About ADHD Wise
Working through the challenges...
Jannine Perryman MA PCGE is an MSc Psychology student at the University of Liverpool. Jannine is brutally honest and open about her life with ADHD and is passionate about ‘Promoting Positive Outcomes
ADHD can affect anyone. If you, your child, a family member, a child in your class, an employer, your partner have ADHD, or you suspect that they might, they have had it since birth, and will always have it. It cannot be ‘cured’ but it can be managed – and even developed as an advantage.
ADHD Wise UK has been set up by adults who are diagnosed with ADHD themselves and use it to good effect. We want to champion the possibilities, and ‘promote positive outcomes’ for those with ADHD. It’s a tough condition to live with because we don’t behave the way society expects us to. It shouldn’t be forgotten though that we have incredible strengths and make good employees – once we find the right careers with the right employers.
ADHD is a controversial condition because difficulties experiences fall onto a spectrum. Everyone experiences inattentiveness, impulsiveness and hyperactivity at some point and to varying degrees. In the UK in particular, ‘a diagnosis must be useful’. Anyone with an ADHD diagnosis has been assessed by a psychologist as having significant and lifelong difficulties that prevent them from functioning within society as effectively as their peers. It’s great that most people can relate to these difficulties to some extent, but that does not mean that they comprehend what it would be like to be permanently battling with your attention span, your impulsiveness and your energy levels. ADHD is accepted as ‘real’ by professionals by and large. Denying its legitimacy is unhelpful, unkind and unwarranted.
Anything is possible. Many of us are capable of turning our hand to most things and being really good at it for as long as it remains interesting to us. What is not possible for us though, is ‘everything’. That is overwhelming! We think too much and too quickly, unless we are allowed to do one thing at a time, until completion – but even this (hyper-focus), we need to be taught. The other thing we won’t manage is boredom. We need life to keep us on our toes. If classrooms and workplaces have too much downtime, we will make our own entertainment, or not attend. We also need to know ‘why’ we are doing something, or we cannot find the motivation to do it -because we have lower dopamine levels than the average person.
There is a reason for everything and a host of potential solutions to every ADHD issue. ADHD Wise UK is entirely ‘solution focussed’ and will always endeavour to help you navigate the challenges ahead.
Jannine Perryman
Jannine has featured in articles in The Guardian, Society for Education, Training (SET) and ADHD Action. She is a member of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH), and the Society for Education, Training (SET) and student membership of the British Psychological Society (BPS).
