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“You just need to try harder.”
Growing up hearing those words, I believed I had complete control over the outcomes of whatever I set my mind to. I could turn any paper into an “A.” I could spend an extra hour a day in the practice gym, and my lack of coordination would vanish. I could join every club and team I possibly could think of and I could, at the very least, look successful. I kept up the charade … for a while.
Spoiler alert: my valedictorian status in high school never made me feel successful. Behind all those letters and awards was a messy bedroom, panic attacks and a mind spiraling so fast it didn’t shut down at night. Still, I got into Lawrence.
I had a hard time taking care of myself in the beginning of college, but I associated that with my lack of life experience. Every first-year struggles to keep up with laundry, skips a meal or two and falls a bit behind. I lost my 4.0, but clearly, I just wasn’t trying hard enough.
My perspective changed when I took Cognitive Psychology sophomore year. My entire class took a virtual lab where we evaluated our short-term memory and reading comprehension; the questions were basic, but I found I was the last one to leave. My score was the lowest in the class by a decent margin. In the lecture to follow, our professor said not to overthink the results; low scores are usually associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
This was weird to me. I knew kids with ADHD in my hometown. They were the troublemakers. They skipped class and threw tantrums in kindergarten. They didn’t look or act like me. I just needed to try harder. Then I could be perfect.
This experience sent me on a spiral. I’d later learn about my favorite aspect of ADHD: hyper-fixation. Honestly, the disorder needs to be renamed. The issue isn’t a complete lack of focus; it’s directing our focus where it needs to be when it needs to be there. To put this in perspective, I put off my senior year capstone for seven weeks. The night before it was due, I wrote the entire thing. It took me four hours. My professor said it was one of the best things I’d written in my time at Lawrence.
After the capstone incident, I traveled to a softball game at Illinois College and found I’d forgotten a piece of my uniform. It had been happening a lot more than usual: losing things, forgetting to eat … the list goes on. I panicked that night. Instead of texting my coach to figure out what to do for game day, I emailed Wellness Services. I typed out an essay that rivaled my capstone about how much my work and life had been piling up. I’d lost three pairs of earbuds in a month, had lost all motivation in my athletic and academic life and sleep had become a phenomenon of the past. I wanted testing and I wanted explanations that I couldn’t afford; Wellness Services, with my permission, sent my information to the Alternative Center for Education.
It took me about nine months to finally schedule an appointment. When I finally went in, I was scared. I’d heard about people, especially girls, who went undiagnosed all their childhoods, and how much their lives changed once they got explanations. I was worried I’d be told the issue really was that I wasn’t working hard enough. What if everyone, myself included, was right about me? I could still have a 4.0 if I studied more. I could have a higher batting average if I spent a bit more time at the cages.
My testing was mostly cognitive, spread across a couple of days. I heard series of words and repeated them back. I did fast math problems. I read aloud. I recited vocabulary. After my first appointment, I crashed for about five hours, mentally incapacitated. The second day was much of the same thing, until I got to a little reading test.
I was only allowed to read the paragraph once. Then I needed to recite it back. I read the story in my head, went to recite it … the information was gone. I remembered a dog, the dog wanted something, but the story had vanished. This pattern continued for about five stories, getting simpler and simpler. But no matter how short or basic the story, my brain just couldn’t hold onto it. Try harder, try harder, try harder; my brain said no; that’s enough.
After evaluating my results, I was told I had a combined type of ADHD, which involves both hyperactivity and inattentiveness. The reading test was especially interesting. Turns out I’d been reading everything twice, at least, for the entirety of my academic career. She suggested something I hadn’t been expecting: seeking out accommodations for tests. She recommended I test alone and for a bit longer, because with my short-term memory and attention span, I need a different testing environment for optimal performance.
I treated myself to Starbucks and mulled over the new information. I had never run through the stages of grief so fast in my life. It was like a lightning strike. A brief moment of denial of the new label followed by a lot of anger; I was mad about my stress levels and I was frustrated with my head for functioning the way it does. I bargained with no one in particular. Let me do over 21 years of my life with this new information. Let me fix it. Why did I go this long not knowing?
I don’t feel acceptance quite yet. I’m rewiring my thought processes. I didn’t lose my pen this morning because I’m too dumb to keep track of it; I lost my pen because I started thinking about that novel idea I’d abandoned and started looking for a fresh notebook to put my ideas in.
I share this today because of a common trend I’ve noticed in social and academic environments. With the sudden influx of ADHD diagnoses in the past decade or two, there are a lot of skeptics out there. I can understand that; in fact, I was one of those skeptics. Why are we suddenly noticing this common trend?
I can’t cite my sources, because, shocker, I don’t remember where I heard half of this information. But since my diagnosis I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of research, and here’s what I’ve learned:
- ADHD is associated with a shortage of dopamine in the brain.
- ADHD symptoms in girls often go overlooked.
- Undiagnosed people with ADHD learn to mask their symptoms, which uses most of their energy.
I’m sitting here writing this somewhat sad tale while my class started 10 minutes ago. However, I’d like to end on a happier note: yes, my short-term memory test put me in the bottom 30th percentile. But I tested in the top 97% in pattern recognition: a perfect score when I wasn’t trying. Why is this relevant?
I was a skeptic who didn’t believe in excuses. But my diagnosis isn’t an excuse; it’s an explanation. My diagnosis says that I’m working very hard, but I just work differently. It says my brain is good at some things and needs improvement in others. I’ve got kryptonite, and I’ve got a superpower. And that’s okay. My diagnosis tells me that I’m enough.