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[haleythejade687]

I Realized I Needed Help When...

I had to have my mom take this down to a size 000😔😳

[haleythejade687]

More How To Manage ADHD

“I never remember to take out the trash until my trash can is full, at which point the trash bag is really heavy and the stuff at the bottom has been rotting a while, and it’s awful!”

Small brain: “Try to train yourself to take out the trash on certain days at certain times.”

Large brain: “Buy a tiny trash can. Now you HAVE to empty it.”

[haleythejade687]

Adhd things that need to be talked more about (because adhd is more than just not being able to focus)

Short term memory loss. Seriously, I forget things that are said to me 5 minutes ago or will forget I opened a soda and will have 3 open cans by the end of the day with none of them finished. A lot of people don’t know about this, and so they think that I don’t care enough to listen to what their saying (which I do!!! I just can’t remember it) or that I’m lazy because of all the things I don’t end up doing because I forgot I had to do them.

Lack of motivation. Listen, I honestly can’t do anything on my own for the most part. I have to have someone else tell me to do something or have them set goals for me because it’s so damn difficult for me to do it myself. Again, I’m not lazy, I just have trouble doing things on my own

Language processing difficulties. Sometimes, English and words in general don’t work out in my head. Reading or even listening to someone talk can be extremely difficult for me to understand because my brain just won’t work. Why? Can’t tell you 99% of the time! It’s not that I need to focus, it’s that my brain is just buffering.

Needing multiple forms of stimulation at all times. I have a tin of putty that I keep in my book bag and a smaller one I keep in my purse at all times because of this reason. If I want to learn anything at school, I have to be able to look at something, hear something, and have something to do with my hands. Otherwise, it’s probably a big nope for me. What’s frustrating is that since this isn’t talked about enough, I often get called childish or get looked down upon because I have to play with silly putty in a highschool class.

Hyperfixation. Adhd can mean not being able to focus, but it’s also focusing too much on something! This can mean anything from a certain interest someone is in to at that moment, to something like a song that has been stuck in your head for a week. People seem to not understand this and think that we’re boring and have nothing else to talk about or that we’re annoying because we keep bringing the same things up over and over again but that’s not the case. Trust me, I’m annoyed with the hit or miss song too, but at least it’s not playing in your head constantly like it is for me

These are all the ones I can think of right now, but it’s really important we talk about this stuff more. All of these things that come with adhd can be very frustrating for those around us because they don’t understand that we can’t help it. To an outsider, it may just look like a person with adhd is just lazy and doesn’t care, when it’s actually just how our brains are wired. None of us want to be frustrating to others!! In fact, all of this frustrates us too!! But since adhd is just known as “not being able to focus”, people don’t realize what all comes with it and how it can really fuck everyone over.

Please add more if you can think of anything else!! I’m horrible with lists lol

[haleythejade687]

[haleythejade687]

You’re Sick. (WARNING: Before and After Pics Of Recovery Below!)

Dear, Past Haley.

You’re sick.

You don’t know that yet, but you will eventually.

It’s not your fault. No, it’s the medication that the doctors prescribed for your ADD that’s making you this way.

The medication is making you antisocial, over focused, over worked, over whelmed, depressed, and not only is your mental health deteriorating, but your physical health is too. This medicine has you believing that you need it, that you’re dependent on it. But you’re not.

You’ve always been naturally thin, but not sickly skinny. You don’t see yourself the way other people do. When your friends, family, and loved ones tell you that you need to gain weight, you tell yourself, “They don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m naturally thin, this is the way I am.”

You aren’t anorexic, in fact you hate your skinny body. However, you believe that it’s due to your genetics and couldn’t possibly be due to you not eating.

You think you can’t function without this medicine, that’s basically speed in pill form, because before you got it you were a hot mess. Failing school, fighting with your mom, and constantly getting yourself into trouble. When this magic pill came into your life everything changed. Straight A’s, your mom became your best friend, and now you barely get in trouble. It was like night and day.

Your doctor took you off your medicine, because you got down to an extremely unhealthy weight. 16, 85lbs, 5’5”. Not good. Especially since you weighed 100lbs at 14.

Me at age 14 V.S. Me at age 17:

Your mom constantly worries for you, and buys hundreds of dollars worth of weight gain products, but it’s no use. You won’t eat, because your medicine doesn’t allow you to be hungry. It makes you gag almost every time you attempt to choke down food.

November comes. You’re now 17, and everyone around you has given up on getting you to gain weight. You get in trouble every time you loose a pound, and you become more frustrated with yourself each second. You’ve reached rock bottom at 82lbs. Every night you cry yourself to sleep, and hate going out in public, because of your paranoia that everyone is talking bad about you. The scale is your new enemy. Your prom dress has to be taken in 2 sizes from a size 0.

My waist size at age 14 V.S. Waist size at age 17:

At first, you thought you were going to be miserable. However, 3 days later this prescription drug induced haze finally started to crumble. You can feel, have emotions, taste food, smell, enjoy being in the moment, be excited for future events, aren’t paranoid anymore, and actually want to go out and do stuff. Plus you gain 8 pounds, which was giving you your nice bubble butt again. (Lol.)

By the middle of the second week you’re feeling great. You weigh 94lbs, you can barely see your bones, and your rear end that you like so much is filling out your clothes. (I’m sorry, I promise you I’m not on a weird meds bender again, this is actually important to the story, as you’ll soon find out.) But, you still miss the motivation that you’re medicine gave you, so you’re on the fence about taking it again.

Until one day, when you take your 3 younger sisters down to the hotel restaurant so they can get candy from the quarter machines. Your Papaw is coming too, but he has knee issues, and tells you to go ahead he’ll catch up. As you’re 2 youngest sisters are having a ball getting their 25¢ candy, you and you’re other sister are standing back watching them. The restaurant is void of customers, and employees as it’s near closing time. It’s completely empty besides you, your sisters, and the man, who is the owner, behind the bar.

The owner of the hotel restaurant comes up behind you both, standing oddly close, and says, “Hello girls. Is there anything I can help you with?”

You tell him, “No thanks. Just letting my sisters get some candy.” He then inappropriately gropes your butt, and runs his hands down your sister’s back. Losing your shit on this man, yelling at him, slinging a plastic cup full of runts at him, and getting your Papaw to break all hell loose makes you feel alive. You hadn’t felt angry or mistreated in a long time. You felt human again. (Btw, The restaurant is inside of the Blue Water Hotel in Myrtle Beach SC. Because fuck that guy, and I don’t want anyone else to be groped by him.)

This incident made you realize that you never want to take your medicine again, because if you were on it, you would’ve just let what that man was doing happen. You wouldn’t have been your sister’s advocate, and wouldn’t saved her or yourself from whatever he had planned.

3 years of struggling with your weight, and emotions came to a halt. You finally broke off from your abusive boyfriend, you keep gaining weight on vacation (you know how Mamaw, and Papaw are. Being West Virginians it’s their culture to eat 4 big meals a day.), and you start to feel happy for the first time in 3 years. You are free.

When you get back home, you don’t take your medicine anymore, unless you have an important test or project that requires all of your attention at school. Which only happens like once a month, so you’re all good.

You start to grow taller, gain weight, your eyebrows grow back in, your hair looks healthier, you get your beauty back, your hips get hella wider, you can finally fill out your bra, can wear regular clothes, don’t look like a skeleton, your spine and ribs no longer shows, and you are back to your happy, funny, self. With loads of new friends, and boyfriends who come and go, but treat you like you deserve to be treated.

You went from this:

To this:

Hi there 15 year old Haley, I’m you 3 years in the future. Today I’m 18 years old, 5’7”, and 115 pounds. You have a long miserable rode ahead of yourself, and I still have a ways to go, but this part of your journey makes the hard parts worth it.

Although I wish that you would realize sooner how sick you are, you can’t change the past. I just want you to know, that in the future you are healed. You can get through this, hang in there. I love ya girly.

Yours truly, Haley.