Edge Foundation Blog

Editor’s Note:  Our last blog talked about how ADHD has impacted Nolan Wesselink in school.  This one explores how coaching has made a difference in his life.  For more information about how an Edge ADHD Coach can help you visit Edge Foundation’s Coaching Page.]

Written by guest blogger: Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign

Aside from his medication and special accommodations, Wesselink makes use of an academic “coach”. Coaches are commonly used in ADHD treatment, and are the main focus of Neil Peterson’s EDGE Foundation.

Peterson founded the EDGE Foundation, so he could help other kids suffering from ADHD, in the same way he was able to help his own two children, who have ADHD and Dyslexia.

“Medications do not work for everybody. They are not ‘the’ answer,” said Peterson. “Medications do not teach skills, but coaches do.”

Coaches like Wesselink’s and those from EDGE work by helping a person with ADHD to organize their life on their own, rather than telling them what to do. The coach meets with a student once or twice per week, and helps him or her with prioritizing, focusing, confidence, etc.

For example, Peterson’s daughter calls her coach for 30 minutes every Monday. She and her coach talk about how everything in her life is going.

“Then she’ll tell him she’s got a big paper due next week, and later she’ll tell him how her friends are coming to visit her that weekend,” Peterson said. “He’ll ask if that will affect her paper. Then she’ll say ‘I should probably write the first part of that paper this week before they visit.’”

What’s important about coaching, Peterson stresses, is that the person with ADHD is doing the thinking, coming to the conclusions on their own, and that’s how they learn the skills needed in life.

Treatment plans for ADHD that include medication, special accommodations and coaching, can be very beneficial to a student with ADHD, and can help the student function normally in and out of college.

Regardless, ADHD is a difficult disorder to deal with, especially in college, and certainly when a student with ADHD has not been diagnosed with the disorder. But, according to Wesselink, with the right treatment, being a college student with ADHD is manageable.

“Since I was diagnosed, I’m always learning more ways to deal with it,” said Wesselink. “I have no doubt that I’ll graduate and have a “normal” job afterwards as an engineer.”

Read more testimonials on how Edge ADHD Coaching changes lives.

[Note: This is part one of a two part story written by guest blogger, Shaina Humphries, University of Illinios- Urbana/Champaign -- Editor]

Nolan Wesselink is an average college student. He’s an engineering major at the University of Illinois, lives in a dorm room, goes to class during the week and goes to parties on the weekend. But there’s one thing about Nolan’s college experience that sets it apart from most others. He has ADHD.

                Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or ADHD, is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder that can be especially debilitating to college students. College students who suffer from ADHD are more likely to drop out of college than students without the disorder.

According to Neil Peterson, the founder of the EDGE Foundation, and father of two kids with ADHD, “Students with ADHD are 33 percent less likely to graduate from college.”

ADHD is characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity or impulsivity. The disorder, also commonly called ADD, can be present in three different ways. According to the USA Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, someone can either have the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD, the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type, or the combined type.

People with the predominantly inattentive type of ADHD often do not pay close attention to details, are very forgetful and have a noticeably short attention span. While many people can attest to exhibiting at least one if not all of these symptoms from time to time, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have ADHD.

Peterson has a favorite analogy that he uses to distinguish people with ADHD and those without.

“Sometimes people will walk up the stairs, and when they finally get there, they can’t remember why they walked up in the first place,” Peterson said. “Plenty of people have had this experience before, but the difference is this: people who have ADHD experience this in a chronic fashion, rather than every once in a while.”

The case of the stairs is a perfect example of predominantly inattentive ADHD, but not necessarily the other types. A person with predominantly hyperactive-impulsive ADHD is usually very fidgety, has trouble waiting for his or her turn, blurts out answers to questions that have not been finished, and finally, talks excessively.

“Sometimes I’ll just talk, and not shut up, for like 10 minutes straight, and I don’t even really notice it,” said Wesselink. “I just keep talking, and whoever I’m talking to obviously notices it, and probably gets offended, but I won’t even notice that I’ve been talking that long until after the fact.”

Wesselink has the combined type of ADHD. This means he experiences various symptoms from both categories, inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive. However, like many people with ADHD, Wesselink was diagnosed late in life. He was diagnosed just a year ago, during his freshman year of college.

Since many of the symptoms are thought to be simply bad behavior, extra energy, or just a part of a personality, many of the people in the U.S. with ADHD do not even know that they have it. According to Peterson, 50 percent of people with ADHD have never been diagnosed.

“I had a friend who had it [ADHD], and he was telling me about the things he was going through, and I thought ‘Hey, that sounds exactly like me,’” said Wesselink. “So I went to McKinley to get screened. After what ended up being a three-month-long process of tests and doctor visits, I was diagnosed.”

Wesselink also said the biggest problem for college students probably isn’t the disorder itself, but the fact that so many people are unaware they have it. With all the academic demands, increased independence, and distracting environment, untreated ADHD students are likely to fail.

“If I wasn’t getting treatment , I can basically guarantee that I would have failed out by now,” Wesselink said.

In fact, Wesselink almost dropped out of school as recently as last semester. After being diagnosed, different medications were tested on him, but many of them had unbearable side effects.

Aside from depression and a strong urge to give up on school, Wesselink said, “I had severe mood swings, one made me lose my appetite entirely, and one made me very angry and short-tempered. One even made me sweat.”

Even dorm life is greatly affected by Wesselink’s ADHD. Anthony Perez, his roommate and close friend, said Wesselink’s ADHD affects his life, too.

“A lot of times there will be tension in the room. He’ll have mood swings,” said Perez. “If he’s studying and I do something that distracts him, he’s completely screwed. He can’t just go right back to studying like most people. That leads to problems.”

Perez also said that the side effects from Wesselink’s medications would cause fights and uncomfortable living conditions, so he was glad when Wesselink eventually found the best one and stopped switching medications.

However, medicine is definitely not the only method Wesselink uses to treat his ADHD. He receives treatment and special accommodations from U of I’s Disability Resources and Educational Services, or DRES.

With DRES, he is able to take his class exams in an environment conducive to people with ADHD. He takes his exams in a plain cubical with minimal noise and distractions. In this space, Wesselink is able to concentrate, or “hyperfocus” as he calls it, on his exam, so he doesn’t make nervous mistakes that he would make in a normal classroom environment, filled with distractions and a time limit.

Next week:  How an ADHD Coach changed everything

Recently I was waiting with three young boys for a table at a busy restaurant. The crowd had spilled outside during the long wait, and the boys inevitably got in trouble by throwing berries at the windows of the restaurant.  When confronted by their mother, they each had a different excuse for their behavior:  “I only did it once,”  “He made me,” and “I didn’t do it.”

It’s easy to come up with excuses for letting your impulses get in your way.  Everyone uses excuses to get out of a jam now and then.  But you can end up fooling yourself into believing your own story.  “I only did it once.” Doesn’t sound so bad does it?  But sometimes only one time is all it takes to make an irreparable mistake.  Consider drinking and driving.  You might get away with it once.  But on the other hand, you could end up killing someone.

 “He made me.”  It’s easy to fool ourselves into believing that someone else is responsible for our actions.  But, short of having someone holding a gun to your head, the only person who makes you do something is yourself.  Sure it might have been the first boy’s idea to throw the berries in the first place, but the second child threw that berry all by himself.  Does, “he made me,” stand up as a defense for shoplifting?

Which brings us to “I didn’t do it.”  Standing around and not acting when other people are doing the wrong thing, is doing the wrong thing.  Each of us has the responsibility to take a stand and say stop.  We call people heroes when they step in to help someone who is being victimized in a crime.  “I didn’t do it” stands hand-in-hand with “it’s not my fault.”  Taking personal responsibility is looking at ourselves honestly and owning our actions.  If you know that a crime is going to occur and you do nothing about it, you can be held accountable in a court of law.

Everyone makes mistakes.Sure it’s hard to stand up to an angry mother and say, “It was my idea,” or “I felt embarrassed to say ‘no’.”  It’s even harder to stand up to our friends and say, “I don’t want to do this; I’m outta here.”  Thankfully, most of life your mother won’t be there to make excuses to.  The only one you need to fess up to if yourself.  Some days with ADHD can feel like a series of impulsive disasters.  You don’t make them better by shoving mistakes under the carpet with lame excuses.  The key to successfully living with ADHD is facing your mistakes and working to avoid them in the future.

What kind of mistakes do you use white lies to cover up for?  Lateness?  Forgetting to pay a bill?  Missing appointments?  Getting homework in on time?  Most of the time the only person fooled by your excuses is yourself.  Consider your friend who is always late.  You know they just can’t get it together, regardless of their story.

If you’re in the habit of making excuses, it can be hard to change.  Be easy on yourself, and pick one thing to practice being honest about.  Next time you are late say, “I intended to be here on time, but I scheduled my appointments too close together.”  Or, “I cut it too close when I left home this morning and didn’t allow for traffic.”   When you start giving honest explanations for your behavior instead of excuses, you give yourself the information you need to avoid that problem in the future.  Who’s more likely to be on time?  The person who says, “I got stuck in traffic.”  Or the person who says, “I didn’t allow time for traffic.”

You don’t have to make excuses for ADHD.  You just need to be honest with yourself and work to keep on track.  When you make mistakes, fess up, forgive yourself and move on.  It’s what everyone else does, and you can too.