Earlier this year I was in a bad place in my mind and after seeking help I was diagnosed officially with ADHD. Receiving that diagnosis explained almost every major and minor mistake I made in my life. As a child I was never the stereotypical ADHD child. I wasn't a disruption in class, in fact I was the opposite. I always kept to myself and was one of the quiet kids. I passed every class and had passing grades. It is a huge misconception for kids with ADHD to be viewed as disruptive and "bouncing off the walls". No, the mistakes that I made in correlation to ADHD was beyond that. My struggles were always with the fact that my brain is just too damn fast. Concentration can be incredibly hard at times and being distracted can be incredibly easy. I can be restless and impatient and go off on long rambles without even realizing it. All of these things are classic signs of ADHD and it is coming more prevalent in adults today thanks to research. When I reached my huge epiphany earlier this year about my diagnosis, I realized exactly why I was a college drop out. At the time I had no idea what I wanted to be and on top of that the longer I was in college without direction, the less interested I became. After three years (two of which were spent commuting over an hour to college almost every day) I simply stopped going. Ever since then I would look back with instant regret because I felt I failed. I couldn't finish and therefor it was all my fault. Right now I don't look at it like that anymore. I was so lost without direction or diagnosis it was no wonder I failed in a blaze of glory. Okay, well it wasn't glory but it was certainly a failure. But failure can't be all that bad. With failure there is always room to learn and grow. And now I have learned what exactly my brain can and can't do. I know what my actual limitations are but I also have some neat abilities thanks to my ADHD. I can hyperfocus on tasks that allow to me pay attention to fine detail. It is very common for those with ADHD to be creative and use their creativity to express how they feel. I can think of very quick solutions in stressful situations.

After receiving the diagnosis and doing my own research, I have been finding so many ways to help myself. The biggest was readjusting my outlook on life in general. I feel like as a society we have allowed our disadvantages to define us soley as disadvantages. Perhaps I am too much of an optimistic to allow myself to be stuck in that mind set. Yes I have ADHD but I have always had it since I was young and I didn't know then and I lived a really happy childhood. Now that I know how to properly work on myself, I feel like next year is going to be my year.

Now back to my resolution..

The biggest change I am making next year is to completely focus and align my mental health with my physical health. A big change is  as of today I am becoming a vegetarian. This has been on my mind
for a  while now. I have never really been a huge fan of animal products. Even as a kid my mother would have to tell me to eat my meat first because I would go for the veggies first and be too full for the meat. I feel the health benefits will be huge. To go with that, I began to take vitamin supplements such as iron, fish oil, calcium, and B12. This is to not only help me with lack of meat eating, but also it's just really good to take your vitamins. Who knew? On top of that, I plan on turning up my work outs. The BIGGEST coping skill I have found to have helped with my ADHD is exercise. If I go without working out for over a week, I will begin to get restless and even depressed. I can never stress enough how amazing even a simple work out can make you feel mentally. I started exercise to lose weight but now that I have reached my goal, I continue to exercise to not only maintain my physique but also my mental health.

I have a really good feeling that 2018 is going to be a great year. I want to live my own life every day to the fullest. And like how I said before, I find resolutions to be a bit cliche but I am never oppose to creating goals for yourself. A huge thing I learned that those with ADHD have almost an impossible time sticking with one thing. That makes sticking with goals very hard, especially if they are long term. My weight loss journey is proof that I can stick to a long term goal, and I have a very good feeling I can make this new change a permanent fixture in my life. Nothing is impossible.

If you are interested to learn more about ADHD and specifically adult ADHD I highly recommend visiting this site here. 

Happy New Year Friends!

~R

 The Mutt Strut which was sponsored by the Kennebec Humane Society. I had my best 5k time, so far, which was 31 minutes.

 The Flume 5k  was my very first trail race and also was my worst time due to difficulty which was 44 minutes. Definitely plan on tackling this again next year.

 The campus/golf course we lived/worked at in Florida (above and below)