About a year ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD (Inattentive Type). I was in 8th grade and my GPA was in the sewers. (It had already fallen past “toilet” status.) The diagnosis came as no surprise to me or my parents.
This lack of surprise is most like lt attributed to some crucial facts. Fact one is that since I was a baby, I have been prone to undeniably stupid actions, like trying to ride a push-along toy down a flight of high patio stairs. More often than not, my explanation of why I did it would be in the “I don’t know” category, which was truth, because I honestly had no idea about why I acted the way I did.
The second fact is that both of my parents exhibited ADD characteristics in their childhoods, and still exhibit (some) them to date. Take, for example, my mother and her impulsivity. She will buy some totally useless trinket without even thinking. She is not the gullible dimwit that pop culture marketers crave, on the contrary, she is a very intelligent woman. My father, too does some very ADD-ish things. His example is when he fired a bottle rocket to clear a tree of crows. The list of facts goes on and on, but I’ll get back to me for now.
For elementary school I went to a hellacious nightmare of an private school, run by a tyrant that makes Hitler seem like Barney the Dinosaur. To the teachers, I was an ugly red dot in their pristine black and white worlds. I frequently found myself in the detention hall for some rather idiotic stunts (i.e. jumping form top of play structure with a jump rope tieed to my waist.) Eventually, my shenanigans caused my suspension and my parents moved me to a different school.
In middle school, I had some very good teachers and some incompetent mongoloids as well (Equal opportunity is not always a good thing.) I showed high intelligence, often scoring very high on standardized tests. My grades, however ranged from bad to awful. I would only put out effort in subjects that interested me (Science and Language Arts.) This kept up until I was diagnosed with ADD and placed on Adderall XR 20 mg and I got a puppy (Joey Pigza, eat your heart out.). My grades went up, my smart alecky comments got so funny that all but the most solemn and stonyt eachers laughed at them. I also experienced far fewer behavioral infractions.. The side effects of Adderall are far from light, but my future is worth it.
I am currently a freshman in highschool taking advanced classes and a 3.7 All because a psychologist and my pediatrician decided to take a chance. I’m not sure what my future holds, but I’m sure that its not as dark as it could have been.
Thanks for letting me vent.