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
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