Introduction to ADHD Information:
Hello! My name is Joely Clawson-Keeton and I am a nursing student at Longwood University. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 8. By this point in my life, I had been called lazy, unmotivated, and other harmful characteristics by teachers and healthcare professionals. Unfortunately, this is not an unique experience for children with undiagnosed ADHD. I started ADHD Information after being taught incorrect, and harmful, information about ADHD in one of my nursing classes. I began researching the awareness that healthcare workers have of ADHD and realized that it is dangerously low. This can lead to less children being diagnosed with ADHD at earlier ages, which could harm their mental health, education, and more. Our mission is to educate everyone about ADHD so negative stereotypes and misinformation will have less of an effect on our community. We also hope to create mandatory trainings for healthcare professionals and for the education system. By doing this, less people with ADHD will struggle and those with ADHD will thrive in a world that understands us better. We plan on providing resources to get help or answer questions about ADHD and are open to suggestions on how to better serve the ADHD community!
Blog 2:
Hello, my name is Joely Clawson-Keeton and I am the founder of ADHD Information. Here is why I decided to start this organization. When I was 8 years old, my third grade teacher (who had also been my second grade teacher) went on maternity leave and left us with a long-term substitute teacher. She told my parents that I was lazy and unmotivated. My parents and my actual third grade teacher knew that wasn’t the case so they began looking for answers as to what was going on with me. At the time I was coming home from school crying every day since I was so exhausted from forcing myself to pay attention. At some point after I was diagnosed with ADHD, I heard what the substitute teacher had said about me and it hurt me a lot. Flash-forward to college, when I was a freshman in my first semester of nursing school. My professor went on a long rant about ADHD and claimed it was caused by parents not raising their children with enough strict parenting. She also claimed ADHD kids were overemotional, wild, and more negative stereotypes. I was very shy and never spoke up in class, and never shared personal stories but I couldn’t let this woman share misinformation. I told my professor that she was wrong and she backed down. Many students in my class were horrified that it took an actual student with ADHD to stand up to an educated health care professional to prevent false information from being taught. I have no anger towards any of these people, but these situations are not uncommon and are very damaging to anyone with ADHD. This is why I propose making a mandatory program to educate health care professionals and the education system to help people with ADHD and to limit the shame that often comes with ADHD since it is hard to learn differently than everyone else.
Blog 3:
I struggled to put this blog into words. ADHD is so complex and I feel like the general public views ADHD as attention issues, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness. This can make ADHD harder to diagnose since ADHD presents differently in everyone. The ADHD community may share many similarities, but we are all very different in how our ADHD affects our lives. For me personally, no matter how hard I try, it’s hard for me to remember little tasks. When I don’t get them done, they circle in my brain until they’re done, but over time that builds up and leaves me with a lot of work. What I needed was to learn how to organize myself, which I did with reminders on my phone and a planner. Obviously there are many other ways ADHD affects my daily life, but that is a big one. I feel like ADHD is viewed as something much simpler than it’s not and I wish people would try to understand us.
