Anxiety And Tension
ADHD Treatments, Ritalin And Alternate Therapies
I have had ADHD since I was very young, and have tried
all of the usual ADHD treatments, but I just can't seem to get
completely over this condition. This is despite the fact that I am 23
years old, and in most respects, quite successful in my life. Still, it
is hard for me to sit still, hard for me to organize either my thoughts
or my actions, and I find myself still daydreaming away large bits of my
day when I really would rather be getting things done. None of the ADHD
treatments I have tried have done the trick, despite the fact that I
have tried them all.
Because I did well in
school, despite my occasional acting out, no one diagnosed my ADD until
I was about twelve years old. They might have thought that I had
behavior problems, but they didn't even consider that ADHD treatments
might help at the time, since they figured it was just a matter of
acting out. It was actually my friends who diagnosed me with having
ADHD. You see, they had ADD and ADHD themselves, and could spot one of
their own. I went to the doctor, and he put me on Ritalin, as was
popular at the time. I hated the Ritalin, as I would come to hate all of
my ADHD treatments.
The problem with Ritalin is that it turns you
in to a zombie. This is the most common complain among people of all
ages going through ADHD treatments that involve this drug. You feel
stoned all the time, and not in a happy way. It becomes hard to interact
with other people, or to do anything besides what is in front of you.
When I began stopping my ADHD treatments and refusing to take the
Ritalin, my parents realized that they needed to try alternate therapies.
After
that, they tried everything, and although some of it did make things a
bit better, none of it really did the trick. They tried nutritional
therapy ADHD treatment, where I avoided all processed foods and
caffeine, and I guessed that helped a little, but the ADHD never really
went away. They tried meditation, which I hated – how many people really
want to spend an hour every day in their teens sitting perfectly still?
They even tried Neuro-Linguistic programming and therapy, but I just
started to hate the therapist after a little while, and it never went
anywhere.