Dear ADHD,

Most people around me don't know I struggle with you daily. You're something I'm open about having, yet still ashamed of. You make the simplest daily task a struggle. From taking instructions over the phone to having a discussion with a friend over coffee. Sometimes I have to close my eyes just to focus on the another person's words.

I can't remember when we first met, it seems you have always been present in my life, but I can remember the times you have significantly impacted me.

I remember the first time I heard your name. I had graduated first grade and was enrolled in second, but for only two weeks, before I was put back into first grade. My teachers told me it was because I had something called ADHD and that I needed to relearn first grade.

I asked my mom when I got home if I was stupid and she told me frankly, "Of course not angel cake. You just have a disease." It was then that I knew I was different. I felt so alienated. Like I was less than, like I did not have the same mental capabilities as my piers. That the "good job" & "great work" stickers on my papers where something far beyond my abilities. And it was all because of you.

I knew you were some type of hinderance. I didn't understand why I had you, how I got you, or how you worked. I just knew you stopped my from learning, and that made me feel...stupid.

The day I went back to school after being put back in the first grade. My friends asked why I got held back and I told them it was because I had some type of disease. And how no one played with me for weeks after that for fear of catching you. This time I was not only alienating myself in my mind, I was being physically alienated and shunned by my classmates. It wasn't until the teacher told them that what I had was not contagious, that they allowed me to play kickball with them again. As if that made me feel any better about myself.

You seemed to have gone on a vacation for a few years, for you didn't have any dramatic effect on life again, until my early teens. I was in the 6th grade. I was the only one in the class to get an A on a particularly hard test. I was so proud of myself. I couldn't wait to get home and show my grandma. That was until I heard the girl behind me say "he only got an A because he takes medicine that makes him smart. He's not really smart." As her words set in, I couldn't help but feel that they were true. I felt like a cheater, like a fraud. Like all my success up to that point was not my own but a pills. A pill that allowed me to play at being smart.

I didn't show my Grandma that test. I just put it at the back of my folder, ashamed of something most people would take pride in having. It was if I couldn't win. I kept telling myself it wasn't my fault that it was yours. But that didn't really help. At the end of the day I still felt that I was an ignorant kid taking pills to cheat his way through life.

The next effect you had on my life was an indirect result of me having you. The pills I took to manage the effect you have on me, greatly diminished my appetite. When I started hitting puberty and was able to comprehend body image, I saw how skinny I was. I started feeling ashamed of my body. I remember the summer going into my 8th grade year how I refused to take off my shirt at a public pools. Because of you I now had body image problems.

I couldn't stand when people accused me of using you as an excuse. It infuriated me, it really hurt me. Was I the only one that saw the struggles you caused me? It made me feel as though all the mental anguish you cause me was just that, all in my head. I realized then how much control you, my ADHD, had over my life. Enough control to cause rifts between me and my loved ones, and make me resent them and their judgement of me.

How I wished my mother was still around. She was the only one who ever seemed to understand how much of a struggle it was to live with you. I tired to do what I was told, I tried to remember orders, I tired so hard. But in the end I still failed. I remember feeling like the worst child in the world, yelling at the red crying face in the mirror demanding to know what was wrong with him, and why he couldn't remember to do what he was told. You made those last few years of grade school a personal hell for me.

Then with high school came more responsibility and more chances for you to show yourself. I forgot test some days, the right tennis cloths others. I remember someone saying "don't feel sorry for him. If he can't be responsible, he doesn't belong on a sports team." at that point in my life I had already accepted the fact that most people just didn't understand. They just couldn't understand how difficult it was for me to "be responsible."

In the end though I privileged, I beat you. I found ways to remember things. I started writing so all my creativity could get out my head and go somewhere, I started forming routines and habits. I learned to live with you, to cope with my disorder, to accept it. I never let you define me, but I allowed you to shape me. You've made me into the creative and knowledge loving young man I am today!

Sincerely your friend,
André