Getting Help
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"Jen Lee" eff...@shaw.ca
I am a 19 year old girl who has recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and tenancies of Aspergers and Hyperlexia. This honestly comes as no surprise to me, because I knew that something just was not the same. My problem now, is that I have made it this far though my life, with problems yes, but I made it.
All my childhood problems like being very intense, very emotional, having problems talking to people and looking at them are pretty much gone, but I am left with major disorganization (I lose everything, I clean my room, and 3 days later is back to being a mess), learning problems in school, and social difficulties (not understanding why people gossip, being blunt). I also come across as very unemotional.
I see a counselor at the hospital under an adolescent outpatient service. I started going about 2 or 3 years ago because of social problems in school.
This has made me feel significantly better as a person, and my social skills have greatly improved, but I still have no idea how to be organized. Next year (my second year of community college) I am getting help for learning, but I don't exactly know what that is going to include. But what do I do for my organization and other issues? I feel like drugs are a Band-Aid solution for me, they may work for others, but I have made it this far, and I don't want to feel any different (or have any pills to remember to take :)) How are you guys learning to function? What I really want is someone to give me a book on everything I need to know. I need a book on cleaning my room, not losing important things, remembering to do the things people ask me to, staying appropriate things at appropriate times, making friends, learning....... :) I have a lot of reading to do!
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msn - smellslikeburn...@hotmail.com Aries: (March 21--April 19) If you put too much gasoline on the bandanna over your face, you'll get sick. Not enough and you'll be able to smell the corpses. Strike a balance.
Cal C...@Learner.com
Unfortunately for most I think its a lifelong thing you cope with like Alcoholism.
Theres the obvious thing --- schedules , planners , reminders ,routine. Get in the habit of doing things so they dont pile up. Keep and make planners , schedules , etc.
Get in study groups and make friends, study partners.
The first day when you get your syllabus , sit down and make a schedule for each cl*** - and plan out schedules for studying and projects you have to do. Cleanliness. For me you have to design the space so that its made to be organized. If you have work , papers , disks , books - you design your room by getting a decent bookcase, desk, file cabinet and shelves to organize your stuff. If you ever see those cheesy home makeover shows on cable - theres a night and day difference when you get pros to redo your work space. Things are designed for you stuff as opposed to just piling things up in termporary piles that look sort of orderly but arent designed properly , as soon as you need a paper or dump some new work , you create a pile anywhere or disturb the temporary orderly pile and the whole things becomes a mess since it wasnt really designed for continuous work.
And then figure out what your buttons are - stress tends to screw everyone up so figure out what you can do to recognize the times you are stressed out and what you can do to relax . I like to go out and drive around and buy little things like magazines and papers and window shop.
That said - unfortunately like strategies for alcoholics , they oten dont work but , hey --- you gotta try , right? Id end up with 20-30 planners after sitting all night righting meticulous plans for each cl*** for the semester, Id lose the planner the next day and take meticulous notes the first few weeks but each time Id lose the notebook and end up with a confusing mish mash of 20-30 notebooks.
People would think I was an extraodinary student seeing the notes Id take all cl*** long. Then Id start all the projects and start reading all the books , the first two weeks smug with the confidence that I was ahead but then within weeks Id be off on some personal project or reading some other books etc and end up missing some ***ignments and screwing up some tests already. Id make up for a C- on one with an A id pull of on another and it would up and down erratic all semester long with everyone just about to blow up in my face at anytime. One time I felt so depressed I walked around campus instead of taking a mid-term exam. I couldnt concentrate. But thats the way it goes.
Its good to try to avoid drugs but the point is to get out of school anyway you can , since it can radically change the path your life may take.
Another thing - community colleges can be loose informal a plus in many ways , but it also lacks the school spirit of many well known 4 year colleges. That alone can make a huge difference in enthusiasm if , and its a big if --- you get into the life there. If you are excluded and make no contacts at all then it can be as bad as any campus. Ive been to both and when I went to a well known private college the difference in atmosphere was so amazing I was shocked. All the people thought they would be successful and heads of large corps would be on campus all the time, leaders , well-known people. The thing is - many dont realize how easy it is to transfer from a community college or public college , to a well known college if you want to bear the cost of course. I was very disappointed when I first went to a state school , it was huge of course but the people were all mostly commuters and there was a totally fragmented feeling there as if there no center. I wondered what I was doing , where I was going.
It would have been hard to motivate myself, even if I didnt have ADHD.
"Jen Lee" eff...@shaw.ca
You have some excellent ideas about being organized, I was thinking about my desk, and its really not laid out in a way that helps me know where things are, I just shovel stuff in drawers, or pile it up on top.
I am thinking of maybe inventing some system of laundry size baskets for my room, something like clean clothes, dirty clothes, school stuff..... kind of like drawers, but out in the open.
College is just temporary for me, I plan to move to Vancouver after this year. I would probably move now, but since I got the ball rolling on getting help through the people at school I feel like I should just keep going. I need to retake some cl***es too, because I got dropped, or got a D in them.
Another serious problem I have is falling asleep, and waking up. When I finally do go to bed, I sleep like a rock, and waking up takes me forever.
I think all my problems just need me to figure them out, but it is a pretty hard thing to change, its like changing the way I am.
Cal C...@Learner.com
That where these modular shelf things were really slick. They had a book case like structure but you had simple pullout wire drawers for dirty clothes - different types if you wanted to go that far and then shelves and drawers to put clean stuff in. They also built them into a closet in one room which was pretty small so you didnt have to have dresser.
As a male - frankly Id never thought of my surroundings in detail and Im a slob and thought such ideas werent masculine. But I noticed as I watched such programs , you can do simple things to make your living space nicer and it does have a huge impact on you. I could never work in a place that was dingy , where you had to work in a cubby hole. Id go insane. Simple things like a throw rug, plants , simple furniture, paint etc.
Thats a big problem with people I know who have ADDish traits and other problems. They are struggling with adolesence and adjusting to the world to begin --- the usual huge heap of problems and then they have these other problems which they often cant get a handle on and dont have a name for since most people are so ignorant. They end up flopping around with a really erratic academic record and feel like they are sinking in deeper and deeper quicksand. And each semester they go " Im going to change this or that and its going to be better and it doesnt get better because little attitude changes and other small things arent the solution. So they then end up with *another* bad semester which makes them feel they another weight in addition to the other balls and chains are added to their burden. After awhile they feel like giving up. You have to get a serious fix before you rack up a bunch of really terrible grades. Its like the gambler who loses big and then gambles more and more trying to make the big score to even out the losses and you end up owing million dollars an amount you couldnt pay back even if you worked a hundred years and garnished 100% of your pay. You feel like you have to get straight As from here on out to make up for the past. In such a case , you should even consider a break from school and get some serious serious help and reexamine your position , goals and what it would take to get there from the position you are in.
You might want to look into sleep disorders. They say , if you feel really tired waking up, you havent slept properly. Sleep disorders are like many fields --- really picking up steam now. I think its often a serious problem like ADHD which many in the past thought of as trivial. Even if you dont have a disorder per se , you might want to think about your bed and how you sleep to see if you can make any dramatic improvements.
"Jen Lee" eff...@shaw.ca
My plans for Vancouver were exactly what you were thinking, originally I wanted to move and get right into school, but I think if I do school and living on my own at the same time, I am going to do a crappy job at both. I am going to take a year off to adjust to making my own food and things like that. I have lots of excellent skills from my current job, so employment will not be a worry. Plus then I dont have to worry about things like adjusting to a new city, bus system, living on my own, and all those things all at once, it gives me some time to prepare for going to school.
This year I didn't do that poorly at school, but of course, I am not pleased with my results. My lowest grade was a D in Macroeconomics, I got dropped out of Statistics without achidemic penalty, but everything else was above the C+ area, with my higher grades being B- in first year English and Microeconomics. I probably will have to take Macroeconomics again, and of course Stats...(which is hard for pretty much EVERYONE, so I am trying not to feel so bad about that) I think the hardest part of new systems is making them work for you. I bought a PDA organizer 2 years ago, and am now on my second one, because I broke the first, and now number 2 is broken too. Its to the point now without it, i am pretty lost. I just need to find more systems for doing that. I know hanging clothes up is not going to work, because I have never ever willingly hung an article of clothing in my life. I think I will take a look at ideas for storage. I also have to just throw things out.
I feel fine after I sleep, its just so hard to get out of bed. I pretty much have 4 alarm clocks now. The radio, this really really loud old fationed wind clock, my cell phone, then my friend calls me on my cell phone everymorning when he gets to work at 7. That now seems to be enough to pull me out of sleep to get out of bed. I worry that because its extreme, that I am kind of not solving the problem, but in the meantime, it seems to work quite well.
nknisley nknis...@bcpl.net
Hi, Jen, I have a 19 year old son with ADHD who has a *lot* of trouble with organizational and planning issues, so much of what you say sounds familiar.
I think that one good thing is that you *want* to be more organized, and you're trying to learn ways to do that. Taking the time and making the effort to learn to be more organized is not high on the list of my son's priorities.
Here's the summary of the effect of ADHD on my son's life so far: Lost stuff, broken stuff, room that looks like the Hazardous Waste Strike Force should be called in--with many inches of papers, magazines, books, art supplies, DVDs, CDs, video games, VCR tapes, clothing, souvenirs, photos, and ***orted trash covering every flat surface in his room except for his bed, missing school ***ignments, stuff needed at school forgotten at home, stuff needed at home forgotten at school, notebook and backpack crammed with jumbles of disorganized papers, forgotten appointments, chronic procrastination, severe under-estimation of the time needed to complete projects or to get to where he needs to go, great ideas but no follow through, wonderful and enthusiastically started projects that are never finished.
Since organizational problems are so typical of students with ADHD and Asperger, as well as some learning disabilities, and often greatly affects the success of students, the school probably has experience helping students in that area. Talk to the counselors and make sure that they are aware of your organizational weaknesses and that you ask for organizational support.
I wish a had a book that you and my son could read that would tell you everything you need to know to "fix" everything. But, if you are like my son you probably already know much of what you need to do to be organized--you just don't do it.
Here's just one example: He *knows* that he should put trash in his trash can--not on the floor, dresser, speakers, etc--and then empty the trash can when it gets full. Does he do that? No.
ADHDers tend to have a lot of interests and jump from one to the other, which increases the amount of stuff they own, plus they tend to be impulsive, which also increases the amount of stuff they own, plus they find cleaning and organizing boring, and they tend not to notice that clutter is growing and growing--all of which makes it very hard to get and stay organized.
So, here's one piece at advice that I hope you will take to heart, because it really will make your life easier--Give away or throw out a lot of things that you don't use and don't need. Declutter primarily not by trying to reorganize your stuff, but by getting rid of stuff you don't really need. It's amazing how much easier it is to get and stay organized when you don't have a lot of stuff.
And if you tend to buy new things on impulse, try to control those urges. Each new item is one more thing you will have to keep track of and put somewhere. If you can't control those "gotta have it right now" urges, try to get rid of one old thing every time you buy something new.
I can recommend some books that won't tell you everything you need to know, but you might find helpful: "Survival Guide for College Students With ADD or LD" by Kathleen G.
Nadeau; "ADD and the College Student: A Guide for High School and College Students With Attention Deficit Disorder" by Patricia O. Quinn; "Succeeding in College With Attention Deficit Disorders: Issues and Strategies for Students, Counselors and Educators" by Jennifer S.
Bramer; For information about developing social skills, take a look at: "What Does Everybody Else Know That I Don't?: Social Skills Help for Adults With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD)" by Michele Novotni.
Nancy Unique, like everyone else
nknisley nknis...@bcpl.net
You got it. Most of what you need to know to get organized *is* common sense and stuff you probably already know. The big trick, of course, is acting on that knowledge.
Check out the book, "ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life" by Judith Kolberg and Kathleen Nadeau. You might find some ways to get organized that work for you.
Nancy Unique, like everyone else
"CK" core.newsgr...@no.spam.remove.addbalance.com
It won't go away. Getting medication and learning coping skills will both help.
You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?! has a number of coping strategies.
You may also want to read Women with ADD (I think) by Sari Solden. Both should be available through your library and come on audioc***ette as well.
CK ...
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