(special thanks to any add-ers who actually manage to read this entire post!! i know its long..)

this is my first post and my first time on the conference. i am 20, a female sophomore in college. i've been diagnosed and taking adderall xr (25mg daily, very occasional short-action later in the day though I usually avoid/forget this) since my freshman year of high school (nearly 6 years.. jeez). anyway, ive always had this feeling of lacking control over my own life, and it has affected every aspect of my being. ive always been open about my add, but i feel like its never really been taken seriously, by my parents, my friends, my teachers, even me. in high school a bunch of my friends got prescribed right after me (it was like a fad) but none of them displayed the symptoms like i did--i feel like my personality is defined by my add, and generally i think its a pretty good personality (never boring! always making people laugh!) but i have issues with literally ALWAYS being late, which bothers people even though they generally come to accept it, failing to call people back, "flaking out" of planned activities, inability to commit to ANYTHING for a very long time (from hair salons to jobs to people in general--ive never had a serious boyfriend and ive had about 11 different "best friends" over the course of my life), being really messy and disorganized (even though it upsets me), difficulty with transitions (although I’m exceedingly adaptable, esp with big changes like going to college across the country), laziness, difficulty focusing, procrastinating until the last possible second—basically like every single thing on the ‘do YOU have adhd?’ checklist… and sometimes I’m okay with it. But sometimes I’m not. It can be really hard to feel like you cannot control your own life. And sometimes I’ll just have these breakdowns and I don’t know what to do. I often worry about my medication, Adderall, I feel like I’m addicted to it because on the days I don’t take it I literally feel like i'm stoned. All I want to do is sleep and eat and if i manage to interact with anyone my sense of humor gets even stranger than usual (my friends get a kick out of it). And on the days I do take my meds I have those periods of “hyperfocus” (especially when I’m writing or reading something I enjoy, or on facebook—which takes up a tragically huge part of my day), and periods of not eating and then binging (which is also rough because i'm always stressing about my weight) and I’m unable to go to sleep before about 4am. Even if I get in bed earlier I just toss and turn for hours and cant even sleep through the night--and then I cant wake up in the morning!

Also, since coming to college I’m worried that my drinking (which has been going on since i was 14) is out of control--2 nights a week usually which is average around here but the thing is that i always overdo it, drink til i am really drunk and often black out. And other nights (ie. tonight) I just don’t want to go out at all—like I’ll just completely flake out on my best friends when they want me to go somewhere with them—even fun activities sometimes feel like such a burden, like they are being forced upon me, and i always freak out when i feel like people are trying to control me. (maybe because I feel powerless and unable to control myself anyway?) does anyone else have these issues?

i had kind of a breakdown today which was triggered by my friends laughing about some stupid stuff i did when i was drunk that i didnt even remember. i was laughing but then i just suddenly got kind of sad, wondering why it just felt like things are so much harder for me than they are for others--from controlling my drinking to controlling my life in general.

So, I went to the internet and started googling and i was reading all this stuff about ad[h]d and its symptoms and connections to bipolar disorder and depression and substance abuse and it suddenly hit me—this is kind of a big deal, this is kind of serious. And reading all this stuff and just seeing myself reflected completely in all of it was this really emotional thing and I just started crying. I was just like oh my god, no wonder…. One quote that particularly resonated with me was from a adhd college student much like myself. He said, “My natural state is complete and total chaos. My life is about trying to overcome that." And I was just like ahhhsdjhsakdjhsa ME TOO!!!!! Which led me to this site...

i dont really know what im looking for. i already know i have adhd. im already on medication. ive already tried so many of the things youre supposed to try. i guess i just want people to understand in a way that no one really has before. thanks for listening.

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