The first time I brought up my difficulty focusing on tasks up to my primary care doctor, I remember her telling me I couldn’t have ADHD because my grades were too good. Later, when I visited a psychiatrist for the first time expecting to recieve an anxiety diagnosis, I walked out with another disorder under my belt too: Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Throughout high school I viewed my ADHD as something that made me inable to focus on work, and sometimes a little hyper. I never thought about it much more than that. Insert college into the picture. I’m learning at a level higher than ever before, with more responsibilities than ever, and more stress than ever. After being the “smart” one all my life, I started to feel like I wasn’t catching onto things as quickly as my peers. I let this get the best of my self esteem and truly felt like I didn’t belong.

After doing more research on ADHD, I realized that the things I was experiencing were not my fault. I started to feel like things were finally making sense in my life. Once I understood why I was acting the way I was, I began to understand that I need to cater learning to my unique needs, and not try to fit into the same box as everyone else. I hope by sharing these five things I learned, you may learn something about yourself too.

1. Just Because Taking Notes Helps You Pay Attention Doesn’t Mean You are Processing the Information

It’s 8:30am, and I just arrived at CHEM101 lecture. The professor begins to speak as I sit with my Ipad, ready to take notes. While taking these notes, I feel great! I feel engaged, and excited to listen to the lecture. However, I would often walk out of lecture and have no idea what I just listened to. I thought this was normal!

I realized a year too late that when I am writing down notes I am not

• Listening to the professor
• Giving myself a chance to process what the professor is saying

This resulted in me missing parts of the lecture content or feeling like the lecturer was moving too fast for me to process what just happened.

I recently stopped taking notes in lecture and I leave actually able to complete my homework and repeat what I just learned. This one simple change has made all the difference in the pace at which I learn.

2. It is Normal to Feel Behind in High Level Group Discussions

During my spring semester I was taking a project based engineering class. I was in a group discussing how we were going to bring our project to life, and people started to spit out ideas left and right. I had no idea what they were talking about, but every other person in the group seemed to get it. “That’s a good idea! That would totally work!”

Am I stupid? Why don’t I understand what they just said?

If you are reading this. You are NOT stupid. People with ADHD tend to have slower cognitive tempo, meaning it takes them longer to process information. I was trying to visualize the things my group members were saying, but the conversation was moving too fast for me to catch up. This really affected my self esteem.

Do not be afraid to ask for clarification or tell people that you just need a second to process what they said. I promise you they will not think you are dumb. I’d rather have a group member take a second to process something than to sit there silently and pretend like they know what is going on but not be able to help because they actually have no idea.

3. It is Not Weird to Take the Exam in the Testing Center

My school has a testing center where students with accommodations can take exams. These exams are proctored in a smaller room with noise cancelling headphones and stress balls available, as well as extra time if you recieve that accommodation.

I never had any accommodations in high school, so I figured I didn’t need them in college. I figured that taking an exam in the test center would make my peers think less of me. However, there is no “advantage” if a student takes an exam in a special environment and/or recieves extra time. This is such a harmful misconception. Students with ADHD, and students with other circumstances, may need these accommodations to be on the same playing field as their peers.

Anyways, I realized I should probably get accommodations my second semester of college after not finishing several exams and doing poorly. This was life changing. I no longer had to sit in a room full of other students flipping pages, tapping their pencils, hearing the clock tick. I would pick at my skin out of stress thinking I was not going to finish the exam in time. Now? I put on my noise cancelling headphones and relax.

4. You May Have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

I’m sitting a table with four other classmates. My professor comes over to our table to tell us how she is very worried about our progress on the project. She says that everyone else is much further ahead of us and she is afraid we may not finish. I am outraged. How dare she think she can say that to us! Right? Wrong. No one else felt this way. My classmates were being polite, hearing her criticism, nodding. I spoke up. Said I disagreed. I clearly had an attitude.

After lashing out like this on my professor I was convinced she hated me. Fast forward half a year and she invited me to work for her.

Let’s review:

• Feeling extreme emotions when experiencing criticism or rejection?
• Thinking people secretly hate you?

These are symptoms of rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD). This is a type of emotional dysregulation when you experience severe emotional pain because of a failure or feeling rejected. This is only one form of emotional dysregulation that people with ADHD experience, but in an academic setting I found it to be very prevalent for me. I spent a lot of freshman year being extremely fearful of what people thought of me and my intelligence. I would overthink every action, every thing I said, all my work, just to prevent being wrong and being seen as less than.

Understanding that RSD or other types of emotional dysregulation may occur can help you be prepared when you experience sudden strong emotions.

5. Irritation May Arise due to Sensory Issues

I absolutely cannot stand when people start chit chatting in the library. The problem is though, I will sit on the floors where talking is allowed and experience a fit of rage build up inside of me. I’m not angry because they are breaking the rules (they are fully in their right to talk), I’m angry because the constant chatter is overstimulating.

Going to the dining hall during lunch and dinner peak hours? Not happening. Studying without noise cancelling headphones or absolute silence? Not happening.

Other times I am suddenly bothered by what I am wearing. Other times weird smells will drive me nuts. Or maybe I only want to eat certain foods. Whatever it is, these irritations are due to sensory issues. People with ADHD may experience sensory issues and sensory overload. Recognizing these triggers is important to avoiding overstimulation from occuring.

Final Note

Clearly, ADHD can present itself in so many different ways beyond hyperactivity or the inability to focus. If you have ADHD, hopefully you learned something new about ADHD or feel affirmed in something mentioned that you struggle with. For those without ADHD, I hope that you now have a broadened view about its multitude of effects.

Regardless, good luck in your learning!