Listening to and watching a lot of stuff on adhd tonight because I am actively trying to get better and it feels like everything that helps with adhd helps me. And everything feels relatable and I am going back through my life and remembering so many instances of things happening that were described by other people as me being weird or lazy or not trying hard enough and realizing that if I am diagnosed it wasn’t any of that, it was just symptoms of adhd.
And some of it is stuff that isn’t y’know super obvious, and sometimes it was just passed off as a kid being a kid. Like getting so excited as a kid that I would forget to eat or drink anything or not use the bathroom so I could keep doing the thing. Or how I was so impulsive that I would do random things like pouring out shampoo to draw designs in cause I got bored in the bathroom. Or nearly running into so many people because I would get so interested in books that I would read them no matter what I was doing, even walking between classes and while eating. I also can’t tell you how many times I have asked for directions for simple tasks repeated or forgotten simple things, or on the other hand big things and only remembered in a rush last minute because of a last minute reminder email.
A line stuck out to me in a video that I was watching. Someone said, “When I say “I forgot”, I’m not lazy. I’m not just trying to make an excuse, it’s a real struggle.” And honestly, it felt like at that moment something clicked. Because for a long time, I have wondered why I had all of these symptoms that were strongly related to and very very possibly adhd or something like it, but I never noticed.
And to be honest, I feel like it’s because growing up I wasn’t taught that they were symptoms or that there may be something going on. I was taught that they were bad behaviors, or something to be punished for. When I told my parents I forgot, I was told I was lying. When I insisted I wasn’t and that I had honestly forgotten I was told once again to stop lying and making excuses.
When my middle school english teacher pulled me aside for “an intervention” because I was “too smart” to be forgetting my work like I was or to be as disorganized as I was. And after she had made me dump out my entire backpack and let her go through it and re-organize it how she saw fit. Then she still had multiple more “interventions” that year to pull me aside and call me lazy and tell me to just try harder and stop making excuses. When I got excited and played sports in gym class like the guys did (partially because I felt like one but also), because physically moving and wrestling and being energetic physically felt amazing and like my brain was calm. I was told by my gym coach to calm down and to act like a girl instead of a boy.
I stopped reading in school because I had a consistent amount of teachers who made fun of me for constantly having books out or on my desk, and who constantly made me feel bad for reading things that were interesting to me instead of reading things that were assigned. I stopped having faith in myself in math classes because I was told that if I couldn’t do the problem the way I had been taught and explain it the way I had been taught to then I was just as wrong as if I had gotten the wrong answer. I stopped being proud of or attempting to write because I was told that while I had written great papers that had the content requirements, because I couldn’t write them in exact styles listed or because I couldn’t use exact templates that I was stupid and not trying hard enough.
The best math and English classes I have ever had have been with teachers who allowed me to do the work and find the answers my way and have encouraged me. But I have had way more teachers that got frustrated, yelled and called me stupid or something akin to it, and after that I never felt comfortable going to them again. In my personal and social life I have very often been told I am too much. I talk too much, I’m too loud, I talk too fast, I’m too impulsive, I’m too emotional. I talk over people, I talk about things no one cares about, I talk too much about myself. I talk to much about certain subjects and if I don’t have a degree in it or if I’m not an expert I shouldn’t talk about that subject at all because if I do someone else will always know more than me.
And because of all of these things and so many more that I haven’t even began to process yet, I censor myself so fucking much. I struggle so much with imposter syndrome and I struggle so much with 1) having the confidence in myself to begin a project and 2) remembering and having consistent enough motivation to keep doing that project until the end that sometimes I feel utterly fucking worthless and like I am never going to do anything. Honestly, sometimes it feels like it’s to the point where I can’t even tell what I’m feeling or if someone asks me what I like I give a generic answer instead of something I really like.
For so long I have had existing as myself disciplined out of me, that sometimes I don’t feel like I know who I am. Or, I do, but I just see myself as someone who needs fixing or who should feel guilty for doing things that help my brain. And I’m so sick and tired of it.
But I think the first part of healing is recognizing that I don’t need to feel guilty or bad and that I can exist as I am, and while I may need treatment or to do things differently, knowing that nothing I am doing is some inherent moral failing or just me “not trying hard enough”. I think it will get better. But part of that is internalizing the fact that when I say I forgot, or when I experience anything that I do, there is a high likelihood that it’s not just me being lazy or not trying hard enough. But that it’s just the way my brain works.
