In December I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. A few months before that, I was tossing the idea around that something was off about my mindset and attention span after reading this article. Essentially, what it did was explain how young women are often diagnosed with ADHD later in their twenties as opposed to childhood.due to the difference in symptoms from young boys. For most doctors and therapists they use a criteria that largely reflects outward behaviors that include rowdiness, inattentiveness, and hyperactivity that exhibits within the majority of boys. This leaves out and ignores a subgroup of ADHD known as Inattentive ADHD, traits that include a limited attention span, forgetfulness, and distractibility; this type of ADHD is mainly prevalent in girls. Because one type of ADHD is presented as more outward and troublesome in a classroom over the other, Inattentive ADHD people tend to be overlooked and go through childhood without a proper diagnosis.
As one can guess, I was within this Inattentive ADHD type. Throughout my education, I can remember staying focused and being on task as exceptionally challenging for me. Most of the times, teachers assumed I was goofing off or just not that interested in participating. I even got in trouble when I was twelve because of how messy my desk was. It wasn’t because I was a bad student, but more like I had the inability to pay attention. Due dates were always a struggle and it got to the point I had to be meticulous to the point where deadlines became anxiety-inducing. I got through school with decent grades, but I always felt I had to work two or three times as hard to get the same or average grades in comparison to my peers. I had no real coping mechanisms or strategies to deal with ADHD mainly because it never occurred to anyone that I had it. But inside, I was a constant forgetful mess and always felt mentally exhausted trying to keep everything in my head from getting scattered.
I’d like to say that I left K-12 education with high honors and I moved on to university, where I had to survive the next four years continuing as I had my whole life. The only thing was I felt like with each year my attention span became so short and my head became so cluttered it was a wonder I was able to remember everything. I was involved in various clubs and had a leadership role for the majority of college, but what came as a consequence was mainly my sleeping schedule. In college I became a vicious insomniac; because assignments took me so long to do because of my attention span, I would stay up late and I’d be too scared to fall asleep and wake up early to finish work. While I was happy with my education, I found time management to be exhausting and almost impossible at times; while I wrote out weekly schedules because I wanted to be on one, I could never really meet them.
It was spring break of last year when I was talking to a friend about my frustrations and she told me “wow, it sounds like ADHD.” It felt like a lightbulb went off in my head, but I wasn’t entirely sure due to the preconceived notions of what ADHD is. Once I learned the differences, I finally felt like there was something that described what I was going through. Once I told my doctor I was given medicine that didn’t really change me, but it allowed me to concentrate and keep my focus which is in a way was life-changing. I feel things are more manageable now, and that I can get things done within a reasonable period of time, which is a big relief for me. I'm so glad I've figured this out now and that I can move forward.
My experience with ADHD is only my story; it doesn’t reach out to everyone with ADHD since we all have different stories and experiences. I don’t feel upset that it took me this long to figure it out, but I do wish that there was a broader understanding of what ADHD is and how it manifests in different people so that maybe more people with my subgroup can be identified and helped sooner in life. It’s too easy for children to fall under the radar, and that should change.
