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As someone who wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until college because I didn’t exhibit “classic” symptoms, this thread is really important. Spent my entire high school career being told I was lazy, ungrateful, socially inept, disorganized, etc. and that it was my fault. https://twitter.com/queenblitch/status/1274430561747111937
I’ll never forget the teacher I had in 9th grade who told me I should drop out of school and transfer to an arts school because “clearly I didn’t care about academics” and forced me into a “special help” program where I was told I was lazy for 3yrs. ADHD was never mentioned.
Cut to my senior year and I had an A average for the first time ever. Everyone congratulated me for “finally getting my sh*t together.” In actuality I was just taking elective classes I had an acute interest in & was able to focus as a result. Wasn’t until then I suspected ADHD.
Getting diagnosed has helped me immensely both in terms of succeeding academically and understanding why I act the way I do in social situations (and why I can spend 12+ hours for a day for months on end reading about Fire Emblem lore or 90s West Coast rap history, for example).
But when I tell my friends/peers I have it, I still get the feeling they just hear “attention issues/hyperness” and lack sympathy when it comes to my worse symptoms—ones that can’t be laughed off as “crackhead energy” or “quirkiness.” So read this thread and learn, please.
