Studies show that 1 in 9 college students have been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Joey Caraher is a junior studying emerging media and technology, and he is one of them.

One of the top symptoms of ADHD is time blindness, or the inability to sense how much time has passed. Caraher’s was prominently displayed when he arrived 10 hours late to this interview.

Caraher was diagnosed with ADHD in the fifth grade.

“I was a problem child,” Caraher said. “More so, I was a wild child. I would go to my psychologist, and she would say, ‘Okay, Joe, sit down,’ and I would stand up.”

Hyperactivity, or the inability to stay still, is one of the top signs of ADHD in children. As people with ADHD age, hyperactivity often declines but presents itself in other ways, such as inattention, difficulty paying attention and staying on task and impulsivity, acting without thinking.

After being diagnosed with ADHD so young, Caraher recalls feeling badly about himself and being in denial of his diagnosis.

“The ‘d’ is disorder, so I thought there was something wrong with me,” he said. “I thought that I would never have a normal life … I would fall through the cracks of society.”

Throughout Caraher’s middle school and high school journey, he was never involved in an Individualized Education Program because he always tested too high. Coming to college, he learned that he was not alone and other people had ADHD, too, despite him still not testing low enough for any program that could help with his education.

“I was in good company,” Caraher said.

To ease his symptoms, he’s tried medications, smoothie drinks and even a stick-on patch that would slowly put a drug called Focalin into his system. While on medication, he said his grades increased.

“I was suddenly very smart,” Caraher said. “But it was a curse … I was very weird, my friends had to have an intervention with me … because of this pill.”

Tina Snell, mental health nurse practitioner, works in Steubenville, Ohio, for Coleman Health Services. Snell said that, unlike regular health issues for which medication can be prescribed and one would be healed, mental health medications are similar to trial and error to see what works best for that particular patient. That is why some medications cause you to feel anxious.

Caraher said the Focalin and other medications he was prescribed made him feel terrible and so anxious that sometimes he could not go to school.

“When I was a freshman, I would be very late to school sometimes because I would be scared of my first-period teacher,” Caraher said. “Then I’d be like, okay, now I’m scared of my fourth-period teacher … some days I would get so nervous that I’d skip the whole day.”

Caraher still struggles with choosing his battle when medicating his ADHD. Whether he wants to excel in school and focus, but also feel strange all the time, or if he wants to master his life unmedicated, not focused, but feeling as normal as he can feel. He picks and chooses the days he wants to take his medication.

Throughout Caraher’s life, he’s developed routines that help him stay focused and organized. He uses caffeine to ease his brain fog.

Snell said that caffeine acts as a stimulant, increasing dopamine levels in your brain to help narrow in on things.

With technology being so prominent in the younger generation, Snell said apps are one tool that can help you stay organized. Caraher uses Google Sheets to create a schedule for himself for when he has to leave home to get to class on time.

ADHD can be hard to diagnose because there is no single test for it, Snell said. Nurse practitioners and other ADHD diagnosticians rely on the history, behavior and rating scales of the patient, which can easily overlap with anxiety, stress or depression, in which people learn to mask, making their symptoms less obvious.

Kent State offers ADHD and other psychological testing. While it is not free, it is here if you need it.

If you think you might have undiagnosed ADHD, Snell said to reach out to a mental health professional, talk to a close friend or family member who knows you best, and always know, “ADHD is treatable, not end-all-be-all.”

Caraher said that he lives his life “built on the pillars of order.”

“If you have a job and a haircut,” Caraher said, “you’re a winner even if everything else is going bad.”

Addison Connor is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].