ADHD

I wish I had gotten the help I needed when I was younger. Maybe if I had a diagnosis, I wouldn’t have felt so lost growing up. I don’t know what it was. For a while in high school, I think we threw around “bipolar” as a possibility for my inability to control my mood swings and my bouts of violent behavior. But theories and frustration were the extend of anyone’s investigation into my ways of working through normal stuff in the world. 

Now that I am married to a man who was long-ago diagnosed ADD (a term no longer used, apparently), I have begun doing more and more research into what that means, strange symptoms and tricks of dealing with the way the hyperactive brain works, and suddenly all these little pieces of why I didn’t make sense in the world or my family click into place. It was almost freeing in many ways to have something I could maybe point to and say, “Oh that was my brain not working correctly.” 

I have gone back to see videos of me interacting with my family... buzzing in and out of shot, completely in my own busy world, totally unengaged with what was going on at 11, 12, 16 years old. Climbing on my step-grandmother’s head with no regard for boundaries at 6 or 7, which is WAY TOO old to be cute. My grades never seemed to match the level of intelligence or understanding that my parents always boasted of their children, but I always prided myself on being soooo much smarter than the average Joe Schmoe, when really I was just being lumped in with my above average intelligence sisters. I remember struggling to read, constantly being put into a younger reading group in elementary school and guessing, rather than actually reading, when forced to read aloud. 

  I remember never really being able to explain why and how I was feeling, often being compelled to react on pure impulse and having no explanation for what I was doing or why I was doing it. I threw a pregnant cat at my sister because she annoyed me. I punched my sister when she called me a liar in good-fun (I was a liar, and hated to be called out on it). I struggled to own any of my actions because the feelings were so fleeting, I didn't recognize them as they flew by. 

  I never understood people's requests of me until I got it right and then I never adapted, just continued to do it the way someone had told me it was to be done. 

  I lived in clutter until the mood sprang upon me and I whirled everything clean (to the naked eye at least), but it never stayed clean for longer than a day or two. 

  But most of all, I lacked empathy. I just did what I wanted to do with very little thought to what others were thinking or feeling or wanted. Sure, an unattractive but rather normal habit for a 5 year old, but this went on until I was about 19. 

 Girls are 3 times less likely to be diagnosed as boys. It probably also didn’t help that my mother didn’t believe in ADHD. But it has added up to an assortment of personal problems that I feel like would have been so relieved with a formal diagnosis. 

 The following behaviors may indicate ADHD in girls:

• talking all the time, even when parents or teachers ask them to stop
• frequent crying, even from small disappointments
• constantly interrupting conversations or activities that include their friends
• trouble paying attention
• frequent daydreaming
• having a messy bedroom, desk, or backpack
• difficulty finishing assigned work
• Girls may also be affected by ADHD if they experience:

• depression
• stress
• anxiety
• low self-esteem

(source: healthline.com)

Like I said, none of this is conclusive. It's all self-diagnosis. And a lot of it, I have outgrown. But part of me wonders... What if...? And if my daughter exhibits some of these same struggles in her life, will I be able to recognize it and get her some support in understanding her own needs?