Imagine you have a quiz on Friday and you decide to prepare for it in advance. But every time you sit down to study, a strange sound, like the screeching of a record player, echoes through your head. The sound grows louder and louder until you can no longer focus. You sleep three to four hours a night, studying late because your brain is turned off during the day by noise. When morning comes, you wake up early to review. Instead, you end up scrolling on your phone for hours to de-stress.
“People always said to my mom, ‘She’s so smart, but if she could just focus better,'” says Rola Fawzy, reflecting on her first suspicions of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) . She is a third-year student double majoring in Communications, Culture, Information and Technology and Professional Writing and Communication at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM). Fawzy loves spending time with her friends, participating in club activities on campus, writing in her journal, and dancing to relax after school. But Fawzy is also a struggling student who struggles to pay attention in class, remember her appointments, and turn in her assignments before deadlines.
After two years at UTM, Fawzy was diagnosed with ADHD. “I knew it at the time,” he admits. “I’ve seen it a lot in my immediate family. But because my sister has ADHD, my parents always said, “No, not another child.”
ADHD is among the most common neurodevelopmental disorders. It causes inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. Scientists do not fully understand the risk factors for ADHD, but current research shows that genetics play a role.
Children with this diagnosis often have trouble paying attention and controlling impulsive behavior. They talk too much, forget and lose things, and struggle to make friends. When they grow up and become teenagers and adults, they often fail to do their jobs or form lasting relationships with other people.
For many young women like Fawzy, ADHD is the reason they find college extremely difficult. Because ADHD manifests itself differently in girls than in boys, it is more difficult to diagnose. In the end, young women often don’t realize why they struggle so much.
Luckily, because of Fawzy’s sister, the diagnosis didn’t come as a surprise. Immediately, he began to make changes in his lifestyle. Now, Fawzy has curfews for all his electronics and social media apps. For the first two hours of his day, he tries to stay off his phone and meditate. “I feel like my brain doesn’t like it if I don’t meditate for an hour every morning,” she says. “Otherwise, everything becomes a blur. And you’re like, “When did I start watching TikToks? How has it been an hour and a half?'”
Fawzy zones come out like this often. It took her a while to realize that asking countless questions would help her stay focused during lectures. And yet, some UTM professors see it as interference. She says that even after registering with UTM’s Accessibility Services, teaching assistants sometimes argue with her about extensions of assignments and tests, claiming that all students should have the same deadlines .
Every day, he continues to learn how to address the blur in his head. But sometimes, Fawzy’s anxiety is triggered by little things, like losing a U-Pass right before class. “There is no quick fix for ADHD,” she explains.
According to clinical psychologist Arthur Anastopoulos, college freshmen diagnosed with ADHD experience more emotional difficulties than their peers without the diagnosis. They are less prepared to enter the independent, and sometimes isolating, facets of student life. They achieve less academically and tend to receive little support in their friendships. Students with ADHD have fewer close friends to open up to because not everyone can empathize with what they deal with on a daily basis.
“I’ve disappointed an immense amount of friends in my life. I tell people I’ll be somewhere at a certain time, and then forget or miss appointments,” says Fawzy. “There are people who see me and think I’m too much for them with all my emotions. And that’s not a bad thing, because that way I can easily find out if they are ‘my people’ or not.”
Fawzy refuses to see himself as just another victim, because when he did, he ended up hating himself. He has accepted that sometimes he takes longer to finish assignments and cannot wait for his turn to answer a question in class. “I should take responsibility when I do things wrong. But I also think it’s better to learn how to use my ADHD in an appropriate way,” she shares.
She says the creativity that often comes with ADHD has healing power. It’s Fawzy’s explosive emotions that make his writing so vibrant and relatable. Disconnecting from reality annoys her during lectures, but it also helps her generate ideas that others would never think of. She says that writing, therapy and a good cry every now and then help her overcome her anxiety and restlessness.
“U of T tends to accentuate the hustle culture. Don’t do that. It’s never worked for me or for many of my friends with ADHD. Don’t force things and take your time. Also, use your 20 free sessions with an advisor,” he says.
Fawzy’s final advice for new students coming to UTM who have ADHD is to never think that the world is ending even when everything seems bad. Only through multiple failures and heartbreaks is it possible to develop ideas that can help to accept the diagnosis and learn to love it.