ADHD College Blog
For teens and young adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and learning disabilities (LD), as well as the parents and educational professionals of ADD/ADHD high school and college students, ADDitude's ADHD College Blog offers strategies for choosing the right school, applying, leaving home, and surviving the dorms, exams, and more. Current Blogger: Carl O'Donnell A self-described zitty wallflower, Carl was socially crippled by ADD/ADHD in high school. Academically, he preformed both abysmally (maintaining a 55 average in three classes during his senior year of high school) and impeccably (as the first-place champ of his local debate team circuit). Now as a journalism/English double major at Temple University, Carl has managed to maintain both a 3.7 GPA and a year-long relationship. You can find him on Twitter as @Freelance1991. Read Carl O'Donnell's full bio. Former Blogger: Bekah Covell Bekah was an engineering student in Boston who wrote about living in a world where everyone else sat quietly and studied for hours on end while she squirmed in her seat and attempted to focus on her professors for more than 10 minutes without being lost to a daydream. Read Behak Covell's full bio. Recent Blog Posts
College requires self-advocacy, time management, and good memory skills -- all of which are challenges for me, thanks to ADHD. Can I learn to cope with my symptoms and get my act together before my grades start to suffer? It’s Tuesday morning, my first day of the semester, and I’ve already managed to fall 24 hours behind schedule. On Monday, which was technically the first day of classes, downed trees, courtesy of hurricane Irene, kept me stranded in my living room while my would-be classmates jotted down the semester’s first assignments. (I commute to Temple University from Philadelphia’s suburbs. We got...Continue Reading »
I like drawing out schedules to follow. I don’t like following them. Let's hope this semester is the one I acquire time-management skills as a college student with ADD/ADHD. Today, I’m penciling my fall semester’s class schedule into neat boxes: 11 a.m., English literature; 12 p.m., American literature; 1 p.m., creative nonfiction; and so on. I’m taking a total of five classes, which adds up to 15 hours of classes a week. Ah, the ease of college life. I kick my feet up on my desk and stretch, ready to cruise through the semester. Of...Continue Reading »
Because of my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and social anxiety, I feel invisible during the first few days of college. But surrounded by confident peers, how long can I refuse to practice my social skills? I pace in tight circles around my 8-by-8 dorm room. The room is lit by blue-gray 5 a.m. light. I’ve been pacing since 11 p.m. Now sunrise is poking its intrusive face through my window. It flashes straight into my bloodshot eyes. I stub my toe on the foot of my cot and watch a toenail buckle. I throw my face into the cot’s sheets --...Continue Reading »
As my debt mounts, my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and anxiety make it hard to focus on making money. Can I manage my financial stress and get control of my finances before it's too late? For the next 30 seconds, I will be perfectly calm. This idea passes through my mind as I squint at my bedroom wall through sleep-encrusted eyelids. For 30 more seconds, part of me will still be dreaming about my childhood Jack Russell terrier chasing sticks across a sunlit quad. But it's only a matter of time before my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) mind begins eagerly whirring...Continue Reading »
Nicotine patches have helped me quit smoking, but is my own drive for perfectionism on my college exams, combined with ADD/ADHD, anxiety, and cravings for nicotine, driving me right back to the cigarettes that robbed me of my brain for so long? Two weeks have gone by since I finished the last of my nicotine patches, and I haven’t touched a cigarette. Nicotine is the furthest thing from my mind, despite having spent the better part of high school and my first year of college smoking to self-medicated my symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and anxiety. Instead, midterm madness dominates my consciousness day...Continue Reading »
After turning to cigarettes to cope with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) and anxiety during high school and college, with nicotine patches as my guide, I am on the path to quitting and improving my grades. I wake up in the morning feeling naked, as though I have just been lifted from the grave. Every morning for the past six weeks the blaring alarm clock has woken me up, telling me that it’s 7:30 a.m., and I have felt this way, lifeless. Normally I would wake up, then remember it, that I've given up cigarettes -- the one...Continue Reading »
Tired of the foggy and unfocused feeling cigarettes left me with as an adult with ADD/ADHD and anxiety, I sought the help of a smoking-cessation specialist to help me quit smoking. In my last post, after nearly exploding at my mother in frustration at the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) symptoms I was experiencing, I went for a run to clear my head -- and it worked. “Mother!” I shouted in a disarmingly cheerful voice as I burst inside our house after my run. My mother, who was about to step outside the front door as I was...Continue Reading »
Unable to focus, I realize that another factor is making my attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) worse: my nicotine addiction. But can I quit smoking cigarettes? My hand slams the kitchen table, and my mother leaps backward in shock. Part of me is aware that I’ve hit a new low. I’ve been growing steadily more unhinged since my senior year of high school, but now, the summer after my college freshman year, my stress-induced rage has reached a crescendo. For the first time since I was a child, I’m taking my anger...Continue Reading »
As an ADHD teenager, I turned to smoking to calm my nerves. Now I'm out of high school, addicted to nicotine, and feeling very alone -- with no company but my cigarette-dulled brain. The alarm clashes like cymbals in my ears. My raw, bloodshot eyes burst open with a start and I slam the alarm clock with my open palm until it shuts up. I curl into the fetal position on my sweat-stained sheets. The thought of heaving my body out of bed and dragging myself to work might as well be a death sentence...Continue Reading »
As a teen with anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD), I turned to smoking to dull my symptoms and nerves, but in the process, I dulled my brain, too. It’s Wednesday afternoon and, as usual, my friend Rupert and I are loitering outside the local drugstore. It’s a humid, sweaty day but we didn’t hesitate to hike our usual hike -- two miles down the shoulder of a busy, suburban highway -- to a local shopping center. We time our treks carefully. Arrive too early and the shops will be packed...Continue Reading » « All Blogs |
    
|
||||
