Hey, jeez.. I never know what to say when it comes to saying something.. but oh well, here we go, the story of me and my sisters ADHD life.. I’m Nicole and my sis is Amanda… we’re both identical twins. Our parents were both divorced when we were 10 yrs old.. and that had to be one of the hardest years of our life, having’ to get over it. So anyway…I was the one who sort of grew up a tom-boy, interested in the outdoors and dirty work. My sister just happened to fall into the tom boy category too, later in life. In other words.. you wouldn’t see us crying because of a broken nail or begging to go out and shop for a dress. We’re also virgins and we know we will be our whole life. (I know you’re all thinking “Ohh, thats a phase you go through and say when you’re a teen, don’t worry you’ll grow up and want sex.” but no.. really, we feel totally different than most girls, and we know we are.) I feel that we’re very immature for our age, being 17 and all. I think we’re mature when it comes to sex talk, future talk and talking about life and problems. I like to talk about life, trying to figure out where I stand in life and where I’ll end up in life.. it’s a pretty big interest to me. Anyway, we love sports, love to sing, karaoke, making movies, outdoors… anything physically active, working out and exercise.
I like working with my hands, putting things apart and fixin them again (wires,auto stuff) and editing movies and media. We’re in high school right now, in Grade 12 and feel like we should be in grade 6. We were both diagnosed with a Stuttering Problem ever since were able to talk into sentences, which was wow.. toddler years. I remember on the soccer field.. the boys would tease me because I would repeat words that came out of my mouth, or I couldn’t get whatever I wanted to come out of my mouth. I Also remember in class, my teacher would call my name and ask me politely to read question #4 or something, and I would read it over in my head.. and know exactly what to say.. but nothing would come out.. and the teacher would ask repeatedly.. “Nicole, Nicole? ..
Will you please read it?” Inside I was dying to just spill out what was there infront of my eyes, but nothing came out.. my throat felt closed tight, and felt like it was about to explode. Then finally, when air finally released from my mouth.. I spit out what had to be said.. and I stuttered really bad. I couldn’t control it, it sounded like a scratched up disc inside a stero system being played, and skippin 100 miles per hour! I was so embarrassed, I thought I was gonna cry, but I would hold it in. I remember some of my classmates would laugh at me, and some would just have faces of sorryness. I would sometimes laugh with them too, just to make me feel at ease. But sometimes, something in me wouldn’t let me laugh, and that’s when I would feel the worst is when I couldn’t laugh. So, being younger me and my sister were both open stutterers until we’ve!
both experiencing a lot of critism and embarrassment. That’s when we both learned how to be “Closet Stutterers” Closet Stuttering just means that you know when you’re goin to stutter, so if you felt like you were goin to stutter on the word you were thinkin to say, just change the word into something else, or say “oops, i forgot what i was goin to say”.. Doin this hides your stuttering, not letting people really know you stutter, but in away it’s also bad to, because you sometimes don’t say what you truly think about thinks or feel about things.. For Example: if someone was to ask me “What’s your name? …I know what my name is.. I can’t say it.. Darn, so I just say Amanda.. (even though I’m nicole) ..
.Oh well, they won’t know right? I’m a twin.. I just say what’s easier to say. I don’t usually say that in real life but here’s another example: if someone was to ask me …what’s your dad’s name? ..I know what it is… it’s on the tip of my tongue, but can’t come out.. so I ask them “sorry what did you say” ..(just to give me time to breathe).. when they ask me again, i say may say it really quick while they ask the question again, just cause i know they aren’t focusing on what I’ll say cause they’re talking, or I’d make up somethin like “Oh crap, i gotta go my mom wants me home right now.. I can’t be late.. sorry, talk to ya later.” ..See that’s what i mean about closet.. it pretty much flips the way we answer things.. it’s not really lying.. it’s just not being as specific as it can really be. I hope that made sense? …
Still to this day, I avoid answering telephones and doing oral presentations in class, and also avoid meeting new people I dont know, like what will come out? I can’t even say my name sometimes. Growing up seems to be getting worse because having trouble with telling someone your name, when you’re YOUNG, is understandable because shy can be used as an excuse right? But now being older, I can’t use shy as an excuse, and ofcourse I’m gonna know my own name at this age, so now when I can’t say my name (when i stutter, and panic) I’m just gonna look like a big idiot right? <– Why should I care of what people think of my stutter right? I wish I didn’t!
..Right when our problems were basically all about the stuttering…. something else came up at the age 12…..
At the age 12, we were both diagnosed with ADHD. Our mom always knew something was different with us ever since our stuttering and just being wild toddlers runnin around the house. We always had our own lil’ language and never were really connected well with other groups of friends. Us twins were always off in our lil’ world. We would gang up a lot on other kids, as well as our mom (especially after the divorce). We were also big attention cravers as we grew up.. always wantin to make people laugh by doin things without thinking. I remember birthday parties we’d be invited to, back in the day, and would always end up being remembered as the “Bad Twins” that go crazy and do weird stuff.
There are stories like “we ate the potatoes we used playing hot potatoe” (i guess they say that was sick? and weird?), also played soccer in the living room with a pillow and broke a lamp while at another party, and then threw grapes at people while eating cake. There’s lots more stories about! us breaking stuff at parties but we won’t get into that. So now.. It finally hits me, I realize why we stopped being invited to birthday’s at the age of 10. I guess it was because we were the “Troubled Twins that never listened.” Okay.. so anyway.. onto the “older life” ..Me and my sister right now feel very alone. ..isolated!? …we feel like we can’t fit in with our friends.. we dont even know if they would be considered our friends..
Aren’t friends suppose to be there for you whenever you feel down? or talk to you and help solve problems and stuff? We haven’t experienced that before. so I don’t know if it’s because we’re too afraid to call our friends for help, knowing that they wouldnt care anyway, or just cause we’re a waste of their time. I know this is something we can’t mope about all our life, and something we need to control ourselves right? So.. I’m really trying to figure out how. Me and my sister get the feeling we hurt a lot of people, especially when it comes to havin to do something and be responsible. We forget certain things and mess up real bad, so we’ve really got to the point of avoiding friendships and relationships with people because we know we can’t “always” be there for them, follow through correctly, and be on time. We’re really gettin sick of messing up all the time, and now it just seems like it’s becoming permanent.
So ya.. Anyway.. about ours meds… we’ve been on the “Dexedrine” for 2 years now. These meds are to stop us from being hyped up in school, and dosing off in class and all that. It’s supposed to help us focus in school, and help us stay on track. The side effects of this medication never seemed so bad until we’ve been using it continuously for awhile. We’re now depressed, and learned to live with feelin this way. Ya, it’s not the best feeling. You just dont know what to expect with this pill.
One day we’ll take the pill, we’ll feel totally drowsy, and dead, have no feelings whatsoever. It’s like floating feeling, kinda fuzzy.. not happy or not sad…. right in the middle – no feeling! …we call that one the “Dead Mode”
…then there’s a day we’ll take the pill. We’ll feel really great, very happy, and have lots of energy, and talk like a motor. Still motivated to do work in school and stuff, just adding a lot of the talking.. we call this one the “annoying mode” (cause all the talking, it’s nuts)
…then there’s another mode ..totally depressing. You’ll hear us say “Screw life!” and “Uhh, I just wanna get outta this world!” and the feeling of this is like we’re invisable and noone cares…
As ya can see.. this pill is very tipsy, and you just don’t know what will come next. It’s actually kinda scary… but we know if we dont take the pill, that things will just get worse. We think we can’t live with or without the pill.
Last week our doctor said to try staying off the pill for awhile, and see if there’s a difference in the way we feel in and out of school. So sure.. we tried it.. and yikes, bad things began to happen…
We were back to being extremely hyper, felt very energetic, like we were havin to be on the go yet relaxed at the sametime (careless). In class we went back to being inattentive, drifting off in la la land, doodling in our binders, or just seemin have our eyes glued to the clock ticking away.. waitin for class just to end. We didn’t feel the motivation (like we do when we’re on the medication) to work on assignments in class, all we wanted to do was skip, and that’s what we did. We felt free and careless and we’d start to say things without thinking, and that led us into trouble. When we do hurt people, we really don’t mean to. It may look like we do, but seriously we don’t even notice until someone tells us “ouch, that was rude” ..or “why did you do that.” It’s a slap in the face to realize ya done something mean or inconsiderate without even knowing. Then ya wanna go and apologize somehow, but it’s too late right? because the damage is already done.
So here’s something we found out that works. “Being on this pill” helps us with school (pickin up our marks), at the same time we feel “depressed” and crappy, BUT the good thing is we “DONT hurt anyone.” Therefore, “without the pill”.. we don’t do so well in school as all, but we “feel good” and are more ourselves, BUT we tend to “hurt people” without thinking first!
…So, we came to a solution, that being depressed on the pill, not havin to worry about hurting anyone “is better” then being without the pill feeling good but havin to worry about hurting people without thinkin and knowing. So we’re used to this depressed feelin, that now forsure we can live with it. But it still wouldn’t hurt if there were somethin out there better than what this is like… just need to find it!
So after deciding to go back on the pills again, after that one week of being “pilless.” Things seemed to be alright for a little while. We got really calm, but we felt like we were boring students. We weren’t that talkitive, and at the same time we felt very empty (the pill loses our appetite) We started to get really anxious, jittery and very-nervous. We would feel very nervous and off-beat walking down the halls in school. Getting the feeling that everyone is looking at us, talking bad about us and putting us down… so we started to hideout in the washrooms at lunch time so we didn’t have to face feeling that nervous, odd feeling in the halls infront all our friends <—– Jeez, that’s the “last thing” I’d want our friends to remember us by “the scared,nervous,twins that hideout at lunchtime ?? NOWAY! ..that just isn’t the REAL US!! I remember back in the day, how we were then.
Everything felt different, we never cared of what other people thought about us. We were the hyper, cool, weird and creative twins. Sure.. we were always considered the “dumb twins” too.. but we didn’t care, we were cool with that. Everyone said we were cute, funny, out-going and unique. Now..(with the pills?) it feels like everyone is judging us. We don’t like it at all. It feels very uncomfortable and insecure? We want to feel relaxed and not jittery anymore. We feel 100% guilty when we walk in the main doors of our school every morning, and we’re sick of it. I hate lookin in the eyes of my friends in school n! ow. I feel so “serious” and not the real me with these pills. Verbally, physically and mentally! We want to be how we were back in the day! ….
So ya.. We’ve now pretty much lost our social life and a lot of our friends. We still hear people askin “what happened to the crazy fun twins we remember.” That’s what gets us sad… cause back in the day, we’d be the fun and crazy twins but yet were the troubled twins too… so either way, somebody’s goin to get hurt.
My goal is to finish my school year off with good marks, and so far it’s not goin to great. We’re behind in all our classes.. the only classes we’re good in are Gym and Art. We just get worked up when it comes to reading a book or …researching stuff for a project.. we think to much about it.. and then we dont know where to start. We get really frusterated, and very moody, and I hate yelling at mom and stuff, but it sometimes just spills out. it’s really hard, and we want help really bad. We just wanna be normal like everyone else for a change. We look at everyone else, and say “wow it must be really easy to be them… not havin to work twice as hard just to finish and complete assignments.. and not havin to procrastinate all the time” That’s all we are “last-minute!”
..like tonight, i need to get this project done before tomorrow morning. It’s due tomorrow, and the teacher gave it to us a month ago, but ofcourse I had to just wait until the last day to begin.. I’m sick of living this way. I want to be organized, I want to be responsible, I want to be on time.. but in the end everything we do turns out “A MESS, LATE or INCOMPLETE…” Please.. if anyone has any comments or any thing that can help.. we’d love to hear from ya. We’ve been tryin to get a hold of other teens with the same problems as us.. We go on yahoo chat a lot in the ADD support room.. It’s good to relate with other people in chats around the world. Also chattin with parents of ADD/ADHD children, it’s comforting to have such great friends online.. and knowing that we’re not the only ones suffering or havin problems is good to know. We’d like to talk to people we can relate to!
thanks a lot for reading this!
…seeya! …wilson twinz