finally had a decent conversation with my therapist yesterday about what it was like growing up with an adhd diagnosis, especially the trauma of having no one around me acknowledge that dx in any meaningful way or act like it had nothing to do with my behavior or problems as a child, and how frustrating it is to exist in the adhd community today where almost everything revolves around adult diagnosis and being seen as ‘gifted’ as a child. i finally found some of the words i’ve been searching for around that trauma.
and she asked me what i would like to say to child me or the people around child me, and it took me like, half the session, but i got to the place where i was like ‘i would like to compile all the research i’ve done on adhd and sit down with my parents and teachers and be like, so all the things you’ve been blaming on this child with adhd? this is how those things are adhd and not some kind of personal moral failing of this child. please treat this child with adhd as if they have adhd and not like they’re being bad just to make your lives harder! thanks!’ which was helpful to say out loud in a way i hadn’t expected. because every single adult in my life growing up seemed to have missed that point and it’s absolutely unbelievable to me now. part of me has always been like, well it’s just that my parents were abusive assholes, but it was literally every teacher i ever had from grades 3-12 also seemed to have trouble with the mathematics of ‘child with adhd experiences adhd symptoms.’ like, were educators from the mid 90s to the mid 00s really so clueless about adhd??
also, she made a comment at one point about how some of the ways my parents treated me reminded her of certain aba ‘therapy’ practices and uhhhhh that was a lot to take in! would have liked not-asshole parents. would have been nice. i see posts about families that just let their kids be neurodivergent and weird without abusing them for it and feel so much longing.
