Ok so like,,, anyone else with ADHD was just told that it was ‘Having trouble paying attention and sitting still’ then accidentally stumbling upon a tumblr post about adhd later in life and being shot repeatedly as they learn about all these symptoms they didn’t know were symptoms and had just assumed that it was normal or they had something wrong with them but were too scared to ask anyone about it but no, turns out its just part of ADHD and they were never actually told the effects their disorder would have on them.
I realize some people might be confused about what this means exactly. But I was told that ADHD was only not being able to sit still or pay attention. I was not told I would have memory problems. I was not told that I would struggle with time management. I wasn’t told about sometimes straight up not being able to complete tasks. I wasn’t told about anything other than the fact I would lack the ability to pay attention and sit still. At first this was fine and I thought everything else was just something all other people experienced too. Until I started using the internet. And then I was really confused cuz I didn’t stumble upon any posts about the effects of ADHD until literally earlier this year. Of course when your a very small child you don’t have to worry about much of the effects cuz your not managing your own time. As soon as you hit middle school though, shit starts to hit the fan. Cuz my grades started slipping faster than an elephant on roller skates on a slip and slide on a very steep cliff. As a very curious person who also has a need to be able to understand what’s happening at all times and hates not knowing things, I was slightly panicking. I couldn’t figure it out until one day pinterest just decided to throw a fun fact about adhd in my face one day and I was like ‘oh. so it’s just been adhd this whole time and I was freaking out over nothing. Hold up, why did no one tell me about this??’
Idk if this has happened to other people before or anything or if it was just me but like. just thought I’d ask cuz going uninformed about your own mental illness isn’t fun.
(this is not even mentioning the time everyone, including the person who used to be my therapist, failed to tell me that I had any form of anxiety until I accidently found out cuz the doctor mentioned it while we were going to up my dosage for my meds. So maybe its just normal for people to not tell kids about their mental illnesses. Maybe I just have bad luck in finding people who refuse to tell me things. I’m not sure. Im pretty sure this is a normal thing in my family though seeing as my parents lied to my sisters’ faces instead of just telling them I went to therapy.)
