ADHD ADA Assignment

My diagnosis was ADHD. I needed to watch the simulation video, answer the questions, then while trying to complete one task like homework, making dinner, getting ready, etc. I had to walk away from it every 90 seconds.

Once I saw my card I felt relieved because I thought it was going to be easy. Each day I would wake up and decide if I was going to do the ADA assignment- if I had an activity that day that I could do that wouldn’t interfere with my time and priorities. I decided to wait until Saturday afternoon to make a meal having ADHD. After making that decision I became emotional and I realized that people with ADHD never get a break from any activity without having ADHD. They are not able to plan their schedule around when they can “have a disability” disabilities are constant. As I was making a meal I would set the timer and ever 90 seconds I had to walk away. It made me feel anxious and that I should make the most of those 90 seconds and do everything quick and at the bare minimum.  I hated doing things at the bare minimum and not being able to multi task because I only had 90 seconds. The worst part was when the timer would go off and my hands were already dirty so I would have to stop right in the middle of something- it was difficult to make the most of my time because I was constantly distracted on what I was going to do during and after the timer went off. I was helping cut vegetables and make potatoes with my roommate and I felt more like a nuisance than a help. I am used to doing things quickly- but it was impossible to do anything simple because I couldn’t finish as fast or as efficiently as I wanted.

The video I watched gave me a headache, and it was only like 3 minutes long, I was irritated with the sounds and the words that didn’t make sense, in the beginning I wasn’t paying too much attention to the words because there was too much to look at and think about that it was hard for me to listen and watch and read at the same time. I felt like it was not only hard to focus put it was so hard to stay concentrated on one thing at a time. I answered only one of the questions right because a lot of the words I remember seeing- but it was difficult to remember the context of all the answers. It frustrated me because I knew if I were to read over the same text without the graphics and sounds and video I would have remembered all the details but the fact that I couldn’t pay attention to the story made it hard to remember the details. I also realized while doing this assignment that we cannot expect children with ADHD to just “snap out of it”, some situations it is easier to keep their mind and thoughts occupied and some tasks are definitely easier to do with ADHD than others. For example I would have never attempted to do my homework because an assignment that might take me an hour may take up to do- could possibly take someone with the disability up to 5-10x longer. It is so discouraging to think about doing something important that requires  a lot of concentration and focus.