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Isandra Gonzalez, 25, has ADHD. She writes to calm herself down, but finds herself still having t

About a year ago, Isandra Gonzalez could not stay seated or focused for an entire class – her mind constantly wandered, she could not take notes, her hands began jittering and she felt anxious and wanted to move around.

“I just couldn’t stay in my class. I would leave every 20 minutes,” Gonzalez said. “(I thought) what’s going on? Why can’t I stay seated?”

After an English professor suggested she go see a doctor, Gonzalez soon discovered she had Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disor

der (ADHD), a condition where a person has patterns of inattention and hyperactivity not normal for people their age.

Harold Pruett, director of UCLA’s Student Psychological Services (SPS), said ADHD is a common problem among students across the country.

Between five and 10 percent of the patients that come to SPS have some form of ADHD, Pruett said, adding that roughly nine percent of UCLA’s total population uses SPS.

“Persons with ADHD find it very difficult to concentrate and pay attention sometimes. So it’s a real struggle just to focus your attention,” Pruett said.

Gonzalez, a 25-year-old transfer student from Miami Dade Community College in Florida, came to UCLA to study English and Italian last fall.

She said she came to New York illegally from the Dominican Republic when she was 10 years old and moved to Miami when she was 13. Her mother had been an executive secretary in Santo Domingo, but worked with her sisters at a hair salon in Miami. Gonzalez added that she also worked various jobs to help support her family.

Gonzalez moved west to Los Angeles in 1998 to try and begin her own music promotion company, but was unsuccessful and moved back to Miami in 2000 to begin college. Gonzalez plans to graduate this year and she hopes to go to law school and become an entertainment lawyer.

She speaks quickly, moves her hands anxiously when she talks and constantly appears ready to jump out of her seat.

Gonzalez said she has been hyperactive since she was a child and often wrote poetry or read in order to calm down. But when Gonzalez came to UCLA, she said she was overwhelmed with information from classes and was unable to cope.

“The information I was getting (in class) was so much,” Gonzalez said. “You can have (ADHD) all your life and just not notice it until you hit a wall.”

When Gonzalez hit her wall, she said she went to the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) and to SPS for evaluations and tests.

Gonzalez said she had previously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition where a person fluctuates between depression and elation, and was relieved to find out how to also deal with her hyperactivity.

Dealing With The Disorders

Gonzalez has a cocktail every day.

It is not your normal cocktail filled with fruit or a mixed alcoholic drink, but a combination of different medicines and pills she takes to stay focused in class and level her bipolar disorder.

At first she said she hated the idea of taking medicine. A self-described control freak, Gonzalez said she had a hard time letting go.

“I was totally averse to taking medication. ... I’m a firm believer in your own power of mind. It came to a point where I could keep crying every day or I could try it.”

One of the things Gonzalez said she was afraid of was how people would perceive her once she started taking medicine.

“I don’t want people thinking I’m crazy. But who’s normal? And what is normal anyway?” Gonzalez said. “I’m a control freak, but sometimes you just need to let go a little.”

One part of the mixture of daily medicine she takes is for her bipolar disorder, and another part is medicine she takes right before class so she can focus.

But cocktails are not the only things Gonzalez and others with similar disorders use for help.

Campus institutions for students with disabilities and psychological assistance provide services for students who need extra help in the classroom.

The disabilities office works with over 1,300 students each year, providing different accommodations to help them at the university, said the office director Kathy Molini.

Molini said services students receive are based on their individual limitations to academic success and some students with ADHD may be given extra time to take tests or a note taker may assist them in the classroom.

Over-diagnosed?

Gonzalez said some people don’t believe her when she tells them she has ADHD, telling her the disorder has been over-diagnosed and that Ritalin, the drug used to calm a person’s hyperactivity, has been over-prescribed.

Those statements can be hurtful to people actually in need of help, Gonzalez said.

“It becomes a problem when you misjudge everyone else,” Gonzalez said.

“When people read me like I’m one of those wrong statistics. It’s not one of those things that I was like, ‘Oh yeah, give it (medicine) to me.’ ... I don’t want it (ADHD). It’s not fun,” Gonzalez said.

Molini said the services provided to diagnosed students are not frivolous, but are accommodations people need.

“Here at UCLA we have very stringent guidelines that we follow to determine eligibility for services, and those must be met. I think that the people that we serve are eligible and deserve the academic support services that we provide,” Molini said.

“We can look at the overall intention of society to educate people and that includes people with disabilities. And the services are designed to level the playing field and make the educational program accessible to students with disabilities,” Molini said.

“It’s really an attempt to have everyone be at the starting line or gate at the same time,” she said.

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