So I struggled in school. Actually “struggled” is an understatement. I always felt like I was drowning and no matter how hard I tried couldn’t swim back to the top.
I knew something was going on because the grown ups were always meeting and talking about me, so I had to be bad. I even ended up in special classes part of the day and that really made me feel stupid. I was constantly being told I think too much, over complicate my thoughts and didn’t pay attention. Oh and I was a perpetual “day dreamer”.
I never could understand how all the kids around me could take such neat and organized notes and do so well on their test. I would try over and over again to take the same notes but always ended up with partial words and a bunch of doodles. No matter what I would do I only heard half of what was being said, if that. So I had to be a big dummy right?
I also struggled with how to talk to people. I could never find the right words or stay on topic. I was always the “weird” one. Of course the kids at school started to notice that I was different and I ended up being the easy target for teasing and ridicule. So that was proof that I was stupid and ugly because not only are my parents and the grown ups talking about me all the times, the kids are telling me I am also.
So I hated school. I hated teh grown ups and and I started to hate myself. Why couldn’t I just learn and remember like everyone else? Why did I have to be different?
I would later understand that I am ADHD and had dyslexia. I just wish I would have knew or understood what was going on in my mind earlier. I spent too many years trying to figure out who I was and what was going on in my mind, never knowing or understanding the bigger picture. The most painful question for the longest time was always “why me”? I didn’t understand or appreciate my brain until I was an adult.
The most important answer to my life long question of “why me” is that I can help my children who are now dealing with the same issues. I can help them understand, or try to, the mind they were blessed with and how they can use it to help them succeed. I will hold them up when life gets them down because I’ve been there. I will try to help them understand and to be proud to have an ADD mind.
So the final answer to my life long question to “why” is simply “because they need me”.
And the truth is ADHD isn’t a disability but an unique mind with tons of potential. Here’s to a life filled with great ADDitudes!!
