Cameron’s ADHD Blog (Part 5)

Cameron’s ADHD Blog – Internships and Other Jobs

This is last part (of 5) of my ADHD blog.

Jobs have presented another opportunity for me in learning how to overcome my disability. One summer, I worked at a flower shop called Tony’s Farm & Garden. It was an easy job and I did well. I helped move flowers around and loaded items into customers’ cars. The one thing I was terrible at though, was whenever I was asked by a customer where a specific item was. Even though it was a small store, I could never help them with that because I could not remember where anything was. I was even told by my boss where stuff was, but when I was asked to help find certain items, I forgot what aisle they were in or what the names of the flowers were. My constant defense was, “I’m new here so I’m still learning” and luckily, it worked. The customers would understand and go ask someone else. I always felt bad because I didn’t feel useful at all. An employee who doesn’t know the way around the place where he works was not a good look for me. Despite that, I was cooperative and everyone at Tony’s liked working with me.

I recently completed internships at Legacy Treatment Services, a nonprofit agency that works to provide mental and behavioral health and addictions treatment to individuals, and the Robbinsville, NJ Police Department. At Legacy, I was an administrator for the company’s Facebook account and I had been posting about ways to improve mental health for people my age. At the police department, I had more of an observant role. I went on patrol with the officers to watch them pull people over if they were speeding, had fake tags or were breaking road laws. I also hung out with the Criminal Investigation Unit (CIU) where I got to see how the officers filed evidence and filled out background forms for people who wanted to own firearms. I felt that I did well at both of these locations and I was glad to be doing them.

I have been more than happy to share my experiences as a young adult on the autistic spectrum through this blog and I hope that this can inspire other ADHD-diagnosed people to let others know what it is like to overcome disability. Thank you to everyone who took their time to read this.