Posted by escapist on August 24, 2006, at 15:14:50
I am reaching out to this community because all of my efforts in trying to find help near me have failed. I was diagnosed by my psychologist with ADHD about 2 years ago. This is a problem that has haunted me since gradeschool, and continues to delay my professional and academic development. Growing up in the south, with very old fashioned family members, psychology/mental health might as well have been fiction. Any complaints from myself or teachers about my lacking abilities to read, focus, or otherwise produce work they felt was reflective of my actual intelligence were dismissed. Mental problems are all in your head. They're not really there and if you think positively enough you can make them go away. That is the mentality of the environment I grew up in. So I underacheived, made it through highschool without reading any books or material we were assigned, mainly because I'd fall asleep or read the same paragraph 15 times, only to find none of it had stuck. College was similar, being an art major was great for ADHD, I could come or not come to class as I pleased, and work was not of an academic nature. Doubling in psychology to pursue my dream of being an art therapist, I had a lot of trouble keeping up with all of the readings, even though I found them interesting and wanted to read them. Papers just piled up and it took me so long to attend to any of them that I usually felt lost. Studying for an exam was out of the question, if I didn't already know the material I wasn't going to be able to memorize/retain it by studying. It was a 5 year nightmare of lost potential in my opinion. Post graduation I continue work at my job of 3.5 years. As a faculty research assistant, a lot of my work now deals with reading articles and composing introductions for journal articles to be published. This is exciting for me, but brings with it the stress of knowing it takes me 10 times longer to produce what I need to than it should. This slowness has lead my employers to assign some of my writing work to others, as I can not read/write as much as I need to in order to keep up with deadlines. Besides this, I have delayed entrance into graduate school. If I got help this very day, it would still be three years post graduation that I remained in limbo, wishing I could take the GRE with confidence that my true abilities would be reflected in my score. I've been studying for it for about a year now, and plan to take it in October. Nearly every weekend I sit down for 4-6 hours to study. Very little of the work I do seems to stay with me, my hope is that doing enough practice problems will create a subconscious knowledge that will just flow when I take the actual test. My hypothesis is that this probably won't be the case. My psychologist & I are both very concerned that even if I manage to finish all my applications and take the GRE and get accepted, remaining in/excelling through grad school will be very difficult for me. I know the volume of reading and writing that will be required. I've watched all my friends graduate medschool, law school, and social work, and have seen them struggle through it, as I sit jealously by, just wishing I could do what they had done. It has never been that I doubted my intelligence/ability, but at some point ADHD becomes an impenetrable handicap. I have taken the educational testings, even some newer more specialized ones, and all indicate I'm very ADD, with the focus on the "inattentive" type. This issue only promotes my depression/anxiety to continue, as I let more and more of my young life slip by without applying myself to my future career, which I think about every single day and feel a little discouraged over every single day as well. My insurance is terrible and I've run myself into thousands of dollars in debt getting these tests, only to be at a loss for a good pdoc who can continue the ADD therapy with medication. My psychologist (who has recommended some pdocs, but none were taking insurance) has urged me to find someone I feel comfortable with, and to get treatment before I progress any further in my occupational/educational goals. I am pleading, from the bottom of my heart & soul for someone to point me in that direction. I live in the DC/MD/VA area, and will happily travel anywhere in that range to find a good doctor who will deal with ADHD. Any help, names, referals, would not only make me happy, it just might keep me from giving up entirely. Thank you for reading. :)
poster:escapist
thread:679681
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060808/msgs/679681.html