I have ADD.

Attention Deficit Disorder. I have been “diagnosed” with this since about halfway through elementary school. I have been taking medication for it for as long as I can remember. I am not ashamed or embarrassed about this, in fact I’d say I’m rather upfront about it. I found myself thinking about it today and how I am on and off the medication. About the fact that I take a pill that changes the way I feel and think. And about how people view all of this.

Truth is, many people think they know what ADD is but have many misconceptions and predispositions towards people like me. It isn’t as though I go through life with people mocking or bullying me, but there are a few comments every once in a while that annoy me through their misinformed biases. So I thought maybe I would dispel them and explain this, disease? No, not a disease. Honestly, I don’t know how I would categorize it. It just is a part of me and who I am.

So first let’s debunk the myths:

1. ADD and ADHD are the same thing.

While the two are very similar and I’ve even found myself confused they do have a difference. See, ADHD includes a hyperactive component that ADD does not. For example, I have ADD while my best friend has ADHD. This means that she mostly has a lot more energy than me and sometimes runs around like a crazy child. While we both are constantly fidgeting I have noticed she can sometimes want to do many things at once and run around while I only want to sit and watch TV.

2. My medication gives me an unfair advantage in school.

On the contrary, it only evens me out with my classmates. While other people find it easier to focus on a teacher, I find it fairly difficult to keep down my million and one thoughts and make it through the fog of my brain to synthesize the information I am hearing. This is why I find it insulting when people say “oh, I need a Ritalin” because while it helps them study it only makes it possible for me to study properly, without getting distracted by everything else going on. I get my grades because I work hard, not because of a drug.

3. Everyone has ADD nowadays.

Although we all get distracted by our phones, tablets, computers, and whatever is on them, that does not count as a ADD. ADD is something wrong with the nerves and hormones in your brain. You are slow and less able to focus because something doesn’t release or retrieve correctly. I won’t say it’s as bad as depression or schizophrenia, not even close, but it’s the same idea.

So now I’m going to explain what I even feel as someone with ADD, on and off the medication. Hopefully it will clear things up for some of you if you have ever been confused.

To start off, I will explain what my mom was told in school, long before anyone was aware she had ADD. The teachers said she was smart but she was slow, spacey, and flaky. All of which are quite true of me.

Some days are worse than others. Some days I will wake up and feel motivated and get things done. Those are rare however. Most days I wake up fine but find there are too many thoughts in my head and I can’t pay attention to one thing for more than five minutes without getting distracted and starting on a new thing. And then the worst days are when I wake up and find I cannot make my brain see things clearly. I like to describe it as walking through molasses in my brain. I’m slow and I can’t think straight or focus on anything. It’s like a haze is over my brain and I am stuck in the moment when you first wake up and life feels blurry and you are still sleepy but awake. If that makes any sense to anyone but me.

Of course the lack of focus in ADD also comes with an equal and opposite tendency to be caught up in one thing. For me, that tends to be TV, or books. I can get so caught up in a TV show that I can’t tear myself away or think about anything else until I finish it. Same goes for books. This obsession can mess with my life as I can’t seem to focus on anything but whatever is capturing my attention.

So what does the Ritalin do? It helps me focus obviously. I don’t know how it does it but suddenly my lazy, blurry life becomes clarified and I am able to get things done. It doesn’t mean I am suddenly motivated and can do everything double time. It just means that if I put my mind to it I can focus on what needs to be done. It means I am able to stay on one task rather than letting my distracting thoughts get the better of me. Of course, I can still be extremely lazy when on my medication. It also allows me to feel okay in crowds because my ADD tends to make me feel very overwhelmed in a sea of people, or even just a small group. I can get lost in the amount of people and voices and bodies around me. So the Ritalin helps to calm me and keep my head.

So that’s me. That’s a part of me and what my ADD is and my medication does. I hope that clarified things (if anyone was even curious).