Hi , my name is Sylvia. I am a 27 year old, ADHD,single mother. I was diagnosed 3 months ago and have been on medication since. Being diagnosed was the best thing that ever happened to me because now I understand that I am not a freak. I am simply pleasantly different. This is my story.I hope my words find their way to someone who is in distress.
Most of my life I felt like I was defective. Kind of like I was damaged goods. Since I was a child, I knew that I was different but I never understood what made me different. All I knew was that I was special and no one could see that but me.
As a child, I would frequently daydream in class and be embarrassed when called upon to answer a question. I learned to cope with the embarrassment by making silly jokes and telling my classmates that I just didn’t feel like doing the class work.I figured being viewed as a rebel was better than being viewed as stupid.
As time passed, I learned that the best way to deflect attention from myself was to play the tough girl role. I learned how to pretend that nothing bothered me or scared me. I would stand up to authority to prove to my peers that I feared no one.Only now do I realize I did this to place an invisible barrier between myself and my peers. The tough act served as a wall that prevented them from seeing me for who I really was. The real me was a scared, lonely, confused girl that yearned to be loved, guided and pushed in the right direction.
I was raised my mother. My father left before I was born and popped in and out of my life whenever his conscious kicked him in the rear.Since being diagnosed, I have come to believe I inherited ADD from my mother. That being said, you can understand that life for me was twice as hard. My mother, being undiagnosed herself, never knew how to deal with me and basically disconnected herself from me emotionally. This just means that she would never praise me or give me words of encouragement. Interaction with my mother was limited to me hearing how much of a failure I was and how much she regretted I hadn\’t turned out to be the daughter she hoped for. Since I didn’t live up to her expectations, she merely provided a roof over my head and fed me. There was no mother-daughter bond and she made sure she made me aware of her disapproval.This lead me to developing a poor self-esteem and having no self-confidence. After hearing I was a bad kid so many times, I began to feel ashamed of who I was.
My life has been filled with poor choices and making the same mistakes over and over again. I always longed to be loved and accepted for who I was and this lead me to bad relationships. I would look for love in all the wrong places without realizing that I needed to learn how to love myself.
Since being diagnosed, the medication has gradually cleared my mind and I have been able to see things for what they really are.
I now understand that I am a special and unique person that has a neurological disorder. I recommend anyone going into treatment for ADD that they include individual therapy as a part of their treatment process. This is what I have done for myself. It is working. But you have to be open and willing to reprogram your way of thinking.You owe it to yourself and to your loved ones.