On week three of Spring quarter and having some concerns with my classes and my ability to get work done. I struggled pretty badly last quarter and ended up with a C in my hardest class, a C- in my "middle" difficulty class, and a D in my easy class (which by university standards a D is the same as an F).
I sat back and tried to look at everything that happened as objectively as I could and came to the conclusion that I was not doing well at all. I was getting mostly A, B, and and a few C's on the homework in all classes but bombing the quizzes and exams.
Some of the tests gave me high anxiety and others gave me none. One thing that was common in all of it was that I couldn't remember details. When I saw a question I remember seeing it but I could not remember how to do anything with it or any specifics.
Memory recall was definitely a problem and the only reason I was getting good grades on the homework was because I did it at my own pace and could re-read (or Google) things when needed to compensate for weak memory.
A bigger problem though was with reading. I had (and am still having) trouble reading for very long. I find myself still moving my eyes along the lines and turning pages but thinking about everything else in the world. So I wasn't actually reading things just going through the motions. My attention span varied greatly depending on the time of day, amount of sleep I had the night before, and whether I worked (in addition to school) that day or not. In general, my focus while reading could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. Rarely longer than 20 minutes. Any noises, be it TV, radio, people, etc., would immediately distract me and if it was prolonged I simply could not read.
I am also highly distracted when doing tasks to the point where I find myself getting side-tracked on a side-track...
I also can't focus on anything if there is a sink of dirty dishes or there is some task that I know has to be done. Sometimes I can let it slide for a day, but that's pushing it. Sometimes it's so bad that I can't even relax and watch TV if I know there is something that needs to be done.
In the past I've managed to "work around" these issues by only taking one or two classes per quarter. However, since I started getting financial aid last year I have to go full-time in order to get enough money to live. Now things start to go downhill, but not right away.
At the beginning of Fall quarter I was taking 3 classes and after the mid-term in one class (the instructor was REALLY awful) the class average was 18/40 (a nice F) and we were told there would be NO curving. So I dropped the class (and put myself on academic probation with the financial aid department). I finished the remaining two classes with a B and a C. Combined with what happened last (Winter) quarter I decided there is without a doubt something not quite right here.
Then two weeks before the end of Winter quarter I remembered when I was a kid, sometime in elementary school, I was diagnosed with ADD (now known as ADHD, Inattentive Type). I stopped taking the medication (Ritalin) by 6th grade because it gave me headaches (plus it was really expensive and we didn't have medical insurance). I never went back to the doctor to get a different prescription or seek any further treatment.
A little Googling turned up some interesting info. One glaring item was that adults who were diagnosed with ADD as a child often find ways to compensate as an adult. Once I realized that I had been compensating by taking fewer classes, not married, not working, etc. it was like having a mini-epiphany. It all made sense!
Not having any medical insurance (still) I wasn't sure what to do or where to go.. Then I found a local clinic that is supported a network of churches, local business, and donations that charges on a sliding scale. So I went in and made an appointment (took 3 weeks because I'm a new patient). At the appointment they found my blood pressure was way too high so they gave me a prescription for that and scheduled me to come back in a week. Apparently the common treatments for ADHD cause your blood pressure to increase which is dangerous if you already have high blood pressure. They also had me fill out a form that asked a bunch of questions that were obviously designed to pre-determine ADHD severity. I later found several similar questions online and tried to answer all of them as honestly as possible. They didn't tell me where I was, but doing the online tests showed that I fell in the severe category. Anyway a week later I went back and the blood pressure was at a nice safe level. They had me sign a drug contract, give a piss test, and then gave me a prescription for a generic version of Adderall (which I knew nothing about until I looked it up when I got home). I have to take half a pill twice a day (I'm going to try once in the morning and then again mid-day) for one week then if no issues arise increase the dosage to one pill twice a day.
I'm not really excited/happy about taking more pills.. but I think it did help a little this morning with focusing while the professor was babbling (today is my first day of class since getting the prescription). However, I can already see one problem in that the drug doesn't stay in your system all day. There is a fairly good "let down" 4-5 hours after taking the last half a pill. I was able to partially recover from it by drinking some Mt. Dew. and relaxing for about two hours.
If this doesn't work (either now or in a week when I switch to a full dose) then I don't know what I'm going to do and will probably loose financial aid forcing me to withdraw of school.
I sat back and tried to look at everything that happened as objectively as I could and came to the conclusion that I was not doing well at all. I was getting mostly A, B, and and a few C's on the homework in all classes but bombing the quizzes and exams.
Some of the tests gave me high anxiety and others gave me none. One thing that was common in all of it was that I couldn't remember details. When I saw a question I remember seeing it but I could not remember how to do anything with it or any specifics.
Memory recall was definitely a problem and the only reason I was getting good grades on the homework was because I did it at my own pace and could re-read (or Google) things when needed to compensate for weak memory.
A bigger problem though was with reading. I had (and am still having) trouble reading for very long. I find myself still moving my eyes along the lines and turning pages but thinking about everything else in the world. So I wasn't actually reading things just going through the motions. My attention span varied greatly depending on the time of day, amount of sleep I had the night before, and whether I worked (in addition to school) that day or not. In general, my focus while reading could be anywhere from 30 seconds to 20 minutes. Rarely longer than 20 minutes. Any noises, be it TV, radio, people, etc., would immediately distract me and if it was prolonged I simply could not read.
I am also highly distracted when doing tasks to the point where I find myself getting side-tracked on a side-track...
I also can't focus on anything if there is a sink of dirty dishes or there is some task that I know has to be done. Sometimes I can let it slide for a day, but that's pushing it. Sometimes it's so bad that I can't even relax and watch TV if I know there is something that needs to be done.
In the past I've managed to "work around" these issues by only taking one or two classes per quarter. However, since I started getting financial aid last year I have to go full-time in order to get enough money to live. Now things start to go downhill, but not right away.
At the beginning of Fall quarter I was taking 3 classes and after the mid-term in one class (the instructor was REALLY awful) the class average was 18/40 (a nice F) and we were told there would be NO curving. So I dropped the class (and put myself on academic probation with the financial aid department). I finished the remaining two classes with a B and a C. Combined with what happened last (Winter) quarter I decided there is without a doubt something not quite right here.
Then two weeks before the end of Winter quarter I remembered when I was a kid, sometime in elementary school, I was diagnosed with ADD (now known as ADHD, Inattentive Type). I stopped taking the medication (Ritalin) by 6th grade because it gave me headaches (plus it was really expensive and we didn't have medical insurance). I never went back to the doctor to get a different prescription or seek any further treatment.
A little Googling turned up some interesting info. One glaring item was that adults who were diagnosed with ADD as a child often find ways to compensate as an adult. Once I realized that I had been compensating by taking fewer classes, not married, not working, etc. it was like having a mini-epiphany. It all made sense!
Not having any medical insurance (still) I wasn't sure what to do or where to go.. Then I found a local clinic that is supported a network of churches, local business, and donations that charges on a sliding scale. So I went in and made an appointment (took 3 weeks because I'm a new patient). At the appointment they found my blood pressure was way too high so they gave me a prescription for that and scheduled me to come back in a week. Apparently the common treatments for ADHD cause your blood pressure to increase which is dangerous if you already have high blood pressure. They also had me fill out a form that asked a bunch of questions that were obviously designed to pre-determine ADHD severity. I later found several similar questions online and tried to answer all of them as honestly as possible. They didn't tell me where I was, but doing the online tests showed that I fell in the severe category. Anyway a week later I went back and the blood pressure was at a nice safe level. They had me sign a drug contract, give a piss test, and then gave me a prescription for a generic version of Adderall (which I knew nothing about until I looked it up when I got home). I have to take half a pill twice a day (I'm going to try once in the morning and then again mid-day) for one week then if no issues arise increase the dosage to one pill twice a day.
I'm not really excited/happy about taking more pills.. but I think it did help a little this morning with focusing while the professor was babbling (today is my first day of class since getting the prescription). However, I can already see one problem in that the drug doesn't stay in your system all day. There is a fairly good "let down" 4-5 hours after taking the last half a pill. I was able to partially recover from it by drinking some Mt. Dew. and relaxing for about two hours.
If this doesn't work (either now or in a week when I switch to a full dose) then I don't know what I'm going to do and will probably loose financial aid forcing me to withdraw of school.