Growing up, the thing that I hated more than anything else was being told that I was different from my classmates and friends. I don't mean different as in gifted. I mean different as in strange. Different as in weird. Different as in different. Because to me, and to most of my friends, being called different or (even worse) special meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with you. Specifically with your brain.
When I was six years old, I was diagnosed with ADD. To me, that was like receiving a death sentence. Being an introverted, awkward kid, I already struggled quite a bit to make friends. But when my diagnoses came in, my already poor social skills became practically nonexistent. The fear of my classmates finding out about my "condition" was constantly in the back of my mind and as a result, I tended to keep to myself.
The other drawback of this little predicament was the effect it had been having on my grades. For as hard as I studied, I couldn't come up with much better than mediocre grades. School, for the most part, was a nightmare. Like most ADD/ADHD kids, attempting to harness my attention span was a lot like wrestling an alligator. I would throw in as many strategies, ropes, and medications as I could to try and tackle this beast. And while it occasionally worked, more often than not, I would find myself irritated and exhausted with what felt like barely any progress. Particularly when it came to Math or foreign languages. Even more frustrating was when I figured out that I actually did have the ability to focus, just that my brain was incredibly picky on what it wanted to spend time and energy on.
As I got older, after getting diagnosed with more learning disabilities, I began really resenting the way I was. Why did I have to be different? Why couldn't I be like everyone else? Why was I born with a broken brain?
I wish that I could say that I had this amazing epiphany that made everything better. That I started taking some magic pills that suddenly gave me straight A's. That my symptoms completely disappeared and that I was just as neuro-typical as all of my friends. I wish I could say that things are easier now.
The truth of the matter is that having a learning disability or twelve is no walk in the park. It's difficult and frustrating, but at the same time, it also makes life so much more interesting. Because of my ADD, I view the world in an entirely unique light. My ADD makes it so that I notice everything. It makes it so that I can tap into what feels like a million parts of my brain when I get my creative juices going. It's what makes me a well-rounded person. For as frustrating as it is, I wouldn't go back and change my life so that I don't have ADD. At the end of the day, it's what makes me, different.
It's what makes me, me.
