I found out I have ADHD.

do you ever think to yourself man why is it so hard for me to just do the things I need to do and focus and remember things and manage my time and be organized and remember things and not get sidetracked ha yeah me neither when I was a kid I was pretty much the picture perfect depiction of a good student I was well organized always turned in my work on time got good grades I even did my homework on Fridays instead of procrastinating until Sunday night sure I didn't like studying and found it hard hard

to focus during it but who didn't seeing all those qualities put together that doesn't sound like the brain of someone with any kind of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder does it I was well behaved didn't feel like I struggled much in school and didn't cause any trouble that is up until I moved out of my parents house for the first time to go to college gradually I started slipping I began skipping classes a bit when I just didn't feel like going would wait until the last moment to start class workor and lost a lot of motivation

because I wasn't interested in any of my school work but overall even though it was pretty out of character for me I chocked it all up to the fact I was simply overo to school at the same time my YouTube was really kicking off and all I wanted to do was that of course I wasn't going to be as good of a student when the silly YouTube videos were doing numbers I finished a single year of college and convinced my parents to let me take a gap year to see where this YouTube thing can take

me spoiler alert the Gap year turned into me never going back I'm a College Dropout so great I've eliminated the boring school part of my life that weighs me down now I can go back to being organized with my new exciting passion job which entails being my own boss and having to manage and assign myself all of my own responsibilities 24/7 why are the voices not getting quieter it's almost like everything was going backwards I was having a much harder time staying organized and focused if I didn't want to do a certain type of work

I would have to shackle myself down in basically an isolation chamber to be able to get it done if I found a new interest it was all I could think about and why is it so easy to suddenly be on your roof watching a YouTube video on how to know when you need new shingles I really didn't get it child me had it held together more than current me what went wrong I could look back and recognize how everything used to be so perfect and easy look at tiny Jaden and all her ducks in that

row I used to color code every single binder I owned and now I don't even know where I placed the 20 bucks I literally just had in my hand 3 minutes ago I haven't even left the room genuinely where could it fing go despite feeling like I was downward spiraling for multiple years I never suspected it could be something related to a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder I just thought I wasn't trying hard enough and being lazy or applying myself like I used to oh the woes of turning into an adult I suppose maybe the best years

of your life truly are in high school how upsetting I didn't even enjoy those either but then one day I got a text from my brother I got diagnosed with ADHD huh it was a pretty big surprise for me because growing up he never really seemed to show any of the typical symptoms you associate with ADHD you know people would always describe ADHD to me as Super Hyper kids who would run around the room and scream and generally be a lot that wasn't my brother he was quiet and well behaved like I was but when

he started explaining his symptoms the gears started turning yeah I've always struggled a lot with focusing in school and having things hold my attention when it's boring but like I could hyper fixate on things I'm interested in and get really passionate about that stuff hearing him talk about his personal symptoms of ADHD made a lot of sense and I felt very freshly educated on the topic and you'd think that I would immediately start looking into getting a diagnosis for myself because if you were paying attention my brother's experiences all sounded very similar to the same

struggles I've been having in my own life but related to work instead of of school because I dropped out but nope I was just like good for you bro happy for you or I'm sorry I don't know anyway back to struggling to Simply open up my drawing program as if two blocks of iron were welded to my wrists imbalance of brain chemicals no this just happens from time to time it's normal just the laziness kicking in I hate Mondays am I right even though I didn't instantly think there is a possibility of me also having

ADHD the mental seed was planted it's it's genetic so I knew subconsciously it ran in the bloodline it took a few years after my brother was diagnosed for me to really sit down with myself and consider that I too could have ADHD shocking Revelation I know foreshadowing where did you come from things in the focus and productivity Department were just getting worse and worse I had the attention span of a cartoon dog would completely forget things as soon as they entered my head would hyperfixate on random stuff like an addict and there is const Civil

War happening inside my head to get one thing done even though I knew it would only take like 15 minutes you don't understand it feels like physical torture to make myself sit down and lips sync a simple scene like most of the time you know the thing I've been doing for 10 years at this point and am definitely used to doing and yeah once I've gotten going then I'm honed in and you have to prye me away from it with a crowbar I'm aware of that part but no I'm still going to scrap with myself

to plant my ass in that chair because I don't I don't even know why at this point the biggest thing holding me back from feeling like I had ADHD has always been the simple memory of being in school and having my together I know what it feels like to be on top of things and to be organized I had it all in the palm of my little child's hand I just needed to summon it again with a bit more effort but a light Switched Off in my brain and suddenly I'm just not capable of the

things I used to be and it feels pathetic simple tasks are such a mental burden it feels like I'm out of control but can't do anything about it so finally I figured I would try and get myself diagnosed what did I have to lose if anything they just tell me no you don't have ADHD try a little harder and stop complaining and yes of course it took me like 8 months after deciding to get diagnosed to schedule the actual appointment what did you expect that's like the first check mark box on the ADHD list I

started seeing a psychologist and he would ask the typical do you have a hard time focusing and I'd go yeah like this one time yesterday and then he writes something down as I continue rambling on this hypers specific example way too long for a neurotypical person I met with him for a few weeks and then it came down to diagnosis day the nerves man I was so ready for him to say I'm a normal person who needs to suck it up but instead he was like okay so yeah you definitely exhibit symptoms of someone with

the inattentive type of ADHD and autism yippe my struggles are Justified I'm not crazy wait wait what was that last part he explained all the different ways ADHD affects me and the different areas I struggle with compared to others he even gave me a 37 page document of his conclusions and information on how my brain works with graphs and pictures I've read through it all a bunch of times now and it's it's already really helped me understand how I tick I call them the autism Docks but I'm I'm not going to get into that side

of the diagnosis let's just let's let's just push that one away for now there's a couple types of ADHD you can have hyperactive inattentive and combined which is both hyperactive and inattentive hyperactive is the type people typically go to when they think of a loud kid who can't sit still people with this kind normally need to fidget have low patience tend to talk a lot and have trouble staying seated especially when they're EXP Ed to like in a meeting or school inattentive is the one where someone experiences difficulty in Focus memory organization has a low

attention span that's the one I have it's self-explanatory but if you have the combined type of ADHD then you got it all ADHD jackpot right there my friend I brought up during the appointments that I used to be such a good kid in school with seemingly zero ADHD symptoms and how that part has always confused me and he had a couple hypotheses about it one since my mom has always been a big source of my organizational influence I was able to depend and lean on her for the majority of my school life for it I

felt like I was naturally capable of staying on top of things because she was right behind me the whole time reminding me and guiding me through stuff so when I moved out everything started crumbling which lines up pretty perfectly to when I did start struggling another explanation he gave was the fact that ADHD affects women differently than men which is also less researched love to hear that one not only do women tend to be able to mask their symptoms better than guys so it goes much more unnoticed but they also experience ADHD differently and research

says there's a chance it can just start affecting women later in life I'm no ADHD scientist though that's just what I've been told by Specialists I don't know I've just got the dang thing either way those two explanations make a lot of sense to me and have since put my weird ADHD imposter syndrome to rest I didn't really think that getting a diagnosis would change much about how I go about my life but since getting my ADHD certificate and lollipop it's completely revolutionized how I think and go about getting things done it's still hard to

get my ass into gear when I need to do one normal thing that's not difficult but I'm much less hard on myself and will strike almost like these kinds of mental deals to loophole myself into getting things done like for example if I really don't want to edit a video I'll say to myself okay I know it's going to be super hard for me to immediately start that task so I'll get myself into the mindset of getting things done by doing a simple other task I don't find difficult like cleaning my room that way I'll

feel productive and can transition that into tackling the original task much easier it doesn't always work but it's the mindset change and overall understanding that sometimes I'm going to have to go about things in different ways that's helped me a lot also after being diagnosed with ADHD I didn't have much desire to get medicated I figured just knowing I have it would be enough to get things into gear and I didn't really need medication that badly but the content creator and me also thought well if I'm going to write a script about having ADHD it

would be nice to be able to talk about what it's like to be medicated even just for a day so I got prescribed good old classic instant release atall instant release means I don't have to take it every day I can just take it when I need to get stuff done it picks me immediately and then wears off after a few hours there's also extended release which is the kind you take every day and gives you a constant steady stream of medication it wasn't until I had the Aderall in my hands when I realized the

idea of taking it for the first time made me nervous like what is this thing going to do to me I have so many friends with ADHD honestly a higher ratio than friends without it that's how it goes in content creation all these MFS have it they were all telling me that it's awesome how you'll take it and immediately feel like a God and you can do anything and it's incredible and yeah that sounds great but also like what the hell what do you mean I take this little pill and suddenly all of my problems

seemingly disappear and I gain superpowers that's scary that sounds like the thing every adult in a 20m radius warned us about when we were kids am I going to feel like a completely different person I don't know if I'm ready to experience immortality I put off taking Aderall for so long because I was irrationally scared of the tiny blue pill but coincidentally I really needed to get a script done if I take too long to write a video script then the team runs out of work to do and then I have a bunch of people

sitting around and waiting for me to give them more work so they can pay their bills and survive and stuff but for the freaking life of me I just could not get myself to sit down and write that script my body and soul found it mentally easier to backflip off a bridge than write words on the computer after literally two months of my brain going ooh you better write that script I won't let you enjoy a single moment of your life if you aren't writing that script I don't want to get up go to the

bridge after that constant loop I finally swallowed my fears and took my first Aderall I had talked to James a lot about what Aderall is like since he's been on it for a few years now and after I took one I was messaging him like I did it I ate an Aderall how long does it normally take to start how do I know what do I do and he was helping me a lot and giving me tips then like 20 minutes later I felt it all the non-stop thoughts going on in my brain went silent

I could think clearly and in like a line my mind wasn't racing a mile a minute I was able to sit behind my laptop and right it was incredible I was messaging all my friends about it the entire time I can write my script and not get distracted I don't have to take a mental break every 10 minutes I can remember things Kelsey sent me a message and I thought I'll check that in a bit and I remember to check in it a bit and respond when I opened a new tab to look something up

I didn't go down a random unrelated Rabbit Hole I picked up my phone to check something and didn't impulsively scroll Twitter for an hour I can write words so easily how am I doing this what do you mean I can feel like this whenever I want if I just eat the tiny blue pill I refuse to believe regular people can function like this on a day-to-day basis no way it wouldn't be fair you guys don't have loud non-stop voices in your heads preventing you from doing normal things come on just admit it you can't pick

something up and immediately keep remembering what you were supposed to be doing with it you always forget and feel crazy come on come on I was so suspicious that on Aderall either nothing would happen and I just wouldn't feel anything or I would feel like I'm a totally different person experiencing some higher than life manic episode but no I just felt like myself but with my together and that's the part I couldn't believe after 2 months of War I finally was able to plant myself down and write my damn script you want to know what

script I wrote while experiencing Aderall for the first time this one I was struggling to write a script about ADHD and the thing that finally pulled it out of me was Aderall come you got to admit that's funny yeah it was great I didn't think my head was loud before or I was that imp impulsive or had that hard of a time focusing but now that I've been able to peacefully sit in one spot for hours and not need to take a break or check social media or get distracted by some stupid tangent I don't

actually care about yeah this changes things I still can't believe what I was able to accomplish writing a script in 3 hours compared to my typical 12 hours AKA one mediocre thing with no struggle at all and you want to know what I did right after I wrote this script I immediately got up and cleaned the bird's room without rotting in bed for 3 hours beforehand I just went from one task to another without thinking about it all you neurotypical people must be thinking I'm literally pathetic and useless but I know my ADHD Brethren are

out of their chairs right now hearing that I'm not standing before you all to give you scientific data and information on ADHD or diagnose you or even promote prescribed drugs I'm just here to talk about a big and recent experience in my life how much of an impact and effect it's had on me and how awesome feeling normal is seriously being able to take a deep breath in mental silence is incredible cherish that feeling if you don't have a neurodevelopmental disorder it took me 26 years to realize my woes were not actually woses but symptoms

of brain chemical deficiency I'm writing this video All Things Considered pretty recently after being diagnosed and I'm still trying to learn how to rebuild my life in a way that lets me optimize my productivity and get things done at a normal level but so far I've come so much further than I thought I could simply by knowing what's going on up there in the old Noodle and ater all if you're on the fence about being diagnosed with something I get it it's scary it's scary to think you might have it and it's also scary to

think you might not have it it's an odd place to be but for me having a concrete answer from a professional is what got me to find finally stop feeling stuck in place and actually start moving forward again it's been great I'm excited to keep learning more things about how my mind works and find new ways to improve my day-to-day life cheers to getting normal done in case you missed it I have new merch for a limited time you can get yourself a new and improved Ahi plush and a completely new soft Ari jacket I

love both of these products and up until June 23rd they could be all yours if you miss it you'll never know how fluffy and pillowy the jacket is oh it's like a cloud or how cuddly and friend shaped the plush is plus it's a great way to support both me and the team while we continue to make animations for you check them out at Jaden animations.com thanks for watching the video and good luck simply existing to all my ADHD Brethren out there I'm right there with you I believe one day you'll respond to that message

in your inbox hang in there