Is this good idea?

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So I'm starting to get to the point of my college career where I need to consider what I should be doing for my honors thesis. To start off, I need to tell you a little bit about myself. I was diagnosed with ADHD at around 4 years old, but that was found to be a misdiagnosis and I was diagnosed with Aspergers at around 9 years old. From the time I was in early elementary school to the time I was in sixth grade, I attending weekly occupational therapy sessions. I was also on various ADHD medications (to make it possible for me to improve from treatment, since I was so damn hyper lol) from the time I was 4 until the time I was around 13. Thanks to the efforts and early intervention of my parents, I have moved beyond many of the challenges, although I still exhibit traits of AS.

Ever since eleventh grade or so, I've felt fairly confident interacting with most NT's (except for the really unbearable ones), and since then, I have thought about my AS as little as possible. I have told very few people about this, and the ones I have told I have only told indirectly. However, recently, I have become more and more aware that this is a part of my life, and have felt a desire to do something about it, and make it my own. Regardless though, I am still pretty uncomfortable talking about it, and find it difficult to even discuss it with the people I'm closest to. At the same time, I am a history major in the honors program at my college, and as I consider history to be my undying love (I know cliché, but it's true), I want to write a damn-good honors thesis in it and go to a really good graduate school, and then get a post doing research and teaching at a university.

So after a talk with my parents last night, I've been thinking, why not incorporate AS into it? I love doing research, and it would be a good way to force myself to think about it. I'm thinking of being a drug-historian, so I'm considering looking into the history of ADHD medication, adderall abuse at colleges, and my experiences using it while dealing with my ADHD tendencies and AS. I'm also considering looking into the history of AS and other autism-spectrum disorders, and then doing case-studies on various people who have been diagnosed with it.

However, I have a number of concerns about this. One is that I am really interested in doing these case-studies, but I am afraid that I won't be able to incorporate them into a way to market myself to graduate schools (this question goes for history students mainly). Another is that since this is a part of myself that I have to some degree repressed, if I will be able to handle delving into the personal aspect of this (although I will be doing various case-studies, the one on myself will be the most extensive, and will involve going to various therapists I've visited and teachers and whatnot). Last but certainly not least, I need people like you to participate in this with me. I would be looking for people to discuss their experiences with the disorder, the treatment they received, and how they believe that effected the person they have developed into. I'm posting a poll to get an idea of how many people would be interested, and I would really appreciated it if you would answer that, and leave feedback for my other questions as well.





Note: I do not need to begin this project for about another year, I have just gotten excited about the idea, so it is entirely tentative and I have plenty of time to refine the idea. Although if I have time I may begin work on it earlier than necessary. Thanks again!

I think this is a good idea ....but I'm not sure how it would fit into a history curriculum.........

Yeah I'm kind of in the same boat, I definitely feel as if it is a stretch which is my biggest concern about this potential project. I am planning on having a large section on the history of the disorder, or if I choose to focus on ADHD as well the history of I would include a lot about the development of drugs. Also, I figure I could expand it to include other autistic-spectrum disorders as well, and then I could talk about those as well, which could all fall into the history of psychology, which in turn fits into the history of science, which is I guess how I would present it. I mean there's definitely fine-tuning that needs to be done, but I have time, and I think I could definitely put a spin on it to make it more history-oriented, even if it would mean not doing the case-studies (although I really would love to do that).