ADHD Essay, Research Paper

When Mrs. Fallon first described this project to us, I was a little bit skeptical

about it. I kept thinking that I had no problems in my life and that I didn?t

need any type of conditioning. But then I thought, I?m definitely not perfect

and I knew I was definitely overlooking something. Recently I was diagnosed

with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder) and I felt like I was

cheated out of so many years that could have been productive ones. So I

decided that for my conditioning project I would test how much medication I

should use that would keep my body stable enough to begin a sort of healing

and moving on process, kind of like a second chance. After I finished my

conditioning I realized that I was a lot different then when I started. My

parents noticed that once I started the project, I was paying attention a lot

more to what they were saying to me. My mother was worried though that I

was going to hurt myself by taking a lot of the medication, but I told her that

people have experimented on themselves before and look at the results. I

also had calmed down with my dorm mates. I felt a lot more comfortable

around them and I had begun to trust them a lot more. I now felt like I had

accomplished something to make my physical body and my mental body

better. In the areas of school I felt like I had accomplished a lot. I was

handing in reports and I understood things I was learning. In high school I had

trouble in most of my classes and my grades were up and down. I felt like I

finally overcame something that bothered me more than anything. As a person

interacting with other people from another ethnic background, I never had

problems with other people from different races. I was always known to be a

person who gets along with others. I?m pretty much friends with anyone from

any type of race. I don?t think that I have been in forcing other people?s

behavior. I do think that I have been enforcing habits on other people though.

My smoking cigarettes has giving me a lot of problems. Whenever I used to

play sports I would never ever run out of breath but when I started smoking

my body began to slow down a little and would run out of breath. I don?t

think that there is anyway I will be able to get rid of this problem anytime

soon. I have always been a smoker and I think that once I am a father, I will

cut down a lot. But till then I will continue to smoke. Now that I feel I have

been given a second chance there are a couple bad habits I would like to get

rid of in the future. The first one is my laziness. I would really like to get rid of

this curse. I call it a curse because it has been a problem since I started high

school. It has now followed me into college and I hope that with some type

of concentration I will be able to conquer this problem. My second habit is

my constantly being distracted when I am learning. Whenever I am in class, I

constantly go into another world and I phase out. But this problem is due to

my ADHD and it took doctors a while to come up with this answer. Now

that I have been taking my medication I?m able to concentrate a little bit more

on what I do. The one habit I concentrated on in this project was my

concentration. I have decided that I will begin to take certain doses of

medication a day and the next day I will see what the outcome is. I have also

decided that I will give a precise record on my experiment by typing a

journal. This way, I will be able to record my progress and I will be able to

determine how well I am progressing throughout the treatment. Each day I

will type out how I felt and what I was feeling at that time. Then I will use that

data to determine my next move. Three ways I will reinforce my using the

medication is by leaving it out at night so when I wake up in the morning,

getting my friends to encourage me to take the pills, and by having faith in the

whole process. Ways I can shape my behavior by watching what I do when I

study, when I do home work and what I do in class. I can also schedule

things out for school so I will be a lot more organized. Once I have achieved

what I have set out to do, I will begin a process of scheduling. I found out

that one I organize what I am doing; it is a lot easier to do. Each day I am

planning to take my medication and I am planning to study a lot and

concentrate more on what I am doing. This project has helped me to learn

how to cope with a problem that people make a big deal about and I am glad

that it has been easier than I thought it was.

Bibliography

self researced

Word Count: 896