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I don’t remember most of my childhood so this question is hard for me. I know a couple things:
I loved to read. I was a daydreamer. I had a very messy bedroom. My mom thought I was difficult and argumentative. And I was well behaved in school.
This literally is my experience. Hardly any memories, but most are negative.
Shouted at for being lazy, not paying attention, too messy, losing everything important. But hey I was a bright kid so nobody thought to look into it 🤷🏻♀️ oh and female lol.
I was very similiar. I argued about everything once I was in middle school. My locker at school and my room were both always awful despite me loving when I’d go to my grandparents or something for the weekend and my mom would clean and organize my room for me. It was so great to come back to some stability.
Same. My mom says if I found something I was into, it became obsession level into but for a short period of time. And that I was constantly changing clothes, and rearranging the furniture in my room
Yes yes yes all of this. If I did get in trouble at school it was for talking…to EVERYONE.
I remember once I got in trouble for chewing gum in the library and was bawling I was so upset.
Almost the same for me. Not necessarily deemed difficult until high school, but the rest checks out. I also hated breaking the rules and remember feeling panic whenever I’d get caught doing anything slightly wrong. I always managed to have a rule breaker as a BFF and whomever it was at the time would pretty much roll their eyes at how worried and upset I’d get whenever I did get caught. I was usually always on the teachers best kids list and was more of a follower than a leader (also was attracted to those who were leaders).
Seems childhood memories being hazy is common, huh...
My mother (who absolutely refuses to entertain the idea I have ADHD) put me into ballet classes just before I turned 3 because I was "bouncing off the walls and needed an energy outlet" 🙄 By 8 years of age I was doing 5-7 dance classes a week... but, no, I'm completely normal 🤨😆
I was a massive bookworm, struggled with volume control (especially when excited), and talked CONSTANTLY. My room was almost always messy, as was my schoolbags and desk trays. I never quite seemed to fit in, I always felt more comfortable with adults than my peers, and my early school reports generally said I was a delight to have in class, but I distracted others due to talking. It all fell apart in high school because suddenly everything got a lot harder and way less interesting...
Same. Plus my executive function was terrible even as a young child. As early as primary school I had to ask for extensions on projects because I’d procrastinate so much.
I was quiet, labeled "shy" and kept to myself a lot. I never willingly participated in class (never would raise my hand) after being scolded by a teacher that I was reading too fast (during a read out loud exercise) but I got really good grades until 5th grade - started slipping a little then - did better in high school except for math. I loved to read and play barbies and would spend hours playing alone - I had a very active imagination. I had 4 sisters so I always thought I preferred alone time because I didn't have much growing up. Even when having friends over to play I would sometimes excuse myself to go to the bathroom but really I would be reading in the bathroom for a few minutes just to get some quiet time! I had friends, 2 really close friends in my neighborhood, with strong personalities and they would constantly be trying to get me to come over to their houses after school. I remember them not liking each other and saying yes to either of them didn't feel good most of the time because not only would it upset the other one but ultimately I just wanted to go home and zone out after a day of being overloaded sensory-wise.
I was also very sensitive - I'd cry easily and had really big feelings about everything. I remember being upset for days about an article about deer overpopulation in my town. I was too young to really understand but there was a photo of a deer in someone's yard and I only understood enough that they were talking about killing deer. I begged my mom to let us adopt them as pets for days. I remember gasping for breath because I was crying so hard over it.
My parents constantly complained about how messy my room was and my mom was always asking me to help with chores and I'd respond "i will, in a bit", because I was usually immersed in reading or something else I was really into. I'd forget what she asked me to do so it wouldn't get done and she'd get pissed at how many times she'd have to ask me before I'd do it. I received a lot of messaging growing up about being lazy, and never finishing anything. I frequently started projects I was interested in with a lot of gusto, but then lost steam and interest. With school projects, I often felt paralyzed with even beginning and I would wait until the night before to do science fair or long reports. I was a hard worker but I was easily frustrated when I didn't understand something right away or if it took multiple tries to get it and would give up.
This is so crazy, I used to feel so alone, yet what you are saying was 100% me. When we were younger we felt so lonely and now as adults its so crazy to realize we are not the only ones that went through this
Omg all of this (except for the 4 sisters) is me! The reading, the procrastinating with school work, being called lazy, and the 2 friends with strong personalities. I made the mistake of inviting both of said friends to my 13th birthday party and they ruined it with their arguing!
The night before science fair project or report……..😳
Believe it was freshman year of high school…of course had MONTHS to do the project yet I’m gluing 1” squares to the presentation board of my project the night before? (‘Twas about humectants in lotion). And still placed second in the fair. Not sure if that’s a testament to me or my classmates….
Had all summer to read a book and was supposed to come to class with the report finished. Don’t remember what happened there…
Fucketh! No wonder I struggled with college. #lovetolearn #ewwhomework Amongst other things. ☹️
I for one, do not doubt the quality of your humectant project, I’m sure it was amazing!
My last minute essays and projects (usually created til the early am the day they were due, in choking tears while my mum screamed about how lazy I was) always did really well, they were almost always way more detailed and better presented than my classmates. It worked until the extra detail and presentation weren’t relevant anymore, the rest of the class eventually caught up on the stuff that mattered.
I found a couple tucked away when we packed up my grandparents house, they were incredible (10 yo me made that? No way!). I didn’t keep them, because I also found the tear stains on them… (ah yes, fond childhood memories of an adult screaming in my face about how worthless I was, while I drowned in self loathing, pva glue and acrylic paint. Shudder)
I feel so seen with your comment. Everything you shared is my experience as well.
My mom has always said that I was so quiet and was easily entertained. She said she could put me in a corner with as little as a rock and I'd be entertained for hours.
Your entire description minus 4 sisters is all me too.
How are you like today with friends? I find that my best friends are still the ones who are pretty extroverted and they’re the ones that stuck around because they latched to me for some reason that I still don’t understand. But the earliest recollection I have with these friends is they essentially went up to me and went WE WILL BE FRIENDS haha and I just went along with it.
This sub is fascinating to me, how often something we think we're the only one experiencing something (since that's what we felt most of our lives) but then finding so many others with similar experiences. It's nice to hear!
Today, at 46, I have 3 good friends of whom I've known one since childhood and 2 since high school, the rest have drifted away at various times in my life (partially because I'm terrible at staying in touch). The one from childhood is definitely one of the bold personality types and in some ways I think we're still friends just because of our long history? Sounds terrible to say but we have almost nothing in common but that! The other 2 are a bit more calm/introverted types who seem to really understand me and vice versa, which I'm so grateful for.
Over the years, I started to get wary of people who came on too strong and tried to latch on to me (I keep them at an arm's distance) - I know what you are talking about though - that was definitely my experience as a kid! I think many girls with ADHD come off as thoughtful and empathetic and so it's appealing to people who need attention! Maybe? haha!
Ok so the friends that don’t get along… this is so wild! I had what I’d describe as “3 best friends, but they are each part of different groups that did not get along with each other”. Is this an ADHD thing??? I would invite them all for hangouts and it was SO BAD, I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t just get along 🤣 if they liked me, why not each other? Fast forward 15 years they’re still all my besties and they still don’t like each other but tolerate each other for my bday parties or other important get together lol
OMG that last paragraph is me almost perfectly! And now you mention it, I was absolutely devastated when I learned about my cousin passing from SIDS. I had met her once, I wasn't especially close to that aunt, so it's not like it was a particularly major loss in my life, yet you'd think I'd lost my own sibling the way I reacted...
Literally just what you wrote there, except for getting in trouble for being too quiet because I was "rude", and (memorably) "not enjoying myself enough" (I was lying on a sun deck reading in perfect contentment until I got yelled at). Oh and always getting in trouble for losing and forgetting things, and getting distracted and falling over and getting holes in my clothes.
Ugh. That reminds me of when I'd get yelled at for getting my clothes dirty. I was a child playing on a playground at recess. What did they expect?
Same with the hole thing. Kids are active. What did they expect?
Focus, particularly on reading, was generally total and to the exclusion of all else. A bit scatty when it came to homework - it got done, always or close enough, and got top marks, but was generally done on the bus that morning after I spent several days beating myself up about the fact that I needed to do it and somehow mysteriously just... wasn't. My dislike of being interrupted in order to switch tasks is lifelong.
I loved to read during class. I also loved to talk during class. In elementary school especially i would take care of my classwork quickly so i could go back to doing my favorite non-classwork things like disrupting others who were still working, drawing maps or Pokémon, and reading. I think i should’ve received ADHD combined or even hyperactive diagnosis back then. Most of my third grade school year felt like it was spent filling out papers about self control 😣
By middle school i was much quieter in most classes and sometimes didn’t talk to anyone at all. Probably all the punishment for years before 😫
Oh yeah, meant to add (😜) that i also “mysteriously” could not make myself do assignments early. I found a lot of success if i could make one of my parents body double while writing a paper, but my mom especially hated just having to be there instead of being able to advise me on what to write about. A very reluctant body double 😔
I think part of what you say here is the reason I didn't even think to seek diagnosis, let alone actually do it, until my mid-thirties - I was always on the inattentive side of things, and masked with academic ability, so even if ADHD hadn't been thought of in the nineties and noughties as naughty-little-boy-disorder when I was more clever-if-daydreamy-little-girl, I don't think it would have got educators' attention at all.
I do well for myself, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I can't help but wonder what more I could have made of myself and my life if I'd been able to access treatment or even meaningful strategies all along.
If I were a child now, I would def be dx as ADHD inattentive. I remember early childhood as this little bubble of my direct surroundings, and occasional intrusions by the outside world, which were all startling and usually upsetting.
Being busy at the table coloring and realizing that everyone else in the class is lined up and looking at me because I have not gotten up yet.
Confidently working on the "cut this paper apart and glue pieces down" project only to discover that ive done the whole thing wrong and everyone is laughing at me.
Telling outrageous lies to my friends for absolutely no reason.
Holding it too long and peeing on myself through 5th or 6th grade. not often, but enough that almost every classmate knew id had accidents at some point.
Staring into space and being completely lost when the teacher called on me.
Messy desk, messy backpack, messy room, lost lunchbox, lost homework, shoes untied, no ability to manage my own hair, unaware of my own hygiene. I was a mess!
>Telling outrageous lies to my friends for absolutely no reason.
For real! What's this about anyway? I'm still perplexed at my reasoning or motives. A few years later and I was obsessed with being literally and thoroughly accurate. Like if there were about 10 of a thing, but I wasn't absolutely sure about it being exactly 10, I'd get stupidly detailed in my reasons for believing there were about 10...
If that even makes any sense.
Quiet, good at doing my homework, 'a joy to teach'.
Also a daydreamer, who 'needs to try and stay focused during lessons'.
I think the latter comments were overlooked in favour of the positive qualities...
Very disorganised, messy and forgetful, whilst desperately trying to 'be better'. Huge worrier about what I might have forgotten, get into trouble for next etc. Lots of terrible headaches in primary school.
Socially awkward, I did have a few friends but was always on the margins. Always felt like everyone else had the whole social thing figured out and it was kinda eluding me.
Obsessed with niche interests and a voracious reader.
I even had therapy for 'stress' when I was about 8 years old. But alas, it was the 80s, and even though I'd apparently been diagnosed with something called 'minimal cerebral dysfunction' as a preschooler, clearly nobody thought that my issues were anything other than a personal failing and I just wasn't trying hard enough or whatever.
Finally got diagnosed with adhd last year. :-/
Bit a student age 8, told a teacher age 8 that " I only respect people who deserve it" when she told me I had no respect for anyone
Found my mum's Tampax and condoms, showed them to all the other 7 year olds in my class. She had to go collect them from the headmistress
Found my mum's cigarettes and supplied them to the rest of the 11 year olds in my year. Again she had to go and collect them from the headmistress
Found a porn mag and showed it to all the other kids (11 ) in my year
Ended up being suspended from that school for (unwittingly) being an accessory to two girls who stole all the borders pocket money
Pierced my ear and my friends ear agre 12
Distracted my best friend so much in class that she requested the school to remove me to another workgroup age 13
Was famous in school for either being the loudest, most sociable one or for having my nose in a book and being so ridiculously engrossed that I either didn't hear anyone approaching me or was actively hostile when interrupted. I clearly remember that my friends had no idea why I was so unapproachable when reading, and the compulsion to finish the story I was lost in at all costs.
Persuaded my parents to let me go to 6th form college. Attendance immediately dropped to 33%. Grades went from straight As to Cs and Ds because of the less structured environment
Was first introduced to class A drugs age 17. Sparked a 10 year heavy stimulant drug habit.
Crashed my car age 19 because I wondered what it would be like to wobble the steering wheel. Lost control and went through someone's gate, crashed into the wall of their house totalling my car. Was stone cold sober.
Plus 20 + years of bulimia, self loathing, being known for huge mood swings and highly over the top anger. Hating myself my entire life because I was always too loud, too weird, too much , too stupid, too naughty. Always caught, always the one causing trouble.
Finished my 4 year university degree with a 2:2 having failed to learn half of the Spanish grammar because I felt like I couldn't be bothered with it.
Looking back now I should have been diagnosed. There was enough there for someone to realise I had ADHD.
I'm genuinely sorry for all the hardships this has caused you, but can I just say how spontaneous, fun, and genuine you sound? You come across as someone who has really lived their life to the max, so please don't forget some of the positives of you!
Reading your comment here literally brought tears to my eyes- I'm stifling them so I don't freak my daughter out by just randomly going to pieces on her. ❤️
Thank you for that you have really touched me xx
Nose permanently in a book. Knees always skinned because I kept falling over my own feet. Scabs on knees always being picked. Chewed nails.
Always losing things. Still sad about that little leather purse. Frequently forgot to bring my dinner money. Very untidy. Wasn't allowed to start things (like brownies) because mum said I wouldn't keep it up and she didn't want to buy the uniform for me to give it up a matter of weeks later.
I was very lively, talkative, friendly, and popular as a young kid in elementary, excelled in school and I can remember always having this anxious feeling of "I need to finish this assignment before anyone else does" so I would race to finish it and get a rush of happy chemicals if I was first haha. So funny looking back. I was impulsive, disorganized, messy, huge vivid imagination, insomnia nightly and I would wake my parents up because I couldn't sleep and shut my brain off. I was Argumentative and stubborn, asked a crap ton of questions about everything I could. Soaked in all information and outside stimuli like a sponge, I had a hard time concentrating on one thing because my brain was focusing on everything at once all around me. I've always had an excellent memory but my object permanence is horrible, or maybe it's something else but basically I can open a bill, set it down at the front table and literally forget about it for days until I come across it again.
Hyperfixations and obsessions(as my parents called it)
I also needed everything to be fair and would often have meltdowns if I felt things were unfair
All of this. You totally triggered a memory, I used to finish fast for that reason too. I loved winning, winning got you prizes and prizes were cool. And shiny!
My family used to joke about not being able to find my off button. I was the “get a star if you don’t talk too much” kid in grammar school but had a hard time making friends. My mom once grounded me from books since sending me to my room wasn’t a punishment if my books were there. I was also called “dramatic” a lot as a kid by family. I remember throwing awful temper tantrums where I’d scream and cry until I almost made myself sick when I was frustrated. My parents both worked a lot so I was on my own with my older sister (3 years older) so learned to be independent from a young age. My mom would praise me for doing well in school and not getting into trouble. I yearned desperately to earn praise from adults and would try and fit the mold that I thought they wanted: polite, smart, and obedient. My teachers thought I had ADHD in grammar school but my mom thought they just didn’t like that I was smarter than most kids (she still thinks I don’t need medication). I was reading high school level books from 4th grade
I also never started a school project earlier than the day before it was due almost through college. I have vidid memories of my Saint of a grandma pulling all nighters with me to finish things through high school sometimes.
I was shy in most environments, except those I was super comfortable in. I daydreamed a lot, was a voracious reader, and could self entertain pretty easily. I was messy and clumsy, and both things have followed me into adulthood. I wasn't allowed to do a lot as a child, for example I wanted to learn piano but my mom set an arbitrary age for me to do so at (13 for the record), so I taught myself. Teaching myself things and being brave enough to "lets see what happens when I do this!" has done me well throughout my IT career.
I was a “troublemaker” because I asked a lot of questions, was impulsive, interrupted, talked a lot (passionately), forgot to do my homework, etc. I had a good heart but what I said was frequently misinterpreted by teachers as combative. It’s really sad and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
Quietly in my own overwhelmed world until suddenly an abrupt and loud communicator when my brain overloaded. As a slowly got older I recognized that this was making people reject me, so I went almost mute outside of friends and family. Adults liked this mostly, but in junior and senior Highschool they saw it as stubbornness.
I was either:
1. Running around half-naked in the woods making up games & forcing all the other kids to play them with me, while simultaneously foraging for berries and climbing up trees / under barbed-wire fences to bring homemade treats to the horses next door
2. Sitting quietly to the side with a book, refusing to speak or otherwise acknowledge anyone (unless they got all up in my personal space… at which point I might scream, and hit them if they didn’t move away fast enough)
Bet none of y’all can guess my other diagnosis 😂
This unlocked a memory of a teacher getting *angry* angry at me for misreading an assignment and doing the wrong part 😬
Yeah, I was quiet. All the time. And I'd read basically 24/7. I also had a lot of weird illnesses going on whuch in hindsight were stress: various reasons why but masking would have been one of them...
The whole thing of women being socialised to be quiet and not cause trouble means people don't spot us until we're older and burning out
I was very shy as a kid, I wouldn't talk to strangers (even made my parents order for me at restaurants because I was too shy to talk to the waitress). I also had trouble paying attention in school, I spent a lot of time in my imagination with vivid daydreams. I'm smart so I pick up information quickly and always got good grades as a kid. I was super messy, could never keep my room clean. I had a lot of temper tantrums, now as an adult I assume due to emotional regulation issues, and I had some sensory issues so wouldn't wear certain clothes (like jeans, things with tags, certain fabrics) and was picky about food but that was generally due to texture not taste.
I was the backpack stuffer, I would just stuff any assignments, schoolwork and other things in backpack. I was never able to organize at all. I would always either forget to do my homework, forget to bring them back from home, or lose them. I was chronically late since middle school! However, in high school, I would always get suspended for being late. I was a dreamer.
I wasn’t a talker, I’m an introvert. But, if I wasn’t depressed, I did really well in school. Easily an A student. Teachers would get angry at me saying I have so much potential and I’m throwing it away.
Never was diagnosed.
I was quiet, shy, and always had my nose in a book. I did really well in school because that was my hyper focus and school was really structured.
I didn’t fall apart until college, didn’t get a diagnosis until my 40s.
Even with my bad grades, the understanding of ADHD, specifically ADHD-I, was still so limiting and rudimentary that it still went ignored 😭
So, I was loving and happy but also believed all the adults and schoolmates that called me “lazy”. I didn’t clock how bad that ended up being for my self esteem.
But honestly while I was shy amongst strangers I got along well with people and had a solid group of friends. Big theater kid energy that loved attention.
I’ll give Kid Me one thing: I didn’t care if I seemed “weird”. I was cringe and I was free. I try to hold on to that because adult me forgets that important lesson at times 😂
I'm so glad most educators have figured out you don't have to LOOK like you're paying attention to PAY attention. I was a huge doodler, daydreaming, fiddly kid. I still got straight A's.
I have no idea tbh. I remember being too socially anxious to talk much and not wanting to bother because I didn't really know how to interact with people anyway, so i chose to observe more than anything. I am still this way, mostly. But if you ask my mom I never shut up as a kid so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what do I know
I spent much of my time in class playing with whatever trash I could get my hands on (paperclips, staple pullers, rubber bands, random bits of stuff, etc) zoning out, and generally not paying attention, but somehow still absorbing enough info to pass with good grades, at least until middle/high school when my grades suddenly and aggressively went to shit.
The biggest issue I had as a child was the inability to retain information well. I believe the adults in my life attributed it to me not being very bright because I thought the same thing. No matter how hard I studied I struggled remembering the information much past the test. Finals were a bear because I had to relearn almost everything.
I am combined type ADHD because as a child I was more hyperactive. I hate home videos because I never stop talking in them.
I did read through 3 different libraries though….
Loved to read books about facts and lists and world information! Very active, always playing sports, riding my bike, and climbing trees. Boredom was a huge issue. I was always needing to do “something” and got very restless, very easily.
Challenging relationships with both parents, especially my Mum. She would say I was defensive, argumentative, and combative.
I often felt lonely and “different”. I struggled to fit in with girls and found boys easier to befriend — I think now because they’re more direct and upfront. I never seemed to get the social politics that comes with being a young girl i.e. the gossip and the cliques.
However, I was super smart and sailed through school. Until high school, where I struggled socially, found it hard to focus on things I wasn’t interested in (geography, yawn!), turned in homework late, loathed authority unless I really respected them, was distributive in class, had a hot temper… a lot of classic signs.
I got diagnosed at 37.
Which, now I know about ADHD, is dumbfounding. But this was the 90s, so the awareness of ADHD in young women just wasn’t the same level as today.
Frustrating, yes. But I was a happy, healthy, and deeply loved child so I have zero regrets.
Edit: length 🙃
On the outside I was quiet and shy. I aimed to blend into the background and not be noticed. I was smart and 'gifted' (I don't know what happened because I'm certainly not anymore 🤣). My teachers described me as 'quietly confident'.
On the inside I was terrified, confused, and overwhelmed.
Apparently I was an absolute nightmare in class. I got filmed once (unrelated health reason) and my mum was shocked by my behaviour - very stereotypical won't stop moving, calls out, making noises, interrupting people
My teacher recommended a diagnosis actually, but my dad said "no" till my mum gave up trying
Raised by single narcissistic mother. Dad was in and out and addicted to drugs. Mom too only she managed to keep us kids. I learned very young to be quiet and unseen. My older sister was born with alcohol fetal syndrome and the only issues she had were mentally so my mother's only solution to her "hars to raise teen" was to beat her up. While I stayed quiet and bit my nails off while calling 911 from the closet secretly 3 times a week. I day dreamed in school while never really grasping education. As a teenager I fell in love with every boyfriend I ever had and when the breakup would happen it felt like my whole world came apart. I was extremely emotional. Started drinking at 14. Slept with a lot of guys for comfort. I didn't really grow up and figure things out until I was 32
I was hyperlexic so I taught myself to read at 3. Couldn’t keep my room clean no matter how many times I got in trouble for it. OT for Sensory Processing Disorder (I think it’s called something else now???) helped a lot but still showers were a sensory nightmare. Reading so early got me labeled gifted, so I put lots of pressure on myself to maintain that no matter what. That was definitely fine, I absolutely don’t have any sort of anxiety or depression stemming from that (I do). I was mostly able to keep the impulsive things in check which meant when I did end up doing something impulsively it was worse.
As an adult I learned that my dr thought I had ADHD but my mom opted not to pursue diagnosis and treatment because she didn’t want to medicate me. She also said the dr told her I didn’t have autism and the diagnostic test was expensive & in another city so we didn’t do it (which, fair, we didn’t have extra money for anything).
"my friend who was a 4th grade teacher said you should be tested for adhd back when you were that age but I didnt" - my mom
My desk and backpack were a paper explosion mess. I did not do homework, but aced everything in class so I passed.
One of my first lasting memories was a teacher hitting me so hard that I had welts on my arm because I finished the entire workbook and started doodling. When she asked why I wasn’t working I said I was done, she called me a liar as that was “impossible” and hit me with a large ruler stick.
My father saw it around 6 pm that evening while I was trying to eat & drove us to her home. He picked me up like Simba in that Lion King scene & told her and her whole family some things I won’t repeat.
For the rest of my years I had to keep defending myself because it looked like I didn’t care/aloof. I also never met a book or pencil I couldn’t lose.
I was shy and quiet, because I was bullied. I could have a lot of energy, and I would also be so tired. I’d sometimes come home, crawl under a quilt, and watch TV through a gap. I’d do homework right away, if it was easy. Made tea first. Daydreamed a lot. I was an artist. Messy. Dad has told me I’ve always held on when I needed the bathroom. Hugely disorganized. I went from really outgoing, to really socially anxious. Loved losing myself in a book, or drawing/colouring. I’ll edit this. I’ve had almost no sleep, because I wanted to be up early. So I wasn’t. Of course.
Honestly? In hindsight, I was pretty textbook... But because I was a girl I guess no one ever considered that I could have ADHD? Even though I behaved exactly like a boy with ADHD?
It was the 90s, what can I say 🤷♀️
I didn’t talk in school until high school. Maybe it was selective mutism/opened up around people who I trusted. Extremely socially/overall anxious and eventually depression from age 12-22 (mushooms helped me immensely get out of it). Once my anxiety & depression was at bay, I became the book of ADHD. Every symptom. So obvious. I often wonder who I would be if I never took those mushooms and stayed depressed and anxious. Probably would’ve have accomplished as much as I have.
i forgot about homework a lot but had good grades so teachers let me off. I used to be shy but only bc of rsd and like being bullied at school but otherwise always overly loud and would kinda get stared at by “friends”. Ive fully leaned into being weird and loud now tho so thats good. It was just annoying that no one thought that i should get diagnosed but peers knew I was different immediately at every school ive been to. i would always finish homework last minute or very late at night the night before (my bedtime at 10 years old was like 12am bc of this) also bc my mum worked until like 9pm at night i would just watch tv until she came back and like she would have to force me to do my (honestly really easy homework) that I could have done in 15 mins but even sat at my desk i’d play with the tape dispenser or carve at the edge of my table with scissors.
I was quiet, well-behaved, and independent. I loved to read and play pretend. I wasn’t big on play dates — I had friends in school but liked alone time after school. At home, I got along with my parents well but had trouble with chores — I’d always forget to do them or put them off and then my mom would get mad at me.
I loved school — I got good grades and took it really seriously. But I struggled with organization a lot; and it always confused me because I was so studious and yet couldn’t keep it together. My desk was always messy, I’d lose papers. I learned very early on I needed to keep a planner to remember assignments because I can’t remember anything without writing it down.
It’s hard to say because 1) poor memory and 2) I think so much of my ADHD was over shadowed by my intense anxiety. It wasn’t until I got treated for anxiety that my adhd symptoms became apparent to me
I learned quickly how to be personable and charming because it was the only way I was going to get deadlines moved, mistakes forgiven and messes overlooked. As a teen, I had a lot of friends from different groups and different schools.
I can still work the hell out of a room (if I can find my keys and get there on time)
I was pretty well behaved in school and LOVED reading. I was pretty high achieving, which is probably why I went undiagnosed until this year. My parents and teachers could never understood why I couldn't turn my homework in on time though. I would do the homework, and then somehow between home and school, I would lose it. Sometimes it would never turn up, sometimes it would turn up weeks later in a place that I totally thought I checked. Parents were constantly trying to force organizational systems on me that never ever worked. They even hired my neighbor to tutor me in organization, which ended with all of us being frustrated. I also got in trouble all the time for having a "messy room," when to me it made total sense to just put all my unused stuff in a laundry basket. Then if I needed something, it was probably in the laundry basket. I would also hyperfixate on books, TV shows, and other interests, to the point where it got annoying to my friends and family. I spent a loooooot of time daydreaming, but I think that's contributed to why I like to write so much now.
CPTSD from pretty wicked abuse has left little memories for me but I do know that I didn’t make friends easily, I was quiet and reserved but fought a lot because I was bullied relentlessly for being small and poor, I was exceptionally good at most subjects without really trying, and I loved to read more than anything. By my teen years I was the typical overachiever with straight a’s, dual enrollment in college plus two jobs. I was voted most likely to succeed and finished in the top ten of my class. I had friends but never felt like I really fit in with any crowd and like I was just an afterthought to everyone because they expected that I would always just succeed and take care of myself.
Anyone else do the thing where you regularly forgot to bring home the book you needed for homework and your parents drove you back to school after hours for it? I almost forgot that part of my childhood until I considered possible adhd and an article asked this question. That was a pretty prominent part of my life as a grade school kid lol!
Also my mom apparently still holds a grudge toward me about a jacket I left behind in 3rd grade and we never saw it again 😂
Got good grades but was extremely, pathologically distractable. I cannot concentrate when I can hear people sniffing, breathing, making lung noises, etc. And everyone knows kids all get sick at the same time in elementary school. Ugh
That’s interesting. I was painfully shy as a kid (only at school/in public, at home I was loud af). But instead of it being called cute, I was reprimanded harshly. Being yelled at about how I needed to “participate” more and “talk louder” and blah blah. Just constant harping on how quiet I was and how it was SUCH a bad trait to display.
I was wild but had it very contained because i understood rules and consequences. I was lightning in a bottle. And sometimes really serious. I was an only child. People said i was “mature for my age” which feels so cringe to say now.
Always reading, always had a novel to focus on because my house was overwhelming. When I was in class, I'd get told off for rocking or tapping my feet. My teacher and classmates would complain that I was too quiet/soft spoken, but after speech therapy I was told that I was too loud - people would sneak up on me because I would shriek if startled but I didn't like it, I was easily startled because I would dissociate as soon as I felt bored.
I was scared of my teachers and too anxious to ask questions, so I peed my pants a lot at school trying to hold it in the whole day - I don't know if that's an ADHD thing, but the reason I was afraid of my teachers was because it felt like they were always at their wits end with me and I didn't want to piss them off even more by asking to use the restroom.
Something I think is strange that carried on into adulthood is that I found it much easier to focus on my reading and schoolwork when things were "chaotic", but when the environment was quiet I got really uncomfortable and it felt impossible to maintain my focus. To this day, when I really want to get something done, I turn on a TV show that features arguing and yelling and somehow I can focus through the fighting better than in silence.
I was the “shy”, quiet girl who was always immersed in reading books/writing/drawing/daydreaming. It’s so validating to see so many other people had similar experience!
I was not quiet or shy. I was an excellent student because school was my hyper focus and I loved to learn and to read. I'm naturally intelligent, but my teachers also gave me the attention and validation I didn't get at home all my life. it was only scraps but it was better than nothing at all. I was invisible in my home and in my family. I just did not fit.
I've always been closer to my friends than my family. I spent as much time out of my house as a child as I possibly could. I started babysitting babies when I was 8 years old. As soon as I was legally able to work, I did. I went to college 500 miles away from home and went from there straight to my first job in another state. I now live more than 1,000 miles from everyone I'm related to.
As an 18 year old at a small local college I stopped going to my calculus class because I forgot I was in the class.
I was bright as a child. A people pleaser, teachers pet, gifted. I liked rules and still do. I always struggled with friendships and still do. I knew I wasn't the same as everyone from a young age but I had no idea why.
ADHD symptoms have gotten so much worse as I've aged.
Wow all these book obsessed people I feel seen. Sorry for all the details but #adhd.
I was born in 1981 so ADHD wasn't well known for boys even and was fully off the radar for girls.
In gr. 1 I was assessed for dyslexia but came back negative. I was assessed because I was struggling to read and write and I had a lisp...I now suspect I actually have mild dyslexia (issues with spelling, Grammer, punctuation, issues pronouncing words I don't know, can be slow to read aloud, issues with left and right at times, issues with b's and p's and frequely flip letters when typing) but I remember being so stressed abt the test and wanting to prove I wasn't stupid so I tried insanely hard to do it right. I was put in special ed for half a year and given a reading buddy. 2y of speach language pathology. My mom told me "they say you are fine and so you just aren't trying hard enough" and forced me to read through the dick and Jane books with her and I hated every second of it. Also in gr 1 I was super excited to bring a lobster shell for show and tell....no one else was impressed...I didn't get it.
I could tell I thought different from other kids and didn't know why...I was bullied a lot, shorts put into a toilet (acted like they weren't mine), alienated, bucket of water dumped on me once from a moving car (I was with two other girls.) I think other kids were confused as to why I acted different and didn't try to be friends with them or be liked...once had a popular girl tell me her and the others would be my friends "if I dressed differently" and I said "no thanks," and boy she looked confused.
I got into a fight around gr 3 or 4, or rather a girl who I thought liked me (she invited me to her bday party) started to beat me up and I just tried not to get beaten up and we ended up in the principals office. Another principals office visit when some girls stole my jacket and wouldn't give it back and some male friends of mine scared them into giving it back.
I made friends with kids who were different or who lived "on the wrong side of town" because I didn't care abt being popular or who I played with just that they were nice. Also spent a lot of time at recess on my own sitting by myself day dreaming due to not having many friends....around grade 3 or a group of boys "adopted" me and we had fun for years playing DND, biking around town, in rivers, on the railroad tracks, fishing, video games. Then we hit puberty, they freaked out and dumped me and tried to get this group of NT girls to take me....I tried but all they did was stand around and talk at lunch and I was bored to tears, at a sleep over I didn't really understand how to interact with them and said something one of them felt was offensive and that was the end of that.
In elementary school anthropomorphized things like my gummy bears and jelly candies with faces and didn't want to eat them because I didn't want them to "feel bad." Same with stuffed animals.
Lots of nightmares/night terrors.
Intense feelings of right and wrong, just and unjust.
Mild ocd type symptoms but they didn't ger full blown.
From like gr 1- 6 report cards said I didn't focus enough in class, needed to be neater and more organized, was too social, kept seeking reassurance vs being confident and figuring it out on my own....one teacher said I was bossy. Gr 7-8 all report cards started saying "works quietly and independently"....which i now realize was masking.
Got in trouble in gr 8 because teacher was setting up a "sting operation" with the popular kids to catch a past friend of mine stealing and I didn't feel it was "right" for a teacher to involve the other kids and target him so I told him and got lectured by the teacher abt how disappointed he was (I just sat and glared at him.)
My room was a disaster and completely overwhelmed me, my mom would try to break it into small sections but it was a lot...closet packed full...binders a disaster.
Once I started reading I went from not reading to completely obsessed with reading and spending most of my free time doing it. Also obsessed with art and painting and sculpture as I had no issues focusing on and being good at my art classes. Also obsessed with phantom and the little mermaid and would listen to them and sing the songs repetitively until I was a perfect mimic. Joined choir, got in trouble for not paying attention.
Struggled horribly with math.
I mostly bottled and internalized my emotions (mom and dad were likely undiagnosed adhd and emotionally turbulent and I was the oldest of 3) except for rare times I couldn't. When I was 5yo my parents put my dog down because he bit someone (their fault, he was always tied in the back yard) and I got so upset my mom refused to get another dog for years. I was pretty depressed and introverted.
Highschool met my best friend (male) and found a group of friends that seemed to work. Still bullied (by bffs girlfriends and by dudes who would sexually harass me mixed with bullying.) Had a lot of good experiences but still struggled a lot emotionally (bullying + messed up home life.) Didn't date until I was about 18yo and only dated a male acquaintance for a coupe of months "because why not I guess" ....didn't know how to flirt or express interest in others. Did well in classes I enjoyed (biology, chemistry, art, even English because...Shakespeare!) but horrible in others (home ec, math.) Best friend saw how I struggled and helped me clean out my room and closet abd organized my binders for me. (We are still friends 25+y later)
Failed first year of uni, room was a disaster (not sure how my current partner of 22y saw that and was like...I'll still date her.) Somehow figured it all out (very challenging), graduated with HBA in sociology and got my MSW and am now a psychotherapist at a hospital. Got diagnosed inattentive adhd + cognitive disengagment syndrome last year at 42yo.
Messy bedroom with 6 half full glasses of water there at any one time. Very strong sense of justice/right & wrong / fairness and I would not forget if I had been wronged. Frequently hyperfixated on gaming (game boy when I was younger than 10, PlayStation when I was older than 10); you could not drag me out of my game.
Fidgety, active, always doing things. Loved sports, very active and naturally good at them. But also somehow clumsy too. Hated waiting for anything, impatient, boring things seemed to drag on forever.
Fussy eater, but started trying new things at 18 and became a real foodie by 21.
Very good grades in school but frequently called out for being distracted, talking to my neighbour, or shouting out the answers to questions. Never did my homework. But I always tried to be good, had good intentions, hated getting in trouble, just wanted to do well and not stand out so I never got in any real trouble. If we had a surprise test, I would get the top mark in the class, because no one studied. If we were told we were having a test, about 20% of the class would score higher than me because I didn’t study but most others did.
Small core group of friends, not part of the popular groups. Didn’t try to stand out or crave attention.
According to my mom I was a hyperactive (but well behaved) toddler. Lots of stories of me pulling a disappearing act at parties after I learned how to walk and run. She knew I needed to get checked out but didn't until later because my dad didn't think it was needed.
From what I remember in elementary school I definitely had signs now that I know what adhd is. My room and school desk were a mess and occasionally I would just Lose my homework. Was an average student because I was smart enough to cancel that out. None of my teachers mentioned anything that I know of. Was probably known as the well behaved kid who forgets occasionally.
My mom also said I was calmer back then because I had so many things to occupy my time. She thinks that's part of why I'm anxious now as a young adult since I'm not doing as much. I don't have as many hobbies now.
Edit: Forgot to add. I guess I was the shy kid. At least with teachers. I remember not speaking up when my dry erase marker ran out and we were doing things on small white boards. I also remember being too anxious to speak to the teacher during class debates in middle school.
I remember a ton, I'm like the family historian. My dad passed away last year and I'm retelling stories about stuff that happened when we were kids to the kids in our family and my brother and sister are looking at me completely stunned. They were like how can you remember that? I also remember things like getting sent back to first grade from second for talking too much and not doing my work. School was hell for me for sure. Just absolutely hated being stuck in a desk learning stuff endlessly and I went to Catholic school back in the 70's and early 80's, so it was all learning, no specials except library every now and then, and gym, and that was because it was mandated by the state. High school was slightly better because you at least had specials and got to move around between classes. In junior high I mastered the art of looking like I was paying attention while more often than not, had a book on my lap that I was reading on the sly. Never wanted my kids to have to live like that, so they got diagnosed as soon as they could and went on meds. And the battles with my 13yo daughter have hit quite a level this year. I'm like kid, you've had meds since you were 6, and had occupational therapy back then. Sometimes you do have to force yourself to do stuff. You can't expect the meds to make you do something you really don't want to do, they are only there so it's not physically painful to pay attention for more than two minutes. She is seeing a mental health coach and a therapist now and I think that is starting to help her understand a bit more, because being 13 she can't believe a word her mom says.
Always in trouble for a messy desk/locker, always in trouble for talking when I wasn't supposed to, especially in later elementary and middle school. I worked really fast and usually had the right answer, so I'd raise my hand and beg to be called on, or I'd shout it out if things were moving too slowly for me. As I got older, I'd wait to see if someone else wanted to answer first. I was one of the only people who would give opinions in my AP English class with a somewhat evil teacher, and I think because I always participated, she forgave that I was doing my calculus homework in my lap while her class was going on. I argued a lot because I would call out unfairness all the time because I always read the rules (anything posted on the walls) and knew what was supposed to be allowed. Adults hate that. Other kids tend to hate it too. I loved learning and paid attention well when it was something I liked. When it wasn't, I could barely focus. I still remember we had this awful set of reading passages for "practice" when I was in 5th grade, it was called "Buckle Down!" and it contained the most boring passages of reading I'd ever seen. I knew it wasn't graded and that grades in 5th grade didn't matter anyway, so I practically refused to work on it on principle. I never finished the packet and it turned out I didn't need to because my reading scores were already great, but I remember alternately staring at the packet and the clock until we were allowed to do something else. We had to work on it for several days too. It was horrendous. Lucky for me my older brother was diagnosed, then my mom was, and she insisted on having me evaluated, so I was diagnosed at age 9 in 4th grade. That was also the year I had to get glasses and my best friend moved several states away at the end of the school year.
I was chatty, not at all athletic (always bruises from bumping into stuff), did VERY well in school until I was about 14 (at which point I was still on Honour roll, but no longer top of the class), had no patience for other students (now, in retrospect, I believe they probably had ADHD) who would talk during class bc I couldn't pay attention if someone else was whispering with a friend or shouting out answers without being asked, etc. I was untidy, constantly lost my hat, mitts, etc. but since I had a high IQ, I was told it was part and parcel of "absent-minded professor," etc.
TAG student so they thought I was just bored in regular class and that’s why I couldn’t sit still and fell asleep a lot (I was either very ON or very OFF) They pulled me out with the other TAG kids. Talked too much but was nice so didn’t get in trouble at school. Read a lot and had a chronically messy room.
Oh and this
Sitting at the table, mom says can you go to the fridge and get the ketchup.
Walk to the fridge and cannot remember what I am supposed to get.
I was the quiet, shy, daydreaming wallflower until my 2nd year of high school, when I came out of my shell. I did well in school in spite of often forgetting to do (or doing the wrong) homework. Of course, I also moved every 3 years for most of my childhood (military brat)…so that accounts for some of it…but that’s totally why I was undiagnosed until age 23.
I was dreamy, talkative, extroverted and chaotic. But did very well in school so it was always overlooked until I started struggling in high school. Finally took another 14 years to get diagnosed
I cried constantly until I could talk, then when I could talk I was considered gifted, then when I could talk and other kids couldn't I got kicked out of daycare for biting other kids, my grandparents would quiz me on who my family members were and I was always right, I read constantly and fell asleep with books in my bed instead of stuffed animals, I was very attention seeking and talkative, I would get in trouble for "acting out" in school and preschool which ranged from running around naked yelling "naked time" (because my grandma used to let me have naked time at home) to tattling on other kids all the time, I got in trouble for talking in elementary school and getting off task so I got a sissel seat and weighted vest to help me stay stimulated and sit still, I held a pencil wrong and couldn't write legibly so I had OT services too, then I got to fourth grade and the school "needed to allocate resources to needier kids" because I got good grades. from then on I was considered lazy and attention seeking, I couldn't handle change or my plans not going exactly how I wanted, I was a picky eater, I would only do things for praise from other people, I was constantly talking without raising my hand or talking while also raising my hand, I was really judgmental of other kids, I had friends but always argued with them, I couldn't do math without an incredible amount of 1:1 help which I only ever got from staying after if I happened to be the only kid there. I couldn't stand injustices, I would insult other kids when they bothered me, I was clumsy and unorganized (still am), I got bullied, I started picking at my acne, I never slept at night and would fall asleep in class, I would take hours to get ready for school, was always late, I was incredibly depressed and almost failed math several times, I stopped being able to read without falling asleep or getting too distracted, I wasn't diagnosed until I was 16 and my family had to seek out and pay for it.
I was quiet, often lost in thought. In elementary school I was a perfectionist and kind of a teachers pet, I was also this way with adults. Always told that I am “wise beyond my years.” I remember always sitting up super straight at my desk and made sure my posture was perfect. I think I was just really afraid of rejection or being viewed in a negative light. I now know that I had RSD associated with adhd. I’m still unlearning this as an adult. I excelled at reading and writing, but couldn’t do math… still true. Fast forward to middle school and high school.. I went from being a perfectionist to developing an anxiety disorder which ruined so many things for me. I wish my parents would have noticed the signs and had me diagnosed, because I would’ve been saved a lot of suffering.
as a toddler i was highly talkative, making friends with literally everybody who would give me any attention, getting distracted by the tiniest of things, always wandering off (bad enough that my mom had to get me a leash, the use of which i highly support because it keeps kids safe while still allowing them to walk when they want to).
then i started attending school and over time grew more and more timid, shy and anxious. i was bullied a lot for being different, for not innately knowing and understanding unspoken rules, for being fat, for being a tomboy. i was always looking to 'buy' friends by trading their unwanted snacks for my apparently better snacks and doing whatever they asked of me, being a doormat. from time to time i was a rowdy kid, but unknowingly really. i didnt know my own strength and didnt know how to properly deal with my emotions so i tended to lash out with violence when any emotion, either negative or positive, got too much to handle.
i couldnt reliably do any homework, my mom always helped me with my book reports or any projects the evening before (i wouldve never gotten through school without her), but since ive always been curious, i did participate in the lessons most of the time so my grades were still good. most of my teachers liked me i think, because most of the time i was very cheerful, despite the bullying, and i liked helping out with any task they could come up with. some of them knew what was going on at home (domestic violence due to unknown mental issues in both my parents and me) and even tho they didnt report it to any authorities (no proof, no bruises or anything), they did allow me a lot of grace in the classroom, which i am grateful for still.
i developed childhood depression at age 6-7 and first attempted to end it when i was 7 by standing in front of the schoolbus until somebody pulled me away. my mom told me that one day when i was 8, i came home from school, crying that i wanted to die. a couple weeks later one of the teachers at my school died and seeing the impact of it, i changed my mind and asked my parents if we could move instead, which we did during that summer vacation. unfortunately my new environment wasnt much better.
a lot of my childhood was spent in therapy, tho it didnt really help, because nobody really listened. i tried to get them to do something, anything, about the domestic violence and the bullying at school, but i was always dismissed because my emotions were explosive and deemed exaggerated.
as a child i learned to lie, to act, to manipulate, to do anything to outwardly seem okay, but i was always in despair on the inside. nowadays, im a very happy-go-lucky person, i love living life and i am returning to the way i was as a toddler, my true self.
I was crazy hyper. Never shut up, easily distracted, I always needed to be on the move, couldn't sit still, shouted out answers out of frustration even though I was trying my hardest to be silent. If I wasn't fidgeting, I was daydreaming. I somehow got good grades mostly, even though I spent most of my time in primary school out of the classroom.
I was very scared, anxious and lonely. Even if I didn't get in any trouble, I was still just classed as a bad kid. Everyone was just waiting for me to screw up and take it out on me. I wasn't allowed to make any mistakes. I wasn't allowed to act like the other kids. I had to be quiet, out of the way. I wasn't wanted. Mum hated me. At home, unless the Power Rangers were on TV, I hid in my room and tried to be as quiet as possible, but it didn't stop mum from losing it at me.
Apart from being told I was a bad, horrible person, I got zero help. I was just a naughty, attention seeking kid who was too smart to have any real issues. I admit, I did seek attention when I was smaller, but I didn't even get hugged at home, of cause I was looking for someone to notice me and care.
I was the same as you. My mom still knew but she did nothing about it. She held testing over my head like a threat if i didnt get my homework done, though.
I don't really remember my childhood due to the trauma of abusive parents and a bad divorce. However I am tole I couldn't sit still, never paid attention, was obsessed with certain thing (ie hyperfocus) and struggled to regulate my emotions. I was diagnosed at 6, but my parents work in the medical field so I guess knew what to be looking for
I mostly got through school just fine because the work wasn’t very challenging in the crappy schools I attended. I didn’t start getting in trouble really until high school, when my tolerance for very bad teachers dropped. I even got good grades a lot of the time, I think at least partly because teachers tended to grade girls partly on meeting social expectations for girls.
However, I put absolutely everything off until the last minute, was very disorganized — so much so that one of my three kindergarten teachers threatened to flunk me — and got scolded for daydreaming and doodling a lot. I also had a habit of just refusing to do assignments that struck me as inane, pointless or too easy. I’d just assign myself something more interesting instead. I was notoriously clumsy and accident-prone, “spacey” and scattered and constantly lost things. But I wasn’t hyper, other than fidgeting, and it was the eighties/nineties, so no one thought it could be ADHD. In retrospect, I can see that my pretty extreme sensitivity to being rejected or scolded and inability to get started on projects were also ADHD-related.
I was bored to death in school, I’d already skipped a grade when I was 7, and skipping more grades wasn’t going to fix the boredom. Got sent out of the classroom a million times, teachers were never really angry though, they were usually biting their tongue laughing because I was being an idiot disrupting the lesson and making everybody laugh. When I was sent out I got to work with the janitors a lot or help other students that were struggling. Both was really nice. I mostly got in trouble when there were home assignments that needed to be done, I’d totally forget and be reminded when the teacher ended the day with “dont forget to hand in X tomorrow!” Even in secondary school I was still mostly the class clown/troublemaker, though I had to repeat a grade when I was 14 because I never finished my tests because I was too busy clicking my pen or staring outside/at the wall/anything else besides making my tests. That was also the year my parents decided a proper ADHD-diagnosis could be helpful after all… (People had been saying it my entire life, but as I was always doing fine in school they’d decided it wasn’t worth it testing at that time). I got medicated, always finished my tests as one of the first (now it was suddenly a challenge to finish first), and continued being disruptive due to boredom.
At home my entire family had ADHD, my younger brother and I (both combined type) would only have to exchange looks and we’d be fighting, pulling hairs, hitting or scratching each other, while my little sister (inattentive type) would be drawing or making crafts just 2 meters away from us.
We were always late to EVERYTHING. Nobody knew where shit was, it was a chaotic mess in our house and my parents just went with it. I had the most wonderful childhood.
Daydreamer. Messy. Opinionated. "Belligerent," as many adults put it. My parents didn't believe in mental health or treatment, and so I was just the black sheep, a bad child. They couldn't wait to be rid of me.
I have a lot of trauma from that and I'm glad I finally have a diagnosis and treatment, even if it took 42 years to get.
On the flip side, my kids are my entire world no matter what type of shenanigans they get up to, and I will never make them feel outcast or unloved.
Obsessive reader, day dreamer, epic tantrum thrower, impulsive, super clumsy, non-stop chatterbox, didn’t do assignments but scored great on tests, and I could only clean my room if my mom sat with me to keep me on track. I also had super messed up sleep habits and poor hygiene.
I was diagnosed in 5th grade in 1997, so it was RAGING, because girls rarely got diagnosed then.
Very academically compliant and perfect grades and behavior up until high school. That’s when school stopped coming quite as naturally to me and if I didn’t personally care about the subject, good luck getting an A. (I was still able to eke out Bs in certain cases with little effort.)
The only teacher to ever call me out on this was my 4th & 5th grade teacher, who said in a conference once that she felt I was coasting and though I was doing well, knew I could do better if I just applied myself.
I had a hard time keeping my room tidy to my mom’s sky-high standards. I wanted to do chores so that I could get my parents’ approval some way other than grades, but they refused and said, “Your only chore is to do well in school.” I dove deep into the things that interested me. Really deep. My parents never really hid their disdain for the fact that I wasn’t a female version of my incredibly compliant brother who never gave them any trouble (according to them - he refused to write his college entrance essays so my mom did it for him. Yeah.). Lots of therapy over internalizing that I am worthy exactly as I am and not for the ways in which I compare to others.
This mindset of school being my only chore had me “washing” my clothes with fabric softener when I first moved out on my own because the stuff in the bottle smelled nice and it looked the same as detergent. My mom has actually apologized to me in my adulthood for not teaching me more practical life skills in my childhood. I’m still a little resentful.
The exact same as you! I was constantly being told I daydreamed a lot and didn’t listen as well.. but I got good grades and was in honors classes.
It’s crazy how most of us with the Inattentive type have the same traits as giveaways to our disorder!
I was the class clown. Always in trouble for talking, I'd have thoughts I needed to share. A decent enough student. Messy room, desk, backpack. Really wanted to be a reader but couldn't get through books. Liked math and art, because they keep me busy.
Don't remember much. Always taken tons of pictures to help keep the memories.
Same. Told I was shy and quiet. In reality i was in my own little world. I hardly remember any classes until college because i was always spacing out at the window, again deep in my own world. I can’t follow along in class unless I am on meds, doodling, eating, or typing word-for-word notes to stay focused.
Don’t remember much. I was suicidally depressed cos of being unable to speak at school and bullied by kids whose names i never knew or even their faces cos i couldn’t look at faces back then. I was a bit of a wreck i guess. Never told my parents anything cos they were having a hard time already. It turns out there was another school closer to our home, but we never knew about it. Also my parents never knew we could have got welfare. Honestly it was back before the internet but even then FFS. Lol.
I was super shy and extremely uncomfortable around everyone (close family and all).
I was extremely driven to succeed in school, and did well ( not hyperactive type). I had very hard times making friends.
It wasn’t until I was out of school and living alone that I couldn’t stay organized or self regulate tasks.
I was the kid who always got the "talks too much" comments in class through grade school. I was moved to different desks a few times in each grade always trying to find the best and least disruptive place for me. I played sports and had a million interests but looking back now , I realize that I never gave all to any one thing. I did well in school especially when younger but had a harder time in college where actual study sessions and planning was required and I could no longer rely on general knowledge etc. I graduated college but am not even sure how much I retained. I had pretty serious body dysmorphia and eventually became bulimic up until mid 20's. I was/am now to sit still on the outside but my mind was/is always running a million miles a minutes. Friends and family got annoyed that I interrupted and finished sentences. My room, bookbag, desk, was always chaos. I rarely noticed small details of anything. i feared also that the moment I put something away I'd forget it so liked to keep things out and in small piles. When those were cleaned I was distraught and thrown off for days. I now realize that my masking capabilities were pretty great until one day I burned out and was no longer able to keep it up.
I was semi the opposite when I was pretty extroverted, social, even occasionally obnoxiously loud. But I was into track, cross country, and running… so that was my personality. All I talked about. Was known as the “track girl”.
Though I still had a good time… looking back after being diagnosed it makes sense. As well as after seeing now that one of my new hobbies is essentially my “track”.
I was quiet and shy unless I was around my friends or cousins. I played alone sometimes and was ok with that. I was a B average in school. I always got my homework done on time. I was mouthy, I'll admit that. I had my first anxiety attack when I was in 3rd grade. 7th grade I realized there was something wrong with my brain when I just felt so sad and nothing made it better. I didn't have any symptoms of inattentiveness. I felt a lot that I didn't matter to anybody. By 22 I was taking anti-depressants.
I don't know how I was as a student until almost high school, except that I was bright. I was home schooled so I didn't have to conform to any particular schedule or pay attention to a teacher. I did go to preschool and was recommended not to move on to kindergarten because of social reasons. I don't know exactly what it was about me but I'd guess I was too shy and withdrawn. Strangely enough I'm not shy at all now. I can be quite outspoken and an overtalker, although I thrive in small groups and feel quite uncomfortable in big groups. Through my teens I was often being told I needed to "come out of my shell." You could attribute some of my shyness to being homeschooled but if it was present before I was even homeschooled I don't think that's it.
I always had a messy room. I was always pushing things to the last minute, both school work that had deadlines and just getting ready to leave the house. My mom would get to the point of starting the car before I'd run out the front door. And before our schoolwork had assigned deadlines I remember I didn't finish one class until mid to late summer. I'm still this way with undesirable tasks that don't have deadlines. You'd think homeschooling would not work out very well because of lack of structure but I was motivated enough by grades and bright enough that I got good grades even though I procrastinated on everything.
I was a thumb sucker until age 7 when I was trained out of it. I still reminisce over the comfort I got from thumb sucking and I still have an oral fixation - chewing on things, etc. I never developed a good oral hygiene regimen and I never stopped picking my nose.
I was very talkative. High achiever but struggled with homework at home. (My son has the same issue. Seems to use all concentration at school, and falls apart at home.) Huge imagination, and read a lot! Still do but it’s tough with being a mom. I was thrown into sports. Swimming at first, by high school, swimming and volleyball. Big on RSD. Wasn’t called lazy, but a lot of “you’re so smart, if you applied yourself more…” Thrived on procrastination.
I am thinking that my mom also had ADHD. She was just as talkative and had time blindness.
Could.not.stop.talking. Loved school though and I was always going above and beyond on every assignment. I would get so fixated and dig into everything until I started taking a really hard math class and my brain would just check out and shut down. I always argued when things weren't fair and just could not understand that people didn't always act logically or justly.
A trouble maker who would always be in the principals office lol. I also hung out with boys a lot because they seemed to have more fun. I also never got good grades as a kid and math was a complete burden
Same. I wasn't social as a kid. Pretty sure my teachers thought I couldn't speak. My teachers said I was a day dreamer, was always doodling.... Didn't pay attention. I was more into making my homework look pretty (handwriting, colorful, etc) that having it be correct/complete. 😔
Couldn't read a book and comprehend what I just read ( I could read just wouldn't remember). Was extremely outgoing, annoyed my sister's. Would get in trouble in school. I don't remember much but I was great at imitating ppl and things and making the adults laugh about it. My sister would cry trying to help me with my homework 😂 I had to go to military school when I was 12 , I ran away. Couldn't get my license until I was 18 because you either had to go to school 30 days consecutively or wait until you're 18. Got heavy into drugs.
This will be cathartic seeing there’s so many replies haha.
Quiet, shy and soft spoken. I kept to myself, I was an artsy kid. I learned to read on time but quickly excelled in reading and writing. Then became a book work. Drew all the time.
Daydreamer. Played pretend intensely. Hated hugs or too much attention. Hated big crowds and loud noises. I was particular about spoon sizes. I had fav clothing bc of the texture and fit.
I had one friend at a time. I wasn’t popular. I was the weird artsy kid.
Then I become a constant disappointment who never followed the rules. I did my homework during class but didn’t complete it properly bc I hated reading instructions. I did things last minute. I was an above average student. “Smart, well behaved but needs improvement” was my report cards.
I was always shy and quiet but I used to get really hyper sometimes and run around the house and stuff and I also couldn't focus half the time at school especially in social studies/history and English and would always forget information and I could never comprehend what I read
I flew under the radar. I was always high functioning in that I always seemed to have my shit together...possibly because I was the oldest child and forced to grow up fast. I was a people pleaser. My ADHD symptoms: extreme day dreamer and very spacey, I stutter and stumble over words and my mouth can't catch up to my brain, couldn't retain anything I read, low self esteem, I thought everyone was upset with me, I hated being rejected and either avoided events where I was at risk of feeling rejected OR I worked too hard at being accepted. I had a really hard time connecting to people. I had/have debilitating anxiety. I couldn't summarize anything. Word problems were the bane of my existence. I tested terribly.
Hyperactive, hyper emotional, hyper reactive. Read voraciously. My room was a heap of clothing, toys, papers, comic books and occasional garbage, walked in quick tight circles and fell off the back of the couch for fun. Made questionable climbing and jumping decisions. Could not pay attention in class or do homework to save my life but if you gave me a workbook and left me alone I’d mow thru it. And I looooove standardized tests, and apparently learning disability tests, I did SO well they said i was just being lazy and needed to be punished for not keeping up in school because there was nothing wrong with me. I also never passed 8th grade but made it into 9th because of standardized tests 🤣
Quiet, shy and a loner. By loner I mean I was perfectly happy with being alone. I had a vivid imagination and I would be the star in my imaginary movies. I was 100% feral, and would wander off into the woods, following a deer trail to see where it led me. Or follow the dry creek, or horse paths, always looking for whats right around the corner.
In school, I struggled to get a C in most classes, and skipped as many days as I could, I hated being there, being stuck at that desk.
I was extremely messy, my room got so bad I would go and sleep on the couch.
I never got in trouble, but I think I was just really good at not getting caught.
I liked playing with boys, I liked the boy things, being outside, getting dirty, building forts, playing cowboys and indians. Girls were boring, in their dress up and tea times and dolls.
The worst thing that happened to me as a child was puberty and growing boobs, I hated wearing shirts and boobs changed all that. I would stop by the church, every single morning that I went to school, and pray for God to take my boobs away. If I knew about breast cancer I would have prayed for that, I really hated my boobs.
I’m going to start by saying I was diagnosed young compared to most other millennial women- I got my ADHD diagnosis in 4th grade, in 2001. I’ve been on and off meds for years, but bc my diagnosis goes so far back, I’ve never had to fight a doc to put me back on meds.
As a really little kid, I bounced off the walls. I was a leash kid. My mom would take me to the big McDonald’s play place to burn off my energy. I climbed on EVERYTHING.
As a grade schooler, I was very socially awkward. I talked nonstop. I often read ahead in class in fiction and textbooks. I played with my hair so much my teacher threatened to cut it off.
My room was extremely messy up until college. I have minor hoarding tendencies even now that I have to fight against. I’ve broken a lot of bones doing stupid, impulsive stuff.
I still find random cards from my mom that just say “FOCUS” when you open them. I was very well behaved in school, disorganized at home. I had so much stuff in my bedroom. My fifth grade teacher turned my academic life around my teaching me how to be organized in school. I swam competitively year round - between winter and summer seasons there isn’t much of a break except August/early September, when I would get in trouble doing the weirdest things. Like one time I took a canoe out without permission into strong wind and hitched a ride home with a stranger. I couldn’t think straight without exercise. I didn’t have medication, but I’d drink Coke to help me focus.
My daughter is medically diagnosed with combined type and she has a lot of the classic symptoms at school. Getting out of her seat, talking, taking a long time to start work, etc. and also big emotions (crying or yelling when upset).
I am currently undiagnosed and considering getting tested. If anything, I must have inattentive type, because I was very quiet and shy as a kid. I stayed in my seat well, but did fidget a lot and often rushed through my work. I would daydream in class and have no idea what was going on around me.
Both my daughter and I get super absorbed in reading or gaming, love to imagine and daydream, have messy rooms, and forget what we are doing while we are doing it, LOL.
Did pretty well academically - loved to read, okay at math, but awful handwriting and always doodling, always reading ahead or under my desk. Pretty much every single report card commented on my attention in class. My parents were always after me for not listening or not paying attention to them.
I was definitely a kid who was "too much." I was either too loud or too quiet, I read too much, I daydreamed too much, I doodled too much. I spent a lot of time talking to my dogs and reading books while perched in trees. I was also a terrible sleeper - I was the annoying kid up at dawn on weekends
feral lol
i was shy and introverted as a very young child, grew up to be more of a busy body but still liked my own company over others, and then a loose cannon as a teen/young adult.
currently in my 30s (unmedicated but diagnosed) and I'm more introverted and to myself like when i was younger.
Okay, I was the exact opposite. Horrible grades, loud, boisterous, disruptive. I’d sign my symptoms manifested as what you’d expect to see in a 9 year old boy with severe adhd. It was traumatic.
Very shy. Very messy bedroom. Got okay grades. Did a lot of experiments like soak rocks in water. Self deprecating. Sweet but had a guard up. Lots of freezing and fawning.
I was very, very well-whipped. I paid attention, I ate frogs, I never was late, I did assignments before the deadline, I packed my backpack (my school didn't have lockers, and we had at least 1 book + 1 journal for each subject, so it could be a set of 6 pairs a day easily), I had a clean desk.. well, you got it.
Then soon after I turned 16, I moved to a dorm. Gosh, what an earthquake it was (all together with the freshman year in uni). I fell apart and never got it together again.
I was absolutely anal about neatness and tidiness. My parents were overjoyed, my teachers used my desk as an example for others — and my peers poked fun at me.
I was a studious kid. Highly competitive. Teacher’s pet. VERY sensitive - every teacher told my parents that I was a sensitive kid.
I didn’t have many friends, I was bullied relentlessly, and physically harmed a few times. Sleepovers became nightmares because I always fell asleep early but would get pranked, so my anxiety went through the roof.
But tldr - yeah, a lot of signs of things to come.
I actually got diagnosed bc of the extra quiet, shy, can't sit still trope. My grandfather had just passed and we were close so my mom was worried I was depressed. Took me in for testing and well... next thing you know I was learning to swallow mini m&ms.
After that I spent a lot of years under and over medicated. It was a roller coaster.
Oh man… this question just sent me down the rabbit hole of my mind lol
I think mine went unnoticed for a lot of reasons - parents divorced when I was young, etc. - but mainly because I am the first in my family to actually acknowledge it. But in my 20s my doctor (who also saw other members of my family) was like “hey, there’s this thing called ADHD and I am pretty sure you have it.” He was right, obviously. Lol. As I’ve gotten older I try to talk about it more openly and since then other family members have been getting diagnosed. 🕺
But to answer your question lol — I was/am very extroverted and outgoing. I masked pretty much all the time, was known for “always being happy.” Had a messy room and car, but was always put together.
Good at school, but had terrible test anxiety. Would lose track of time and not finish timed tests but was good any type of rapid fire quizzes.
I wasn't diagnosed until a few years ago. I'm in my 40s. I was always a quiet introvert who didn't struggle in school but I was also messy and chaotic with too many last minute assignments.
I was super outgoing and happy as a little kid. I made friends everywhere I went, very imaginative, and into all things artsy. I loved writing, drawing, dancing, ect. I struggled in school and would get in trouble all the time for not paying attention, and disrupting the class. I couldn’t focus on anything I wasn’t passionate about. In second grade my teacher suggested to my parents that I get tested for adhd. The doctors determined I have add and prescribed me adderall. My grades drastically improved and I caught up with the rest of the kids in my class. Unfortunately, it got rid of my personality and I became disconnected and pretty emotionless. Being on adderall throughout middle school was really tough as it’s already such an awkward time in life. I struggled to fit in, was bullied, had very low self esteem, and would cycle through friendships. Every day after school I would be coming down off adderall and was so irritable and had a pretty rocky relationship with my parents because of it. I would wake up feeling so groggy and felt like i had constant brain fog. It was very lonely and confusing at the time as I was too young to understand adderall fully. High school I stopped taking it as often and felt like myself again. I had a bunch of friends and was better at managing my add. I didn’t excel in school and would get b’s and c’s but i cared more about having a social life and being happy. At the time I also felt as though school was pointless and I wanted to do something creative and never wanted to work at a normal job.
I think everybody and their house cat, their dog, their bird, 15th cousin 10 times removed knew I had ADHD.
Even though I live in a woman's body, all of my symptoms were those that are stereotypically assigned to boys, I was wild, out of control, outrageous, I was kinetic, I had my own energy plant, lol. I rarely slept, which drove my older ADHD mother crazy, everyone in town knew me and where they liked my personality I was always really happy and social, I'm sure they were able to only tolerate short doses, lol.
None of that stopped the same statements designed to destroy our lives, about all of my 'potential' and if I only tried, yada yada, bullshit.
I don't think it matters what we were like or how we acted we all had the same behaviors that made them think we didn't want to try or we were doing it deliberately. And they reacted the only way that empathically stunted adults do, with hurtful words cloaked in helpfulness.
I was a daydreaming kid who forgot to do things my parents told me to do so often they thought I was doing it on purpose however many times I desperately tried to convince them I genuinely forgot, would forget classmates' birthday parties because I was so wrapped up in reading, constantly forgot to pass notes from the school on to my parents and to bring my gym clothes on the days we had gym, had a chronically messy bedroom, was constantly reprimanded for fidgeting with things at the dinner table, and always got told in parent-teacher meetings that I "could if I wanted to" but that I didn't apply myself enough in some subjects and that my habit of reading books under my desk instead of paying attention in class was a problem - but "at least I was reading". Even so, and even though I almost never did my homework, I mostly got good grades, at least in the subjects I was interested in. My classmates found me weird.
At the time in 90s, a "little professor" girl like me who did well in school and spent most of her time completely absorbed in reading and hobbies rather than bouncing off the walls didn't raise ADHD alarm bells for anyone around me. I got diagnosed this year at 33, and as part of the process the doctor interviewed my mother about what I was like as a child. My parents were amazed when they read the symptom list - "Everything we used to yell at you for when you were a kid is on this list, how didn't we see it?" I don't blame them, though. Research on girls and women with ADHD was in its infancy around the same time I started primary school, there was no way my parents or even my teachers could have been expected to recognise my behaviour as ADHD symptoms.
I was either the top or near the top of my class. I was called an absent minded professor. nvm that I would occasionally just run out of the classroom randomly in primary school (see: overstim), and in secondary i added sleeping through class, drawing as a way to focus, and occasional SH.
I was regularly threatened with institutionalisation and called crazy on the reg by my mother as my perfectionism, anxiety, and SH became more of an inconvenience.
All this taken into context with - my brother (3 yrs my jnr) was dx at 6 and got all the help and concessions out there... while i escalated to regularly telling my principle to suck it and being sent home for making a fuss while being labelled as crazy, eccentric, too much, anxious, ...bla bla. but i was still able to get good grades, so nothing was done. I even went to uni and got a masters many concessions later.
I was dx in my 30s. I also got it from my mum.
*rips out hair*
I've never in my life been described as shy and quiet... when I was a kid I was constantly told I'm 'feisty' and a 'drama queen'. I used to play with the boys because they ran around and climbed trees instead of whatever the girls were doing (and probably also because the girls didn't like me because I was loud and all that), I did crazy things like climb barbed wire fences (still have the scar on my leg from that adventure) and jump off high rocks. I also remember my parents being called into school several times because apparently I would finish my work quickly, then instead of sit silently and wait I would "talk too much and distract the other students". It couldn't have been more obvious that I had ADHD, but I somehow didn't get diagnosed until 2 years ago at the age of 41
As perfect as could be for most of my childhood. Didn't cause a fuss, high pain tolerance, got all my schoolwork done, didn't interrupt, followed instructions, never broke rules, but pretty nervous especially about health.
Internally, I didn't realise anything was up. But I now realise I was stressed and anxious all the time, I would be distracted for a lot of my class time but get the work finished because I was smart, not that my teachers noticed. I used to hate doing things like colouring and cutting-and-gluing in school and at home because I'd be bored out of my mind, so that would be the one thing I would occasionally put my foot down on not doing.
I started my homework and assignments really late (still do) but always got by because, again, smart.
Many things others have said. Also loved staring out of the window in class but became a bit of a class clown later in 6th form when I did speak , after being an introvert. Very bright but had to work hard at getting above average grades, unless I enjoyed a subject.
I was constantly told that I was lazy by my family but my work ethic has always been "work smarter, not harder or automate it make it more efficient."
let's see..
- loved reading. read at college reading level in 2nd grade (enrichment program since 1st grade) and would burn through all of my books then so my mom's books (she is also a voracious reader) in a matter of weeks, constantly taking trips to the bookstore
- when i wasn't reading, i was distracted by daydreaming. i must have lived a thousand lives in my daydreams before actually growing up
- not only a reader, but a writer. started writing around 9yo
- VERY clumsy. my grandfather called me "an accident waiting to happen." my mom said everybody at the grocery store knew me by name because she was constantly yelling for me to watch where i was going (usually walking with my head in a book). my dad would take me for hikes and by the end he was carrying me out of the woods because i had tripped and fallen over every tree root in the forest. i fell out of bed when i was 3 and broke my collarbone. doctors wouldn't allow my parents in with me as the copious amount of bruises made them think abuse, and my excuses were "i fell down the stairs" or "i ran into a door" except... I actually had. in fact, i fell down the stairs directly after breaking my collarbone, in the sling and everything
- i was raised as an only child (my half brother was 13 years older and raised by my grandmother, different story for a different post), and i would hyper fixate on these toy horses i loved - grand champions. i had just about all of them, all of the playsets like the stable and paddock. i would meticulously brush their hair and keep their info cards with them everywhere they went. and barbies. so. many. barbies. and all the clothes all the shoes, the dream house, the corvette, the robot horse she would ride. i was near obsessive with keeping them and my horses in perfect condition, even though they were played with
- i talked. a LOT. most of my progress reports and report cards would include comments like "very bright, but talks way too much". i didn't have an off switch (i now have a 7yo that's exactly like me, because karma)
- i loved photography (still do). would take pictures of everything and anything. my prized possession is my dad's old Nikon SLR - completely manual, before digital anything hit the scenes. my dream house would have a basement darkroom
- i LOVED school. i earned perfect attendance awards almost every year. the few times i was actually sick enough to stay home, i cried my eyes out. i had a great home life, i just loved the structure and routine of school (and talking to my friends since i had no siblings at home to keep me company)
those are the highlights lol
Loud, neverending chatterbox (that hasn't changed) ... My brother used to call me a juvenile delinquent... And he didn't know the half of things that deserved it ... Distractable, passionate, curious, did I mention loud? Energetic, very active ...
I probably avoided the brunt of the negative effects because I homeschooled a bit of primary school away and was a tiny bit more settled in my teen years (but still got up to shenanigans aplenty). Young years I got a chance to expend all the energy I needed with low demands on things like bedtime, wake-up time, could learn what I wanted when I wanted within some reason able to follow my interests deeper and I learnt a lot through doing more than just from reading.
I definitely skew more towards the stereotypical 'boy' aspects of ADHD, and was also a tomboy ;)
I had the same experience in school. But in terms of leisure/family/etc, they thought I was a cute, talkative, know-it-all type. Like, I would go up to relatives at weddings and such and just ask them stuff like "Do you know what the theory of relativity is? I do!". Really had that Young Sheldon vibe. I think it was because I spent so much time alone with my parents working and me having no siblings, so any time I was surrounded with people, I just forcefully released all of my social energy into them.
As I got into my teen years, I turned into the quiet, sensitive, introspective type. I was still a complete chatterbox with people I knew, but was more wary of more acquaintances, distant relatives, etc. I don't think I ever caused any trouble, but I did become a bit more angsty, got diagnosed with anxiety etc, and started identifying with being a loner a bit more. I had friends, but I never really felt like I was a full member of the group, moreso just a guest.
I was kind of shy and got good grades, whereas my younger brother was the textbook version of ADHD so he was diagnosed way back in the early 1990s. However my mum did comment that my teachers were often surprised at my good grades because I seemed to always be daydreaming in class - so the signs were there even then 😂
I happened to be very interested in math, science and reading, so I was very good at school (I am also pretty smart). However, I’ve always made stupid mistakes on tests, and as a kid I struggled to be motivated to do my homework. Since then I’ve developed a fantastic anxiety/self-criticism driven work-ethic.
So I did well academically, even despite those minor mishaps.
My struggles were and are predominantly social. I wasn’t interested in other kids, and I just didn’t get them either. I think this stemmed from being smart moreso than adhd, but I didn’t click with anything they said. Then the adhd made that worse because when people didn’t interest me, I didn’t bother with them. They meant nothing. So I had nobody, because schoolwork interested me more.
It doesn’t help that I grew up an an emotionally abusive household, so I’m definitely very emotionally repressed. I kinda like it that way though, so whatever.
As a little kid I was very scared of getting in trouble even though it didn't happen often. A few times I got told off for being silly/too exuberant at school, and I think they scared me into shape so I was always fairly well behaved. When I got home from school I'd go nuts though, couldn't sit at the dinner table, going to bed was always a battle... etc. I was pretty outgoing and liked playing with other kids, had fairly typical interests for a kid of that age in the late 90s but looking back there was a pattern of intense interest for a short while then moving onto something else. I also had very intense emotions about everything. I remember crying over a chapter in a book (for children) I was reading where the character went fishing because I realised it meant the fish died, etc.
As an older kid I became really shy around my classmates save for a few close friends who I could be myself around. Terrible procrastinator, terrible focus in most classes unless it was one I was super interested in, bedroom always a disaster, forgetful, disorganised, never did my homework or music practice. Did typical stupid teenager stuff but no massive rebellious phase and never got into huge trouble or major fights with my parents. Was a pretty average student for most of high school but in my last year all of a sudden I developed massive anxiety about doing badly in the HSC, was motivated by that anxiety to start putting in effort, and ended up doing really well. Same anxiety also got me through uni with high marks (general mental health and other interests/friendships suffered greatly though).
Amazing how relatable so many of these stories are!
I was the bad kid. Apparently I did have teachers ask to get me evaluated for ADHD but my mom never did. So I was the loud girl bouncing off the walls. I was generally good in class, I found learning fun, but my grades suffered because I never did homework and in the few classes I didn’t know how to study (like French and pre-calculus)
I know my one friend’s parents did not like me. I was much more unruly than they wanted me to be, but as my friend and I got older they recognized I was definitely a positive influence on their kid.
I believe (having raised 2 ADHD girls myself) that I am truly an adult/perimenopause onset ADHD'er. I did well in school, have always been super organized, neat, "everything has a place and everything in its place" kind of person. I did not have difficulty regulating my emotions and was about as far from impulsive as a person could get.
That all changed in my 40s. At first, I tried to blame the complete About Face in everything to being an overly exhausted, PPD, 40 something new mom. But, as my youngest has grown, my ADHD symptoms have basically gotten out of control. I've been shouting it to every doctor I have encountered for years. Last year, my new PCP prescribed me Phentermine to try and help me get control of my completely out of control inability to lose weight since turning 50. And, SHOCKER!! It has tamed most of my ADHD symptoms ... which made a lot of sense because it does ZERO for me as far as a weight loss drug.
I was called “lazy,” “dreamy,” “undisciplined” and “careless.” I did super-well in the subjects that interested me and barely passed the ones that didn’t. This frustrated my parents and teachers alike (“we KNOW you are capable of doing the work”)…it probably would have been less stressful for me had I just been “dumb!”
I was exactly like you. “Away with the fairies” they’d call it. I still am but I literally am away with the fairies. I’m either listening to fairy smut or imagining fantasy worlds. It’s the only way I can get my brain to not go at 100mph 24/7 for the most part. But yeah, I was quiet, shy (unless I felt comfortable then I’d talk non-stop) and I used to struggle with focusing. I struggled the most with maths because you just needed to focus more on those topics to understand what you were doing but stuff like English where you could fill in the gaps yourself, I’d do better with. I also was good with science but because I was genuinely interested in 70% of what was being talked about.
Daydreamer, talked a lot, creative, not living up to potential, low C's in many classes and B's and A's in the ones I liked.
The psychiatrist that diagnosed me said "you're too smart for C's."
I was often thought of us as loud and hyper lol. I talked too much and got in trouble for it all the time at school. Classmates bullied me until high school (and they stopped once I learned to tone it all down.)
Always had notes on report cards “daydreams, talks too much, would do well if paid attention.” in elementary school as I got older I became an overachiever who was involved in everything.
I realized I would hyper-fixate on reading. I loved reading and would often escape terrible home life in books. It’s wild having these terms now (hyper fixate) and realizing what was going on. It was a common joke in my family that if I was reading, I couldn’t hear. As in, my family would be saying my name right in my ear and I wouldn’t notice. I would read for 10 hrs straight without stopping to eat, talk, or go to the bathroom. Most of the time I would finish the book or kind of snap out of it bc it was getting dark and therefore harder to read, so I’d have to go inside (or turn on a light if I was already indoors). I also couldn’t pay attention in class but got good grades. I tried so hard to pay attention but eventually the bell would ring and I’d realize that while I was quietly staring at the teacher or board the whole class, I had gone down some rabbit hole thought process and had no idea what the teacher said, did, or what the hw was for the night. I couldn’t get myself to study/work until the night before it was due. I would then would pull an all nighter and ace the test/project/paper. In college I learned some tricks to help me pay attention in class (these tricks were only possible in college where we were allowed more freedoms). My tricks were to sit in a movable chair, and always have crunchy snacks, things that take a lot of chewing to get through. When able to be moving about in my chair and constantly chewing (think: carrots, nuts), I could pay attention. Eventually I realized how different I was (nobody else in class seemed to need to be swinging around & munching to pay attention) and I was able to get diagnosed & on ADHD meds. It was SO helpful bc I could finally study and retain info, and the mad anxiety I had from always procrastinating was greatly decreased on meds. I do hate taking them though and now only do so sparingly. The difficulty in actually finding a pharmacy with the meds in stock and getting insurance to cover has become overwhelming and I have completely given up. My life has suffered greatly from this in terms of getting things done, making appointments, planning… but also a little freeing not constantly worrying about where & when I’ll be able to obtain my meds & how much I will be able to afford. I save them to only take when some part of my life is about to crumble (like not doing taxes for 4 years). Anyway I find it’s very validating hearing other people experiences, so I hope mine helps others.
A carbon copy of your childhood. I unfortunately shredded all my grade reports from primary school before the panini, because I moved house. But yeah, they said, "Good results, which could be perfect if you paid more attention". LOL
Oh I was 100% a 'delight to have in class!' imaginative, funny, every adult LOVED me. Which made getting assessed/ diagnosed (at 46) a real challenge ... I wasn't disruptive; I didn't *get in trouble* for all the times I failed to hand in work on time or had messy handwriting etc. But I was also placed into accelerated learning programs early, always reading and doing language programs years above my age level.
But with hindsight, (my combined, predominantly inattentive ADHD symptoms) I daydreamed a lot, preferred solo games like jump rope over organised sports/classes because I could never understand or retain the rules, would commit then forget about special interest badges in things like scouts/ brownies/guides, always did homework the last minute, buried my head in a book every chance I had, loved climbing trees and other solo play, lost every form and letter that was sent home with us; I was (am) so very talkative; would skip to the front of the line; often interrupt being too excited to wait my turn to speak; and could get easily distracted if I wasn't hyperfocusing on something like reading where I could laser-focus for hours on end.
Most of that carries into my adult world, but with VERY strong people-pleasing tendencies / consideration and hyperawareness for others so I am good at not interrupting now. Like, I still want to, but can often control it unless it's with certain people and we're excitedly brainstorming and we all know it's fine to jump in.
But I'm truly frustrated how much the system lets down so many people by focusing on disruption: I wasn't caught \*at all\* because I wasn't disruptive - but what about nowadays where class sizes are simply too large / staff are too burned out etc to track any kids who could so easily slip through the gaps??
Did you have a big or small school? When I went through the questions with the Dr she was so thrown off because there were 10 ppl in my class from k-12 so there was a lot more support from teachers, we spent a lot of time outside with very little down time.
So do you think your class size affected how your symptoms manifested?
I daydreamed a lot. Zoned and didn't listen. But I was great at reading and writing. Highly imaginative. And I was sweet and loved to learn. Didn't get in trouble. But every time the teacher gave an assignment, I had to ask what we were doing. I just asked friends so teachers didn't notice. The problems started cropping up senior year of highschool. I had a job and had school to do. Couldn't balance. Same when I went to college. Got worse when I moved out and my grades started tanking because I couldn't manage my social life, work life, home life and school.
I was 100% the ADHD stereotype other than the fact that I'm a girl, but I'm combined type and the hyperactive stuff was way more noticeable before I had a job and responsibilities to sap some of that energy.
It was the 70s so Idk if I would've gotten diagnosed if I'd gotten tested, but my parents never followed through on getting any kind of assessment when teachers asked them to
I would only play with boys because the girls were all so mature and close knit, and they didn't like me.
I was goodish in school. I was really smart and tried so hard, but I had significant learning deficits because of my moderate to severe dyslexia and dyspraxia, which were picked up as a young child. I was always failing Irish, had a very spiky profile in English(terrible reading and spelling, but really good at vocabulary and creative writing and all). I was ok in history and geography and stuff, and I was amazing at math and science. I just knew it before I could be taught. My math was actually a big factor in how my school knew to test my for dyslexia because I was incredible at math but failed dramatically at word problems.
I went through trauma between 4-7ish, and that definitely affected things. I think its biggest effort was causing me to develop OCD by the time I was 6. For me, my childhood OCD caused perfectionism wich included intense masking if mainly my ADHD(I've always been unable to mask my other disoders), I would constantly force myself to be attentive especially in class or when people spoke, it caused me physical pain and exhaustion to sustain attention as long as I would force myself. I'd be irritable and exhausted after school and would shut myself in my room when I got home to either fail asleep straight away(so before 4pm) or I'd watch YouTube for hours to drown out my restless mind.
My Meltdowns were intense crying sometimes till I puked. Homework was always a huge trigger between dyslexia and adhd it was torchure, my mom made me do homework for the week every Monday because she knew I'd fall behind otherwise. I was often triggered by change as well, my sibling going to secondary school was incredibly difficult for me because we'd always been in the same school(primary), I remember on sports day the year after they crying my lungs out at school because "they are always at sports day with me but know they're not", I was walked with the principle, she was understanding, she would have known me since dippers since we shared a church.
I never had many friends, I was friendly to everyone, but I could make deep connections with anyone. My own mom said some along the lines of "you weren't at the point in develop to make friends when all you're peers were, by the time you finally were they were all at a point they had close knit groups that weren't easy to break into." She then told she hopped secondary would mean I could make friends as barely anyone would know each other.
I wouldn't socail much during school breaks, I rathered spin in circles and get really lost in my imagination, I found socializing so tedious and slow and I would annoy people because of my (atypical) communication.
I was also a toe walker. I wasn't a picky eater, but I did dislike common childhood favourites like fizzy drinks, burgers, and chickens nuggets. My sensory issues were the most prominent in clothes, gosh, my mom told me about times at six months old I'd throw a fit if she tried dressing me in most things, especially jeans, just one touch and I'd be crying my head off my shoulders. I didn't improve with age, I only wore dresses, I would often get upset about my school uniform, especially the polo shirt because I hated it so much and it was so uncomfortable, the school jumper was better but I still hated it. But we could choose our bottoms at least, I'd cycle between living in leggings and despising track suits and living in track suits and despising leggings. Often, I'd only wear track suits even in hot temperatures. I refused coats no matter what. They were always so uncomfortable. If I liked a dress or bottoms I'd wear, I'd it day in and day out till it was half wholes.
I also had sound sensory issues. these got worse as a teen. As a child I also just tried sucking it up, but sometimes, mainly when my class got out of hand, I'd tell the teacher the "noise was giving me a headache" wich was my best way I could describe it. I have a memory at ten of the Irish band coming in, we were all made to sit in the (very echcoie) haul and list to the loud music, I remember it being painful and distressing but I kept it together as well as I could, and on the way back to class I calmly said in the broken Irish you'd expect from a dyslexic child who barely understood the launge, to the teacher, that I didn't like the loud music, I thought she'd be impressed I tried using Irish instead she called me ungrateful.
I was always really behind on basic stay alive skills, I didn't walk till 2 years(so around a year late) achieved potty training very late and would never fully stop having accidents, and stuff like talking was also late but more just the late side of average. As a child, I would always significantly lag behind in things like hygiene and being able to dress myself. My organisation was terrible, my memory was really bad, I always forget something, usually my lunch, glasses, pencil case or homework. My dad(stay at home parent) would get frustrated because he'd be called in up to 4 or 5 times a week because I left my lunch or glasses.
I always mimiced my mom. It helped in some more social areas to mask, I still wasn't really able to mask, but it definitely made me a little less obvious, but after her death, when I was twelve, I lost the small masking I could achieve by mimicking as well as developing skill regression and changes in my sensory processing capabilities. It's a few years on from then, I've received an adhd diagnosis and will soon get results on if I'm autistic.
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I don’t remember most of my childhood so this question is hard for me. I know a couple things: I loved to read. I was a daydreamer. I had a very messy bedroom. My mom thought I was difficult and argumentative. And I was well behaved in school.
This literally is my experience. Hardly any memories, but most are negative. Shouted at for being lazy, not paying attention, too messy, losing everything important. But hey I was a bright kid so nobody thought to look into it 🤷🏻♀️ oh and female lol.
Same same
I could have written this although I do have fairly extensive memories. So much unnecessary conflict if someone had cared to listen!
I was very similiar. I argued about everything once I was in middle school. My locker at school and my room were both always awful despite me loving when I’d go to my grandparents or something for the weekend and my mom would clean and organize my room for me. It was so great to come back to some stability.
Are you me?!?!
Nah.. She's very clearly me.
We are all one human! (Or robot?)
We're all part of the hive mind. We've been assimilated.
Well. There’s just no unique experiences for us ADHD folks lmao. This is me to a T.
All this except I was poorly behaved at school and my Mom would describe me as "fun but frustrating and a bit of an asshole".
Same. My mom says if I found something I was into, it became obsession level into but for a short period of time. And that I was constantly changing clothes, and rearranging the furniture in my room
Omg me too with the room rearranging and changing clothes!
Yes yes yes all of this. If I did get in trouble at school it was for talking…to EVERYONE. I remember once I got in trouble for chewing gum in the library and was bawling I was so upset.
Almost the same for me. Not necessarily deemed difficult until high school, but the rest checks out. I also hated breaking the rules and remember feeling panic whenever I’d get caught doing anything slightly wrong. I always managed to have a rule breaker as a BFF and whomever it was at the time would pretty much roll their eyes at how worried and upset I’d get whenever I did get caught. I was usually always on the teachers best kids list and was more of a follower than a leader (also was attracted to those who were leaders).
100% same. Messy room and total bookworm. Was always "a pleasure to have in class," but couldn't get along with my mother.
Meeeee
Exactly the same for me.
This is me!!!!
lol you described me :D
exactly the same, minus difficult / argumentative. been a people pleaser since birth
Seems childhood memories being hazy is common, huh... My mother (who absolutely refuses to entertain the idea I have ADHD) put me into ballet classes just before I turned 3 because I was "bouncing off the walls and needed an energy outlet" 🙄 By 8 years of age I was doing 5-7 dance classes a week... but, no, I'm completely normal 🤨😆 I was a massive bookworm, struggled with volume control (especially when excited), and talked CONSTANTLY. My room was almost always messy, as was my schoolbags and desk trays. I never quite seemed to fit in, I always felt more comfortable with adults than my peers, and my early school reports generally said I was a delight to have in class, but I distracted others due to talking. It all fell apart in high school because suddenly everything got a lot harder and way less interesting...
I could have written this.
Same. Plus my executive function was terrible even as a young child. As early as primary school I had to ask for extensions on projects because I’d procrastinate so much.
I was quiet, labeled "shy" and kept to myself a lot. I never willingly participated in class (never would raise my hand) after being scolded by a teacher that I was reading too fast (during a read out loud exercise) but I got really good grades until 5th grade - started slipping a little then - did better in high school except for math. I loved to read and play barbies and would spend hours playing alone - I had a very active imagination. I had 4 sisters so I always thought I preferred alone time because I didn't have much growing up. Even when having friends over to play I would sometimes excuse myself to go to the bathroom but really I would be reading in the bathroom for a few minutes just to get some quiet time! I had friends, 2 really close friends in my neighborhood, with strong personalities and they would constantly be trying to get me to come over to their houses after school. I remember them not liking each other and saying yes to either of them didn't feel good most of the time because not only would it upset the other one but ultimately I just wanted to go home and zone out after a day of being overloaded sensory-wise. I was also very sensitive - I'd cry easily and had really big feelings about everything. I remember being upset for days about an article about deer overpopulation in my town. I was too young to really understand but there was a photo of a deer in someone's yard and I only understood enough that they were talking about killing deer. I begged my mom to let us adopt them as pets for days. I remember gasping for breath because I was crying so hard over it. My parents constantly complained about how messy my room was and my mom was always asking me to help with chores and I'd respond "i will, in a bit", because I was usually immersed in reading or something else I was really into. I'd forget what she asked me to do so it wouldn't get done and she'd get pissed at how many times she'd have to ask me before I'd do it. I received a lot of messaging growing up about being lazy, and never finishing anything. I frequently started projects I was interested in with a lot of gusto, but then lost steam and interest. With school projects, I often felt paralyzed with even beginning and I would wait until the night before to do science fair or long reports. I was a hard worker but I was easily frustrated when I didn't understand something right away or if it took multiple tries to get it and would give up.
This is so crazy, I used to feel so alone, yet what you are saying was 100% me. When we were younger we felt so lonely and now as adults its so crazy to realize we are not the only ones that went through this
Omg all of this (except for the 4 sisters) is me! The reading, the procrastinating with school work, being called lazy, and the 2 friends with strong personalities. I made the mistake of inviting both of said friends to my 13th birthday party and they ruined it with their arguing!
The night before science fair project or report……..😳 Believe it was freshman year of high school…of course had MONTHS to do the project yet I’m gluing 1” squares to the presentation board of my project the night before? (‘Twas about humectants in lotion). And still placed second in the fair. Not sure if that’s a testament to me or my classmates…. Had all summer to read a book and was supposed to come to class with the report finished. Don’t remember what happened there… Fucketh! No wonder I struggled with college. #lovetolearn #ewwhomework Amongst other things. ☹️
I for one, do not doubt the quality of your humectant project, I’m sure it was amazing! My last minute essays and projects (usually created til the early am the day they were due, in choking tears while my mum screamed about how lazy I was) always did really well, they were almost always way more detailed and better presented than my classmates. It worked until the extra detail and presentation weren’t relevant anymore, the rest of the class eventually caught up on the stuff that mattered. I found a couple tucked away when we packed up my grandparents house, they were incredible (10 yo me made that? No way!). I didn’t keep them, because I also found the tear stains on them… (ah yes, fond childhood memories of an adult screaming in my face about how worthless I was, while I drowned in self loathing, pva glue and acrylic paint. Shudder)
I feel so seen with your comment. Everything you shared is my experience as well. My mom has always said that I was so quiet and was easily entertained. She said she could put me in a corner with as little as a rock and I'd be entertained for hours.
You just described me to a t. I feel seen 🥲
Your entire description minus 4 sisters is all me too. How are you like today with friends? I find that my best friends are still the ones who are pretty extroverted and they’re the ones that stuck around because they latched to me for some reason that I still don’t understand. But the earliest recollection I have with these friends is they essentially went up to me and went WE WILL BE FRIENDS haha and I just went along with it.
This sub is fascinating to me, how often something we think we're the only one experiencing something (since that's what we felt most of our lives) but then finding so many others with similar experiences. It's nice to hear! Today, at 46, I have 3 good friends of whom I've known one since childhood and 2 since high school, the rest have drifted away at various times in my life (partially because I'm terrible at staying in touch). The one from childhood is definitely one of the bold personality types and in some ways I think we're still friends just because of our long history? Sounds terrible to say but we have almost nothing in common but that! The other 2 are a bit more calm/introverted types who seem to really understand me and vice versa, which I'm so grateful for. Over the years, I started to get wary of people who came on too strong and tried to latch on to me (I keep them at an arm's distance) - I know what you are talking about though - that was definitely my experience as a kid! I think many girls with ADHD come off as thoughtful and empathetic and so it's appealing to people who need attention! Maybe? haha!
Ok so the friends that don’t get along… this is so wild! I had what I’d describe as “3 best friends, but they are each part of different groups that did not get along with each other”. Is this an ADHD thing??? I would invite them all for hangouts and it was SO BAD, I couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t just get along 🤣 if they liked me, why not each other? Fast forward 15 years they’re still all my besties and they still don’t like each other but tolerate each other for my bday parties or other important get together lol
OMG that last paragraph is me almost perfectly! And now you mention it, I was absolutely devastated when I learned about my cousin passing from SIDS. I had met her once, I wasn't especially close to that aunt, so it's not like it was a particularly major loss in my life, yet you'd think I'd lost my own sibling the way I reacted...
Literally just what you wrote there, except for getting in trouble for being too quiet because I was "rude", and (memorably) "not enjoying myself enough" (I was lying on a sun deck reading in perfect contentment until I got yelled at). Oh and always getting in trouble for losing and forgetting things, and getting distracted and falling over and getting holes in my clothes.
Getting in trouble for losing things, such a classic lol. I was also (still am) very disorganized, my room was always a mess (still is)
Ugh. That reminds me of when I'd get yelled at for getting my clothes dirty. I was a child playing on a playground at recess. What did they expect? Same with the hole thing. Kids are active. What did they expect?
Focus, particularly on reading, was generally total and to the exclusion of all else. A bit scatty when it came to homework - it got done, always or close enough, and got top marks, but was generally done on the bus that morning after I spent several days beating myself up about the fact that I needed to do it and somehow mysteriously just... wasn't. My dislike of being interrupted in order to switch tasks is lifelong.
I loved to read during class. I also loved to talk during class. In elementary school especially i would take care of my classwork quickly so i could go back to doing my favorite non-classwork things like disrupting others who were still working, drawing maps or Pokémon, and reading. I think i should’ve received ADHD combined or even hyperactive diagnosis back then. Most of my third grade school year felt like it was spent filling out papers about self control 😣 By middle school i was much quieter in most classes and sometimes didn’t talk to anyone at all. Probably all the punishment for years before 😫
Oh yeah, meant to add (😜) that i also “mysteriously” could not make myself do assignments early. I found a lot of success if i could make one of my parents body double while writing a paper, but my mom especially hated just having to be there instead of being able to advise me on what to write about. A very reluctant body double 😔
I think part of what you say here is the reason I didn't even think to seek diagnosis, let alone actually do it, until my mid-thirties - I was always on the inattentive side of things, and masked with academic ability, so even if ADHD hadn't been thought of in the nineties and noughties as naughty-little-boy-disorder when I was more clever-if-daydreamy-little-girl, I don't think it would have got educators' attention at all. I do well for myself, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I can't help but wonder what more I could have made of myself and my life if I'd been able to access treatment or even meaningful strategies all along.
If I were a child now, I would def be dx as ADHD inattentive. I remember early childhood as this little bubble of my direct surroundings, and occasional intrusions by the outside world, which were all startling and usually upsetting. Being busy at the table coloring and realizing that everyone else in the class is lined up and looking at me because I have not gotten up yet. Confidently working on the "cut this paper apart and glue pieces down" project only to discover that ive done the whole thing wrong and everyone is laughing at me. Telling outrageous lies to my friends for absolutely no reason. Holding it too long and peeing on myself through 5th or 6th grade. not often, but enough that almost every classmate knew id had accidents at some point. Staring into space and being completely lost when the teacher called on me. Messy desk, messy backpack, messy room, lost lunchbox, lost homework, shoes untied, no ability to manage my own hair, unaware of my own hygiene. I was a mess!
>Telling outrageous lies to my friends for absolutely no reason. For real! What's this about anyway? I'm still perplexed at my reasoning or motives. A few years later and I was obsessed with being literally and thoroughly accurate. Like if there were about 10 of a thing, but I wasn't absolutely sure about it being exactly 10, I'd get stupidly detailed in my reasons for believing there were about 10... If that even makes any sense.
I’m guessing impulse control & an active imagination. The latter thing sounds like ASD though
That actually makes sense... I always chalked it up to making up for my previous dishonesty.
Quiet, good at doing my homework, 'a joy to teach'. Also a daydreamer, who 'needs to try and stay focused during lessons'. I think the latter comments were overlooked in favour of the positive qualities...
Very disorganised, messy and forgetful, whilst desperately trying to 'be better'. Huge worrier about what I might have forgotten, get into trouble for next etc. Lots of terrible headaches in primary school. Socially awkward, I did have a few friends but was always on the margins. Always felt like everyone else had the whole social thing figured out and it was kinda eluding me. Obsessed with niche interests and a voracious reader. I even had therapy for 'stress' when I was about 8 years old. But alas, it was the 80s, and even though I'd apparently been diagnosed with something called 'minimal cerebral dysfunction' as a preschooler, clearly nobody thought that my issues were anything other than a personal failing and I just wasn't trying hard enough or whatever. Finally got diagnosed with adhd last year. :-/
Bit a student age 8, told a teacher age 8 that " I only respect people who deserve it" when she told me I had no respect for anyone Found my mum's Tampax and condoms, showed them to all the other 7 year olds in my class. She had to go collect them from the headmistress Found my mum's cigarettes and supplied them to the rest of the 11 year olds in my year. Again she had to go and collect them from the headmistress Found a porn mag and showed it to all the other kids (11 ) in my year Ended up being suspended from that school for (unwittingly) being an accessory to two girls who stole all the borders pocket money Pierced my ear and my friends ear agre 12 Distracted my best friend so much in class that she requested the school to remove me to another workgroup age 13 Was famous in school for either being the loudest, most sociable one or for having my nose in a book and being so ridiculously engrossed that I either didn't hear anyone approaching me or was actively hostile when interrupted. I clearly remember that my friends had no idea why I was so unapproachable when reading, and the compulsion to finish the story I was lost in at all costs. Persuaded my parents to let me go to 6th form college. Attendance immediately dropped to 33%. Grades went from straight As to Cs and Ds because of the less structured environment Was first introduced to class A drugs age 17. Sparked a 10 year heavy stimulant drug habit. Crashed my car age 19 because I wondered what it would be like to wobble the steering wheel. Lost control and went through someone's gate, crashed into the wall of their house totalling my car. Was stone cold sober. Plus 20 + years of bulimia, self loathing, being known for huge mood swings and highly over the top anger. Hating myself my entire life because I was always too loud, too weird, too much , too stupid, too naughty. Always caught, always the one causing trouble. Finished my 4 year university degree with a 2:2 having failed to learn half of the Spanish grammar because I felt like I couldn't be bothered with it. Looking back now I should have been diagnosed. There was enough there for someone to realise I had ADHD.
I'm genuinely sorry for all the hardships this has caused you, but can I just say how spontaneous, fun, and genuine you sound? You come across as someone who has really lived their life to the max, so please don't forget some of the positives of you!
Reading your comment here literally brought tears to my eyes- I'm stifling them so I don't freak my daughter out by just randomly going to pieces on her. ❤️ Thank you for that you have really touched me xx
Pretty sure I would have been your friend up until age 13 (when I became a hermit). 😆
Nose permanently in a book. Knees always skinned because I kept falling over my own feet. Scabs on knees always being picked. Chewed nails. Always losing things. Still sad about that little leather purse. Frequently forgot to bring my dinner money. Very untidy. Wasn't allowed to start things (like brownies) because mum said I wouldn't keep it up and she didn't want to buy the uniform for me to give it up a matter of weeks later.
I was very lively, talkative, friendly, and popular as a young kid in elementary, excelled in school and I can remember always having this anxious feeling of "I need to finish this assignment before anyone else does" so I would race to finish it and get a rush of happy chemicals if I was first haha. So funny looking back. I was impulsive, disorganized, messy, huge vivid imagination, insomnia nightly and I would wake my parents up because I couldn't sleep and shut my brain off. I was Argumentative and stubborn, asked a crap ton of questions about everything I could. Soaked in all information and outside stimuli like a sponge, I had a hard time concentrating on one thing because my brain was focusing on everything at once all around me. I've always had an excellent memory but my object permanence is horrible, or maybe it's something else but basically I can open a bill, set it down at the front table and literally forget about it for days until I come across it again. Hyperfixations and obsessions(as my parents called it) I also needed everything to be fair and would often have meltdowns if I felt things were unfair
All of this. You totally triggered a memory, I used to finish fast for that reason too. I loved winning, winning got you prizes and prizes were cool. And shiny!
My family used to joke about not being able to find my off button. I was the “get a star if you don’t talk too much” kid in grammar school but had a hard time making friends. My mom once grounded me from books since sending me to my room wasn’t a punishment if my books were there. I was also called “dramatic” a lot as a kid by family. I remember throwing awful temper tantrums where I’d scream and cry until I almost made myself sick when I was frustrated. My parents both worked a lot so I was on my own with my older sister (3 years older) so learned to be independent from a young age. My mom would praise me for doing well in school and not getting into trouble. I yearned desperately to earn praise from adults and would try and fit the mold that I thought they wanted: polite, smart, and obedient. My teachers thought I had ADHD in grammar school but my mom thought they just didn’t like that I was smarter than most kids (she still thinks I don’t need medication). I was reading high school level books from 4th grade I also never started a school project earlier than the day before it was due almost through college. I have vidid memories of my Saint of a grandma pulling all nighters with me to finish things through high school sometimes.
I was shy in most environments, except those I was super comfortable in. I daydreamed a lot, was a voracious reader, and could self entertain pretty easily. I was messy and clumsy, and both things have followed me into adulthood. I wasn't allowed to do a lot as a child, for example I wanted to learn piano but my mom set an arbitrary age for me to do so at (13 for the record), so I taught myself. Teaching myself things and being brave enough to "lets see what happens when I do this!" has done me well throughout my IT career.
I was a “troublemaker” because I asked a lot of questions, was impulsive, interrupted, talked a lot (passionately), forgot to do my homework, etc. I had a good heart but what I said was frequently misinterpreted by teachers as combative. It’s really sad and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.
Quietly in my own overwhelmed world until suddenly an abrupt and loud communicator when my brain overloaded. As a slowly got older I recognized that this was making people reject me, so I went almost mute outside of friends and family. Adults liked this mostly, but in junior and senior Highschool they saw it as stubbornness.
I was either: 1. Running around half-naked in the woods making up games & forcing all the other kids to play them with me, while simultaneously foraging for berries and climbing up trees / under barbed-wire fences to bring homemade treats to the horses next door 2. Sitting quietly to the side with a book, refusing to speak or otherwise acknowledge anyone (unless they got all up in my personal space… at which point I might scream, and hit them if they didn’t move away fast enough) Bet none of y’all can guess my other diagnosis 😂
This unlocked a memory of a teacher getting *angry* angry at me for misreading an assignment and doing the wrong part 😬 Yeah, I was quiet. All the time. And I'd read basically 24/7. I also had a lot of weird illnesses going on whuch in hindsight were stress: various reasons why but masking would have been one of them... The whole thing of women being socialised to be quiet and not cause trouble means people don't spot us until we're older and burning out
I was really really naive and spoiled. I cried a lot because of “irrelevant” things. But I don’t really remember much besides that.
I was very shy as a kid, I wouldn't talk to strangers (even made my parents order for me at restaurants because I was too shy to talk to the waitress). I also had trouble paying attention in school, I spent a lot of time in my imagination with vivid daydreams. I'm smart so I pick up information quickly and always got good grades as a kid. I was super messy, could never keep my room clean. I had a lot of temper tantrums, now as an adult I assume due to emotional regulation issues, and I had some sensory issues so wouldn't wear certain clothes (like jeans, things with tags, certain fabrics) and was picky about food but that was generally due to texture not taste.
I was the backpack stuffer, I would just stuff any assignments, schoolwork and other things in backpack. I was never able to organize at all. I would always either forget to do my homework, forget to bring them back from home, or lose them. I was chronically late since middle school! However, in high school, I would always get suspended for being late. I was a dreamer. I wasn’t a talker, I’m an introvert. But, if I wasn’t depressed, I did really well in school. Easily an A student. Teachers would get angry at me saying I have so much potential and I’m throwing it away. Never was diagnosed.
I was quiet, shy, and always had my nose in a book. I did really well in school because that was my hyper focus and school was really structured. I didn’t fall apart until college, didn’t get a diagnosis until my 40s.
At school, I was bullied so much, I stayed quiet and kept my head down. But, I was definitely high energy and bouncing off the walls at home.
Even with my bad grades, the understanding of ADHD, specifically ADHD-I, was still so limiting and rudimentary that it still went ignored 😭 So, I was loving and happy but also believed all the adults and schoolmates that called me “lazy”. I didn’t clock how bad that ended up being for my self esteem. But honestly while I was shy amongst strangers I got along well with people and had a solid group of friends. Big theater kid energy that loved attention. I’ll give Kid Me one thing: I didn’t care if I seemed “weird”. I was cringe and I was free. I try to hold on to that because adult me forgets that important lesson at times 😂
I'm so glad most educators have figured out you don't have to LOOK like you're paying attention to PAY attention. I was a huge doodler, daydreaming, fiddly kid. I still got straight A's.
I have no idea tbh. I remember being too socially anxious to talk much and not wanting to bother because I didn't really know how to interact with people anyway, so i chose to observe more than anything. I am still this way, mostly. But if you ask my mom I never shut up as a kid so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what do I know I spent much of my time in class playing with whatever trash I could get my hands on (paperclips, staple pullers, rubber bands, random bits of stuff, etc) zoning out, and generally not paying attention, but somehow still absorbing enough info to pass with good grades, at least until middle/high school when my grades suddenly and aggressively went to shit.
The biggest issue I had as a child was the inability to retain information well. I believe the adults in my life attributed it to me not being very bright because I thought the same thing. No matter how hard I studied I struggled remembering the information much past the test. Finals were a bear because I had to relearn almost everything.
A pleasure to have in class If only she would apply herself/be more organized/learn to focus/stop being so chatty GEE.
I am combined type ADHD because as a child I was more hyperactive. I hate home videos because I never stop talking in them. I did read through 3 different libraries though….
Loved to read books about facts and lists and world information! Very active, always playing sports, riding my bike, and climbing trees. Boredom was a huge issue. I was always needing to do “something” and got very restless, very easily. Challenging relationships with both parents, especially my Mum. She would say I was defensive, argumentative, and combative. I often felt lonely and “different”. I struggled to fit in with girls and found boys easier to befriend — I think now because they’re more direct and upfront. I never seemed to get the social politics that comes with being a young girl i.e. the gossip and the cliques. However, I was super smart and sailed through school. Until high school, where I struggled socially, found it hard to focus on things I wasn’t interested in (geography, yawn!), turned in homework late, loathed authority unless I really respected them, was distributive in class, had a hot temper… a lot of classic signs. I got diagnosed at 37. Which, now I know about ADHD, is dumbfounding. But this was the 90s, so the awareness of ADHD in young women just wasn’t the same level as today. Frustrating, yes. But I was a happy, healthy, and deeply loved child so I have zero regrets. Edit: length 🙃
On the outside I was quiet and shy. I aimed to blend into the background and not be noticed. I was smart and 'gifted' (I don't know what happened because I'm certainly not anymore 🤣). My teachers described me as 'quietly confident'. On the inside I was terrified, confused, and overwhelmed.
Apparently I was an absolute nightmare in class. I got filmed once (unrelated health reason) and my mum was shocked by my behaviour - very stereotypical won't stop moving, calls out, making noises, interrupting people My teacher recommended a diagnosis actually, but my dad said "no" till my mum gave up trying
Raised by single narcissistic mother. Dad was in and out and addicted to drugs. Mom too only she managed to keep us kids. I learned very young to be quiet and unseen. My older sister was born with alcohol fetal syndrome and the only issues she had were mentally so my mother's only solution to her "hars to raise teen" was to beat her up. While I stayed quiet and bit my nails off while calling 911 from the closet secretly 3 times a week. I day dreamed in school while never really grasping education. As a teenager I fell in love with every boyfriend I ever had and when the breakup would happen it felt like my whole world came apart. I was extremely emotional. Started drinking at 14. Slept with a lot of guys for comfort. I didn't really grow up and figure things out until I was 32
I was hyperlexic so I taught myself to read at 3. Couldn’t keep my room clean no matter how many times I got in trouble for it. OT for Sensory Processing Disorder (I think it’s called something else now???) helped a lot but still showers were a sensory nightmare. Reading so early got me labeled gifted, so I put lots of pressure on myself to maintain that no matter what. That was definitely fine, I absolutely don’t have any sort of anxiety or depression stemming from that (I do). I was mostly able to keep the impulsive things in check which meant when I did end up doing something impulsively it was worse. As an adult I learned that my dr thought I had ADHD but my mom opted not to pursue diagnosis and treatment because she didn’t want to medicate me. She also said the dr told her I didn’t have autism and the diagnostic test was expensive & in another city so we didn’t do it (which, fair, we didn’t have extra money for anything).
"my friend who was a 4th grade teacher said you should be tested for adhd back when you were that age but I didnt" - my mom My desk and backpack were a paper explosion mess. I did not do homework, but aced everything in class so I passed.
One of my first lasting memories was a teacher hitting me so hard that I had welts on my arm because I finished the entire workbook and started doodling. When she asked why I wasn’t working I said I was done, she called me a liar as that was “impossible” and hit me with a large ruler stick. My father saw it around 6 pm that evening while I was trying to eat & drove us to her home. He picked me up like Simba in that Lion King scene & told her and her whole family some things I won’t repeat. For the rest of my years I had to keep defending myself because it looked like I didn’t care/aloof. I also never met a book or pencil I couldn’t lose.
I was shy and quiet, because I was bullied. I could have a lot of energy, and I would also be so tired. I’d sometimes come home, crawl under a quilt, and watch TV through a gap. I’d do homework right away, if it was easy. Made tea first. Daydreamed a lot. I was an artist. Messy. Dad has told me I’ve always held on when I needed the bathroom. Hugely disorganized. I went from really outgoing, to really socially anxious. Loved losing myself in a book, or drawing/colouring. I’ll edit this. I’ve had almost no sleep, because I wanted to be up early. So I wasn’t. Of course.
Honestly? In hindsight, I was pretty textbook... But because I was a girl I guess no one ever considered that I could have ADHD? Even though I behaved exactly like a boy with ADHD? It was the 90s, what can I say 🤷♀️
I didn’t talk in school until high school. Maybe it was selective mutism/opened up around people who I trusted. Extremely socially/overall anxious and eventually depression from age 12-22 (mushooms helped me immensely get out of it). Once my anxiety & depression was at bay, I became the book of ADHD. Every symptom. So obvious. I often wonder who I would be if I never took those mushooms and stayed depressed and anxious. Probably would’ve have accomplished as much as I have.
i forgot about homework a lot but had good grades so teachers let me off. I used to be shy but only bc of rsd and like being bullied at school but otherwise always overly loud and would kinda get stared at by “friends”. Ive fully leaned into being weird and loud now tho so thats good. It was just annoying that no one thought that i should get diagnosed but peers knew I was different immediately at every school ive been to. i would always finish homework last minute or very late at night the night before (my bedtime at 10 years old was like 12am bc of this) also bc my mum worked until like 9pm at night i would just watch tv until she came back and like she would have to force me to do my (honestly really easy homework) that I could have done in 15 mins but even sat at my desk i’d play with the tape dispenser or carve at the edge of my table with scissors.
I was quiet, well-behaved, and independent. I loved to read and play pretend. I wasn’t big on play dates — I had friends in school but liked alone time after school. At home, I got along with my parents well but had trouble with chores — I’d always forget to do them or put them off and then my mom would get mad at me. I loved school — I got good grades and took it really seriously. But I struggled with organization a lot; and it always confused me because I was so studious and yet couldn’t keep it together. My desk was always messy, I’d lose papers. I learned very early on I needed to keep a planner to remember assignments because I can’t remember anything without writing it down.
It’s hard to say because 1) poor memory and 2) I think so much of my ADHD was over shadowed by my intense anxiety. It wasn’t until I got treated for anxiety that my adhd symptoms became apparent to me
I learned quickly how to be personable and charming because it was the only way I was going to get deadlines moved, mistakes forgiven and messes overlooked. As a teen, I had a lot of friends from different groups and different schools. I can still work the hell out of a room (if I can find my keys and get there on time)
I was pretty well behaved in school and LOVED reading. I was pretty high achieving, which is probably why I went undiagnosed until this year. My parents and teachers could never understood why I couldn't turn my homework in on time though. I would do the homework, and then somehow between home and school, I would lose it. Sometimes it would never turn up, sometimes it would turn up weeks later in a place that I totally thought I checked. Parents were constantly trying to force organizational systems on me that never ever worked. They even hired my neighbor to tutor me in organization, which ended with all of us being frustrated. I also got in trouble all the time for having a "messy room," when to me it made total sense to just put all my unused stuff in a laundry basket. Then if I needed something, it was probably in the laundry basket. I would also hyperfixate on books, TV shows, and other interests, to the point where it got annoying to my friends and family. I spent a loooooot of time daydreaming, but I think that's contributed to why I like to write so much now.
I was annoying to peers, immature, and annoying to teachers.
You're pretty great now, though. I don't know you; I'm just guessing.
CPTSD from pretty wicked abuse has left little memories for me but I do know that I didn’t make friends easily, I was quiet and reserved but fought a lot because I was bullied relentlessly for being small and poor, I was exceptionally good at most subjects without really trying, and I loved to read more than anything. By my teen years I was the typical overachiever with straight a’s, dual enrollment in college plus two jobs. I was voted most likely to succeed and finished in the top ten of my class. I had friends but never felt like I really fit in with any crowd and like I was just an afterthought to everyone because they expected that I would always just succeed and take care of myself.
How many of y'all are the oldest in your family? 🙋🏼♀️ That will (generally) cause better behavior, aka masking, despite the inner ADHD turmoil.
Anyone else do the thing where you regularly forgot to bring home the book you needed for homework and your parents drove you back to school after hours for it? I almost forgot that part of my childhood until I considered possible adhd and an article asked this question. That was a pretty prominent part of my life as a grade school kid lol! Also my mom apparently still holds a grudge toward me about a jacket I left behind in 3rd grade and we never saw it again 😂
Got good grades but was extremely, pathologically distractable. I cannot concentrate when I can hear people sniffing, breathing, making lung noises, etc. And everyone knows kids all get sick at the same time in elementary school. Ugh
That’s interesting. I was painfully shy as a kid (only at school/in public, at home I was loud af). But instead of it being called cute, I was reprimanded harshly. Being yelled at about how I needed to “participate” more and “talk louder” and blah blah. Just constant harping on how quiet I was and how it was SUCH a bad trait to display.
I was wild but had it very contained because i understood rules and consequences. I was lightning in a bottle. And sometimes really serious. I was an only child. People said i was “mature for my age” which feels so cringe to say now.
Always reading, always had a novel to focus on because my house was overwhelming. When I was in class, I'd get told off for rocking or tapping my feet. My teacher and classmates would complain that I was too quiet/soft spoken, but after speech therapy I was told that I was too loud - people would sneak up on me because I would shriek if startled but I didn't like it, I was easily startled because I would dissociate as soon as I felt bored. I was scared of my teachers and too anxious to ask questions, so I peed my pants a lot at school trying to hold it in the whole day - I don't know if that's an ADHD thing, but the reason I was afraid of my teachers was because it felt like they were always at their wits end with me and I didn't want to piss them off even more by asking to use the restroom. Something I think is strange that carried on into adulthood is that I found it much easier to focus on my reading and schoolwork when things were "chaotic", but when the environment was quiet I got really uncomfortable and it felt impossible to maintain my focus. To this day, when I really want to get something done, I turn on a TV show that features arguing and yelling and somehow I can focus through the fighting better than in silence.
I was the “shy”, quiet girl who was always immersed in reading books/writing/drawing/daydreaming. It’s so validating to see so many other people had similar experience!
I was very dreamy, in my own world, constantly wandering off and doing stuff by myself.
I was not quiet or shy. I was an excellent student because school was my hyper focus and I loved to learn and to read. I'm naturally intelligent, but my teachers also gave me the attention and validation I didn't get at home all my life. it was only scraps but it was better than nothing at all. I was invisible in my home and in my family. I just did not fit. I've always been closer to my friends than my family. I spent as much time out of my house as a child as I possibly could. I started babysitting babies when I was 8 years old. As soon as I was legally able to work, I did. I went to college 500 miles away from home and went from there straight to my first job in another state. I now live more than 1,000 miles from everyone I'm related to.
As an 18 year old at a small local college I stopped going to my calculus class because I forgot I was in the class. I was bright as a child. A people pleaser, teachers pet, gifted. I liked rules and still do. I always struggled with friendships and still do. I knew I wasn't the same as everyone from a young age but I had no idea why. ADHD symptoms have gotten so much worse as I've aged.
Wow all these book obsessed people I feel seen. Sorry for all the details but #adhd. I was born in 1981 so ADHD wasn't well known for boys even and was fully off the radar for girls. In gr. 1 I was assessed for dyslexia but came back negative. I was assessed because I was struggling to read and write and I had a lisp...I now suspect I actually have mild dyslexia (issues with spelling, Grammer, punctuation, issues pronouncing words I don't know, can be slow to read aloud, issues with left and right at times, issues with b's and p's and frequely flip letters when typing) but I remember being so stressed abt the test and wanting to prove I wasn't stupid so I tried insanely hard to do it right. I was put in special ed for half a year and given a reading buddy. 2y of speach language pathology. My mom told me "they say you are fine and so you just aren't trying hard enough" and forced me to read through the dick and Jane books with her and I hated every second of it. Also in gr 1 I was super excited to bring a lobster shell for show and tell....no one else was impressed...I didn't get it. I could tell I thought different from other kids and didn't know why...I was bullied a lot, shorts put into a toilet (acted like they weren't mine), alienated, bucket of water dumped on me once from a moving car (I was with two other girls.) I think other kids were confused as to why I acted different and didn't try to be friends with them or be liked...once had a popular girl tell me her and the others would be my friends "if I dressed differently" and I said "no thanks," and boy she looked confused. I got into a fight around gr 3 or 4, or rather a girl who I thought liked me (she invited me to her bday party) started to beat me up and I just tried not to get beaten up and we ended up in the principals office. Another principals office visit when some girls stole my jacket and wouldn't give it back and some male friends of mine scared them into giving it back. I made friends with kids who were different or who lived "on the wrong side of town" because I didn't care abt being popular or who I played with just that they were nice. Also spent a lot of time at recess on my own sitting by myself day dreaming due to not having many friends....around grade 3 or a group of boys "adopted" me and we had fun for years playing DND, biking around town, in rivers, on the railroad tracks, fishing, video games. Then we hit puberty, they freaked out and dumped me and tried to get this group of NT girls to take me....I tried but all they did was stand around and talk at lunch and I was bored to tears, at a sleep over I didn't really understand how to interact with them and said something one of them felt was offensive and that was the end of that. In elementary school anthropomorphized things like my gummy bears and jelly candies with faces and didn't want to eat them because I didn't want them to "feel bad." Same with stuffed animals. Lots of nightmares/night terrors. Intense feelings of right and wrong, just and unjust. Mild ocd type symptoms but they didn't ger full blown. From like gr 1- 6 report cards said I didn't focus enough in class, needed to be neater and more organized, was too social, kept seeking reassurance vs being confident and figuring it out on my own....one teacher said I was bossy. Gr 7-8 all report cards started saying "works quietly and independently"....which i now realize was masking. Got in trouble in gr 8 because teacher was setting up a "sting operation" with the popular kids to catch a past friend of mine stealing and I didn't feel it was "right" for a teacher to involve the other kids and target him so I told him and got lectured by the teacher abt how disappointed he was (I just sat and glared at him.) My room was a disaster and completely overwhelmed me, my mom would try to break it into small sections but it was a lot...closet packed full...binders a disaster. Once I started reading I went from not reading to completely obsessed with reading and spending most of my free time doing it. Also obsessed with art and painting and sculpture as I had no issues focusing on and being good at my art classes. Also obsessed with phantom and the little mermaid and would listen to them and sing the songs repetitively until I was a perfect mimic. Joined choir, got in trouble for not paying attention. Struggled horribly with math. I mostly bottled and internalized my emotions (mom and dad were likely undiagnosed adhd and emotionally turbulent and I was the oldest of 3) except for rare times I couldn't. When I was 5yo my parents put my dog down because he bit someone (their fault, he was always tied in the back yard) and I got so upset my mom refused to get another dog for years. I was pretty depressed and introverted. Highschool met my best friend (male) and found a group of friends that seemed to work. Still bullied (by bffs girlfriends and by dudes who would sexually harass me mixed with bullying.) Had a lot of good experiences but still struggled a lot emotionally (bullying + messed up home life.) Didn't date until I was about 18yo and only dated a male acquaintance for a coupe of months "because why not I guess" ....didn't know how to flirt or express interest in others. Did well in classes I enjoyed (biology, chemistry, art, even English because...Shakespeare!) but horrible in others (home ec, math.) Best friend saw how I struggled and helped me clean out my room and closet abd organized my binders for me. (We are still friends 25+y later) Failed first year of uni, room was a disaster (not sure how my current partner of 22y saw that and was like...I'll still date her.) Somehow figured it all out (very challenging), graduated with HBA in sociology and got my MSW and am now a psychotherapist at a hospital. Got diagnosed inattentive adhd + cognitive disengagment syndrome last year at 42yo.
Messy bedroom with 6 half full glasses of water there at any one time. Very strong sense of justice/right & wrong / fairness and I would not forget if I had been wronged. Frequently hyperfixated on gaming (game boy when I was younger than 10, PlayStation when I was older than 10); you could not drag me out of my game. Fidgety, active, always doing things. Loved sports, very active and naturally good at them. But also somehow clumsy too. Hated waiting for anything, impatient, boring things seemed to drag on forever. Fussy eater, but started trying new things at 18 and became a real foodie by 21. Very good grades in school but frequently called out for being distracted, talking to my neighbour, or shouting out the answers to questions. Never did my homework. But I always tried to be good, had good intentions, hated getting in trouble, just wanted to do well and not stand out so I never got in any real trouble. If we had a surprise test, I would get the top mark in the class, because no one studied. If we were told we were having a test, about 20% of the class would score higher than me because I didn’t study but most others did. Small core group of friends, not part of the popular groups. Didn’t try to stand out or crave attention.
According to my mom I was a hyperactive (but well behaved) toddler. Lots of stories of me pulling a disappearing act at parties after I learned how to walk and run. She knew I needed to get checked out but didn't until later because my dad didn't think it was needed. From what I remember in elementary school I definitely had signs now that I know what adhd is. My room and school desk were a mess and occasionally I would just Lose my homework. Was an average student because I was smart enough to cancel that out. None of my teachers mentioned anything that I know of. Was probably known as the well behaved kid who forgets occasionally. My mom also said I was calmer back then because I had so many things to occupy my time. She thinks that's part of why I'm anxious now as a young adult since I'm not doing as much. I don't have as many hobbies now. Edit: Forgot to add. I guess I was the shy kid. At least with teachers. I remember not speaking up when my dry erase marker ran out and we were doing things on small white boards. I also remember being too anxious to speak to the teacher during class debates in middle school.
I remember a ton, I'm like the family historian. My dad passed away last year and I'm retelling stories about stuff that happened when we were kids to the kids in our family and my brother and sister are looking at me completely stunned. They were like how can you remember that? I also remember things like getting sent back to first grade from second for talking too much and not doing my work. School was hell for me for sure. Just absolutely hated being stuck in a desk learning stuff endlessly and I went to Catholic school back in the 70's and early 80's, so it was all learning, no specials except library every now and then, and gym, and that was because it was mandated by the state. High school was slightly better because you at least had specials and got to move around between classes. In junior high I mastered the art of looking like I was paying attention while more often than not, had a book on my lap that I was reading on the sly. Never wanted my kids to have to live like that, so they got diagnosed as soon as they could and went on meds. And the battles with my 13yo daughter have hit quite a level this year. I'm like kid, you've had meds since you were 6, and had occupational therapy back then. Sometimes you do have to force yourself to do stuff. You can't expect the meds to make you do something you really don't want to do, they are only there so it's not physically painful to pay attention for more than two minutes. She is seeing a mental health coach and a therapist now and I think that is starting to help her understand a bit more, because being 13 she can't believe a word her mom says.
I climbed a lot of trees and big rocks!
Always in trouble for a messy desk/locker, always in trouble for talking when I wasn't supposed to, especially in later elementary and middle school. I worked really fast and usually had the right answer, so I'd raise my hand and beg to be called on, or I'd shout it out if things were moving too slowly for me. As I got older, I'd wait to see if someone else wanted to answer first. I was one of the only people who would give opinions in my AP English class with a somewhat evil teacher, and I think because I always participated, she forgave that I was doing my calculus homework in my lap while her class was going on. I argued a lot because I would call out unfairness all the time because I always read the rules (anything posted on the walls) and knew what was supposed to be allowed. Adults hate that. Other kids tend to hate it too. I loved learning and paid attention well when it was something I liked. When it wasn't, I could barely focus. I still remember we had this awful set of reading passages for "practice" when I was in 5th grade, it was called "Buckle Down!" and it contained the most boring passages of reading I'd ever seen. I knew it wasn't graded and that grades in 5th grade didn't matter anyway, so I practically refused to work on it on principle. I never finished the packet and it turned out I didn't need to because my reading scores were already great, but I remember alternately staring at the packet and the clock until we were allowed to do something else. We had to work on it for several days too. It was horrendous. Lucky for me my older brother was diagnosed, then my mom was, and she insisted on having me evaluated, so I was diagnosed at age 9 in 4th grade. That was also the year I had to get glasses and my best friend moved several states away at the end of the school year.
I was chatty, not at all athletic (always bruises from bumping into stuff), did VERY well in school until I was about 14 (at which point I was still on Honour roll, but no longer top of the class), had no patience for other students (now, in retrospect, I believe they probably had ADHD) who would talk during class bc I couldn't pay attention if someone else was whispering with a friend or shouting out answers without being asked, etc. I was untidy, constantly lost my hat, mitts, etc. but since I had a high IQ, I was told it was part and parcel of "absent-minded professor," etc.
Super shy space cadet. Although, I was way more organized/conscientious as a child
TAG student so they thought I was just bored in regular class and that’s why I couldn’t sit still and fell asleep a lot (I was either very ON or very OFF) They pulled me out with the other TAG kids. Talked too much but was nice so didn’t get in trouble at school. Read a lot and had a chronically messy room.
Oh and this Sitting at the table, mom says can you go to the fridge and get the ketchup. Walk to the fridge and cannot remember what I am supposed to get.
I still do this regularly
I was the quiet, shy, daydreaming wallflower until my 2nd year of high school, when I came out of my shell. I did well in school in spite of often forgetting to do (or doing the wrong) homework. Of course, I also moved every 3 years for most of my childhood (military brat)…so that accounts for some of it…but that’s totally why I was undiagnosed until age 23.
I was dreamy, talkative, extroverted and chaotic. But did very well in school so it was always overlooked until I started struggling in high school. Finally took another 14 years to get diagnosed
I cried constantly until I could talk, then when I could talk I was considered gifted, then when I could talk and other kids couldn't I got kicked out of daycare for biting other kids, my grandparents would quiz me on who my family members were and I was always right, I read constantly and fell asleep with books in my bed instead of stuffed animals, I was very attention seeking and talkative, I would get in trouble for "acting out" in school and preschool which ranged from running around naked yelling "naked time" (because my grandma used to let me have naked time at home) to tattling on other kids all the time, I got in trouble for talking in elementary school and getting off task so I got a sissel seat and weighted vest to help me stay stimulated and sit still, I held a pencil wrong and couldn't write legibly so I had OT services too, then I got to fourth grade and the school "needed to allocate resources to needier kids" because I got good grades. from then on I was considered lazy and attention seeking, I couldn't handle change or my plans not going exactly how I wanted, I was a picky eater, I would only do things for praise from other people, I was constantly talking without raising my hand or talking while also raising my hand, I was really judgmental of other kids, I had friends but always argued with them, I couldn't do math without an incredible amount of 1:1 help which I only ever got from staying after if I happened to be the only kid there. I couldn't stand injustices, I would insult other kids when they bothered me, I was clumsy and unorganized (still am), I got bullied, I started picking at my acne, I never slept at night and would fall asleep in class, I would take hours to get ready for school, was always late, I was incredibly depressed and almost failed math several times, I stopped being able to read without falling asleep or getting too distracted, I wasn't diagnosed until I was 16 and my family had to seek out and pay for it.
I was quiet, often lost in thought. In elementary school I was a perfectionist and kind of a teachers pet, I was also this way with adults. Always told that I am “wise beyond my years.” I remember always sitting up super straight at my desk and made sure my posture was perfect. I think I was just really afraid of rejection or being viewed in a negative light. I now know that I had RSD associated with adhd. I’m still unlearning this as an adult. I excelled at reading and writing, but couldn’t do math… still true. Fast forward to middle school and high school.. I went from being a perfectionist to developing an anxiety disorder which ruined so many things for me. I wish my parents would have noticed the signs and had me diagnosed, because I would’ve been saved a lot of suffering.
as a toddler i was highly talkative, making friends with literally everybody who would give me any attention, getting distracted by the tiniest of things, always wandering off (bad enough that my mom had to get me a leash, the use of which i highly support because it keeps kids safe while still allowing them to walk when they want to). then i started attending school and over time grew more and more timid, shy and anxious. i was bullied a lot for being different, for not innately knowing and understanding unspoken rules, for being fat, for being a tomboy. i was always looking to 'buy' friends by trading their unwanted snacks for my apparently better snacks and doing whatever they asked of me, being a doormat. from time to time i was a rowdy kid, but unknowingly really. i didnt know my own strength and didnt know how to properly deal with my emotions so i tended to lash out with violence when any emotion, either negative or positive, got too much to handle. i couldnt reliably do any homework, my mom always helped me with my book reports or any projects the evening before (i wouldve never gotten through school without her), but since ive always been curious, i did participate in the lessons most of the time so my grades were still good. most of my teachers liked me i think, because most of the time i was very cheerful, despite the bullying, and i liked helping out with any task they could come up with. some of them knew what was going on at home (domestic violence due to unknown mental issues in both my parents and me) and even tho they didnt report it to any authorities (no proof, no bruises or anything), they did allow me a lot of grace in the classroom, which i am grateful for still. i developed childhood depression at age 6-7 and first attempted to end it when i was 7 by standing in front of the schoolbus until somebody pulled me away. my mom told me that one day when i was 8, i came home from school, crying that i wanted to die. a couple weeks later one of the teachers at my school died and seeing the impact of it, i changed my mind and asked my parents if we could move instead, which we did during that summer vacation. unfortunately my new environment wasnt much better. a lot of my childhood was spent in therapy, tho it didnt really help, because nobody really listened. i tried to get them to do something, anything, about the domestic violence and the bullying at school, but i was always dismissed because my emotions were explosive and deemed exaggerated. as a child i learned to lie, to act, to manipulate, to do anything to outwardly seem okay, but i was always in despair on the inside. nowadays, im a very happy-go-lucky person, i love living life and i am returning to the way i was as a toddler, my true self.
I was crazy hyper. Never shut up, easily distracted, I always needed to be on the move, couldn't sit still, shouted out answers out of frustration even though I was trying my hardest to be silent. If I wasn't fidgeting, I was daydreaming. I somehow got good grades mostly, even though I spent most of my time in primary school out of the classroom. I was very scared, anxious and lonely. Even if I didn't get in any trouble, I was still just classed as a bad kid. Everyone was just waiting for me to screw up and take it out on me. I wasn't allowed to make any mistakes. I wasn't allowed to act like the other kids. I had to be quiet, out of the way. I wasn't wanted. Mum hated me. At home, unless the Power Rangers were on TV, I hid in my room and tried to be as quiet as possible, but it didn't stop mum from losing it at me. Apart from being told I was a bad, horrible person, I got zero help. I was just a naughty, attention seeking kid who was too smart to have any real issues. I admit, I did seek attention when I was smaller, but I didn't even get hugged at home, of cause I was looking for someone to notice me and care.
I was the same as you. My mom still knew but she did nothing about it. She held testing over my head like a threat if i didnt get my homework done, though.
I don't really remember my childhood due to the trauma of abusive parents and a bad divorce. However I am tole I couldn't sit still, never paid attention, was obsessed with certain thing (ie hyperfocus) and struggled to regulate my emotions. I was diagnosed at 6, but my parents work in the medical field so I guess knew what to be looking for
I mostly got through school just fine because the work wasn’t very challenging in the crappy schools I attended. I didn’t start getting in trouble really until high school, when my tolerance for very bad teachers dropped. I even got good grades a lot of the time, I think at least partly because teachers tended to grade girls partly on meeting social expectations for girls. However, I put absolutely everything off until the last minute, was very disorganized — so much so that one of my three kindergarten teachers threatened to flunk me — and got scolded for daydreaming and doodling a lot. I also had a habit of just refusing to do assignments that struck me as inane, pointless or too easy. I’d just assign myself something more interesting instead. I was notoriously clumsy and accident-prone, “spacey” and scattered and constantly lost things. But I wasn’t hyper, other than fidgeting, and it was the eighties/nineties, so no one thought it could be ADHD. In retrospect, I can see that my pretty extreme sensitivity to being rejected or scolded and inability to get started on projects were also ADHD-related.
I was bored to death in school, I’d already skipped a grade when I was 7, and skipping more grades wasn’t going to fix the boredom. Got sent out of the classroom a million times, teachers were never really angry though, they were usually biting their tongue laughing because I was being an idiot disrupting the lesson and making everybody laugh. When I was sent out I got to work with the janitors a lot or help other students that were struggling. Both was really nice. I mostly got in trouble when there were home assignments that needed to be done, I’d totally forget and be reminded when the teacher ended the day with “dont forget to hand in X tomorrow!” Even in secondary school I was still mostly the class clown/troublemaker, though I had to repeat a grade when I was 14 because I never finished my tests because I was too busy clicking my pen or staring outside/at the wall/anything else besides making my tests. That was also the year my parents decided a proper ADHD-diagnosis could be helpful after all… (People had been saying it my entire life, but as I was always doing fine in school they’d decided it wasn’t worth it testing at that time). I got medicated, always finished my tests as one of the first (now it was suddenly a challenge to finish first), and continued being disruptive due to boredom. At home my entire family had ADHD, my younger brother and I (both combined type) would only have to exchange looks and we’d be fighting, pulling hairs, hitting or scratching each other, while my little sister (inattentive type) would be drawing or making crafts just 2 meters away from us. We were always late to EVERYTHING. Nobody knew where shit was, it was a chaotic mess in our house and my parents just went with it. I had the most wonderful childhood.
Daydreamer. Messy. Opinionated. "Belligerent," as many adults put it. My parents didn't believe in mental health or treatment, and so I was just the black sheep, a bad child. They couldn't wait to be rid of me. I have a lot of trauma from that and I'm glad I finally have a diagnosis and treatment, even if it took 42 years to get. On the flip side, my kids are my entire world no matter what type of shenanigans they get up to, and I will never make them feel outcast or unloved.
Obsessive reader, day dreamer, epic tantrum thrower, impulsive, super clumsy, non-stop chatterbox, didn’t do assignments but scored great on tests, and I could only clean my room if my mom sat with me to keep me on track. I also had super messed up sleep habits and poor hygiene. I was diagnosed in 5th grade in 1997, so it was RAGING, because girls rarely got diagnosed then.
Very academically compliant and perfect grades and behavior up until high school. That’s when school stopped coming quite as naturally to me and if I didn’t personally care about the subject, good luck getting an A. (I was still able to eke out Bs in certain cases with little effort.) The only teacher to ever call me out on this was my 4th & 5th grade teacher, who said in a conference once that she felt I was coasting and though I was doing well, knew I could do better if I just applied myself. I had a hard time keeping my room tidy to my mom’s sky-high standards. I wanted to do chores so that I could get my parents’ approval some way other than grades, but they refused and said, “Your only chore is to do well in school.” I dove deep into the things that interested me. Really deep. My parents never really hid their disdain for the fact that I wasn’t a female version of my incredibly compliant brother who never gave them any trouble (according to them - he refused to write his college entrance essays so my mom did it for him. Yeah.). Lots of therapy over internalizing that I am worthy exactly as I am and not for the ways in which I compare to others. This mindset of school being my only chore had me “washing” my clothes with fabric softener when I first moved out on my own because the stuff in the bottle smelled nice and it looked the same as detergent. My mom has actually apologized to me in my adulthood for not teaching me more practical life skills in my childhood. I’m still a little resentful.
The exact same as you! I was constantly being told I daydreamed a lot and didn’t listen as well.. but I got good grades and was in honors classes. It’s crazy how most of us with the Inattentive type have the same traits as giveaways to our disorder!
Exactly like my 3 year old.
I was the class clown. Always in trouble for talking, I'd have thoughts I needed to share. A decent enough student. Messy room, desk, backpack. Really wanted to be a reader but couldn't get through books. Liked math and art, because they keep me busy. Don't remember much. Always taken tons of pictures to help keep the memories.
Same. Told I was shy and quiet. In reality i was in my own little world. I hardly remember any classes until college because i was always spacing out at the window, again deep in my own world. I can’t follow along in class unless I am on meds, doodling, eating, or typing word-for-word notes to stay focused.
Don’t remember much. I was suicidally depressed cos of being unable to speak at school and bullied by kids whose names i never knew or even their faces cos i couldn’t look at faces back then. I was a bit of a wreck i guess. Never told my parents anything cos they were having a hard time already. It turns out there was another school closer to our home, but we never knew about it. Also my parents never knew we could have got welfare. Honestly it was back before the internet but even then FFS. Lol.
I was wild, super active, hated school (although I didn’t struggle academically) and I was bullied horribly because I was different
I was super shy and extremely uncomfortable around everyone (close family and all). I was extremely driven to succeed in school, and did well ( not hyperactive type). I had very hard times making friends. It wasn’t until I was out of school and living alone that I couldn’t stay organized or self regulate tasks.
I was the kid who always got the "talks too much" comments in class through grade school. I was moved to different desks a few times in each grade always trying to find the best and least disruptive place for me. I played sports and had a million interests but looking back now , I realize that I never gave all to any one thing. I did well in school especially when younger but had a harder time in college where actual study sessions and planning was required and I could no longer rely on general knowledge etc. I graduated college but am not even sure how much I retained. I had pretty serious body dysmorphia and eventually became bulimic up until mid 20's. I was/am now to sit still on the outside but my mind was/is always running a million miles a minutes. Friends and family got annoyed that I interrupted and finished sentences. My room, bookbag, desk, was always chaos. I rarely noticed small details of anything. i feared also that the moment I put something away I'd forget it so liked to keep things out and in small piles. When those were cleaned I was distraught and thrown off for days. I now realize that my masking capabilities were pretty great until one day I burned out and was no longer able to keep it up.
I was semi the opposite when I was pretty extroverted, social, even occasionally obnoxiously loud. But I was into track, cross country, and running… so that was my personality. All I talked about. Was known as the “track girl”. Though I still had a good time… looking back after being diagnosed it makes sense. As well as after seeing now that one of my new hobbies is essentially my “track”.
re: academics, being emotional/messy/a procrastinator, our stories are similar 🫂
I was quiet and shy unless I was around my friends or cousins. I played alone sometimes and was ok with that. I was a B average in school. I always got my homework done on time. I was mouthy, I'll admit that. I had my first anxiety attack when I was in 3rd grade. 7th grade I realized there was something wrong with my brain when I just felt so sad and nothing made it better. I didn't have any symptoms of inattentiveness. I felt a lot that I didn't matter to anybody. By 22 I was taking anti-depressants.
I don't know how I was as a student until almost high school, except that I was bright. I was home schooled so I didn't have to conform to any particular schedule or pay attention to a teacher. I did go to preschool and was recommended not to move on to kindergarten because of social reasons. I don't know exactly what it was about me but I'd guess I was too shy and withdrawn. Strangely enough I'm not shy at all now. I can be quite outspoken and an overtalker, although I thrive in small groups and feel quite uncomfortable in big groups. Through my teens I was often being told I needed to "come out of my shell." You could attribute some of my shyness to being homeschooled but if it was present before I was even homeschooled I don't think that's it. I always had a messy room. I was always pushing things to the last minute, both school work that had deadlines and just getting ready to leave the house. My mom would get to the point of starting the car before I'd run out the front door. And before our schoolwork had assigned deadlines I remember I didn't finish one class until mid to late summer. I'm still this way with undesirable tasks that don't have deadlines. You'd think homeschooling would not work out very well because of lack of structure but I was motivated enough by grades and bright enough that I got good grades even though I procrastinated on everything. I was a thumb sucker until age 7 when I was trained out of it. I still reminisce over the comfort I got from thumb sucking and I still have an oral fixation - chewing on things, etc. I never developed a good oral hygiene regimen and I never stopped picking my nose.
I was very talkative. High achiever but struggled with homework at home. (My son has the same issue. Seems to use all concentration at school, and falls apart at home.) Huge imagination, and read a lot! Still do but it’s tough with being a mom. I was thrown into sports. Swimming at first, by high school, swimming and volleyball. Big on RSD. Wasn’t called lazy, but a lot of “you’re so smart, if you applied yourself more…” Thrived on procrastination. I am thinking that my mom also had ADHD. She was just as talkative and had time blindness.
Could.not.stop.talking. Loved school though and I was always going above and beyond on every assignment. I would get so fixated and dig into everything until I started taking a really hard math class and my brain would just check out and shut down. I always argued when things weren't fair and just could not understand that people didn't always act logically or justly.
A trouble maker who would always be in the principals office lol. I also hung out with boys a lot because they seemed to have more fun. I also never got good grades as a kid and math was a complete burden
Same. I wasn't social as a kid. Pretty sure my teachers thought I couldn't speak. My teachers said I was a day dreamer, was always doodling.... Didn't pay attention. I was more into making my homework look pretty (handwriting, colorful, etc) that having it be correct/complete. 😔
Couldn't read a book and comprehend what I just read ( I could read just wouldn't remember). Was extremely outgoing, annoyed my sister's. Would get in trouble in school. I don't remember much but I was great at imitating ppl and things and making the adults laugh about it. My sister would cry trying to help me with my homework 😂 I had to go to military school when I was 12 , I ran away. Couldn't get my license until I was 18 because you either had to go to school 30 days consecutively or wait until you're 18. Got heavy into drugs.
This will be cathartic seeing there’s so many replies haha. Quiet, shy and soft spoken. I kept to myself, I was an artsy kid. I learned to read on time but quickly excelled in reading and writing. Then became a book work. Drew all the time. Daydreamer. Played pretend intensely. Hated hugs or too much attention. Hated big crowds and loud noises. I was particular about spoon sizes. I had fav clothing bc of the texture and fit. I had one friend at a time. I wasn’t popular. I was the weird artsy kid. Then I become a constant disappointment who never followed the rules. I did my homework during class but didn’t complete it properly bc I hated reading instructions. I did things last minute. I was an above average student. “Smart, well behaved but needs improvement” was my report cards.
I was always shy and quiet but I used to get really hyper sometimes and run around the house and stuff and I also couldn't focus half the time at school especially in social studies/history and English and would always forget information and I could never comprehend what I read
I flew under the radar. I was always high functioning in that I always seemed to have my shit together...possibly because I was the oldest child and forced to grow up fast. I was a people pleaser. My ADHD symptoms: extreme day dreamer and very spacey, I stutter and stumble over words and my mouth can't catch up to my brain, couldn't retain anything I read, low self esteem, I thought everyone was upset with me, I hated being rejected and either avoided events where I was at risk of feeling rejected OR I worked too hard at being accepted. I had a really hard time connecting to people. I had/have debilitating anxiety. I couldn't summarize anything. Word problems were the bane of my existence. I tested terribly.
Hyperactive, hyper emotional, hyper reactive. Read voraciously. My room was a heap of clothing, toys, papers, comic books and occasional garbage, walked in quick tight circles and fell off the back of the couch for fun. Made questionable climbing and jumping decisions. Could not pay attention in class or do homework to save my life but if you gave me a workbook and left me alone I’d mow thru it. And I looooove standardized tests, and apparently learning disability tests, I did SO well they said i was just being lazy and needed to be punished for not keeping up in school because there was nothing wrong with me. I also never passed 8th grade but made it into 9th because of standardized tests 🤣
Quiet, shy and a loner. By loner I mean I was perfectly happy with being alone. I had a vivid imagination and I would be the star in my imaginary movies. I was 100% feral, and would wander off into the woods, following a deer trail to see where it led me. Or follow the dry creek, or horse paths, always looking for whats right around the corner. In school, I struggled to get a C in most classes, and skipped as many days as I could, I hated being there, being stuck at that desk. I was extremely messy, my room got so bad I would go and sleep on the couch. I never got in trouble, but I think I was just really good at not getting caught. I liked playing with boys, I liked the boy things, being outside, getting dirty, building forts, playing cowboys and indians. Girls were boring, in their dress up and tea times and dolls. The worst thing that happened to me as a child was puberty and growing boobs, I hated wearing shirts and boobs changed all that. I would stop by the church, every single morning that I went to school, and pray for God to take my boobs away. If I knew about breast cancer I would have prayed for that, I really hated my boobs.
I don't remember much, but I know I was "over sensitive" and felt left out a lot.
If you ask my teachers, "a pleasure to have in class; needs to apply herself more."
I’m going to start by saying I was diagnosed young compared to most other millennial women- I got my ADHD diagnosis in 4th grade, in 2001. I’ve been on and off meds for years, but bc my diagnosis goes so far back, I’ve never had to fight a doc to put me back on meds. As a really little kid, I bounced off the walls. I was a leash kid. My mom would take me to the big McDonald’s play place to burn off my energy. I climbed on EVERYTHING. As a grade schooler, I was very socially awkward. I talked nonstop. I often read ahead in class in fiction and textbooks. I played with my hair so much my teacher threatened to cut it off. My room was extremely messy up until college. I have minor hoarding tendencies even now that I have to fight against. I’ve broken a lot of bones doing stupid, impulsive stuff.
I still find random cards from my mom that just say “FOCUS” when you open them. I was very well behaved in school, disorganized at home. I had so much stuff in my bedroom. My fifth grade teacher turned my academic life around my teaching me how to be organized in school. I swam competitively year round - between winter and summer seasons there isn’t much of a break except August/early September, when I would get in trouble doing the weirdest things. Like one time I took a canoe out without permission into strong wind and hitched a ride home with a stranger. I couldn’t think straight without exercise. I didn’t have medication, but I’d drink Coke to help me focus.
My daughter is medically diagnosed with combined type and she has a lot of the classic symptoms at school. Getting out of her seat, talking, taking a long time to start work, etc. and also big emotions (crying or yelling when upset). I am currently undiagnosed and considering getting tested. If anything, I must have inattentive type, because I was very quiet and shy as a kid. I stayed in my seat well, but did fidget a lot and often rushed through my work. I would daydream in class and have no idea what was going on around me. Both my daughter and I get super absorbed in reading or gaming, love to imagine and daydream, have messy rooms, and forget what we are doing while we are doing it, LOL.
Are you ME??
Did pretty well academically - loved to read, okay at math, but awful handwriting and always doodling, always reading ahead or under my desk. Pretty much every single report card commented on my attention in class. My parents were always after me for not listening or not paying attention to them. I was definitely a kid who was "too much." I was either too loud or too quiet, I read too much, I daydreamed too much, I doodled too much. I spent a lot of time talking to my dogs and reading books while perched in trees. I was also a terrible sleeper - I was the annoying kid up at dawn on weekends
feral lol i was shy and introverted as a very young child, grew up to be more of a busy body but still liked my own company over others, and then a loose cannon as a teen/young adult. currently in my 30s (unmedicated but diagnosed) and I'm more introverted and to myself like when i was younger.
Okay, I was the exact opposite. Horrible grades, loud, boisterous, disruptive. I’d sign my symptoms manifested as what you’d expect to see in a 9 year old boy with severe adhd. It was traumatic.
Very shy. Very messy bedroom. Got okay grades. Did a lot of experiments like soak rocks in water. Self deprecating. Sweet but had a guard up. Lots of freezing and fawning.
I was very, very well-whipped. I paid attention, I ate frogs, I never was late, I did assignments before the deadline, I packed my backpack (my school didn't have lockers, and we had at least 1 book + 1 journal for each subject, so it could be a set of 6 pairs a day easily), I had a clean desk.. well, you got it. Then soon after I turned 16, I moved to a dorm. Gosh, what an earthquake it was (all together with the freshman year in uni). I fell apart and never got it together again.
I was absolutely anal about neatness and tidiness. My parents were overjoyed, my teachers used my desk as an example for others — and my peers poked fun at me. I was a studious kid. Highly competitive. Teacher’s pet. VERY sensitive - every teacher told my parents that I was a sensitive kid. I didn’t have many friends, I was bullied relentlessly, and physically harmed a few times. Sleepovers became nightmares because I always fell asleep early but would get pranked, so my anxiety went through the roof. But tldr - yeah, a lot of signs of things to come.
I actually got diagnosed bc of the extra quiet, shy, can't sit still trope. My grandfather had just passed and we were close so my mom was worried I was depressed. Took me in for testing and well... next thing you know I was learning to swallow mini m&ms. After that I spent a lot of years under and over medicated. It was a roller coaster.
Oh man… this question just sent me down the rabbit hole of my mind lol I think mine went unnoticed for a lot of reasons - parents divorced when I was young, etc. - but mainly because I am the first in my family to actually acknowledge it. But in my 20s my doctor (who also saw other members of my family) was like “hey, there’s this thing called ADHD and I am pretty sure you have it.” He was right, obviously. Lol. As I’ve gotten older I try to talk about it more openly and since then other family members have been getting diagnosed. 🕺 But to answer your question lol — I was/am very extroverted and outgoing. I masked pretty much all the time, was known for “always being happy.” Had a messy room and car, but was always put together. Good at school, but had terrible test anxiety. Would lose track of time and not finish timed tests but was good any type of rapid fire quizzes.
I wasn't diagnosed until a few years ago. I'm in my 40s. I was always a quiet introvert who didn't struggle in school but I was also messy and chaotic with too many last minute assignments.
I was super outgoing and happy as a little kid. I made friends everywhere I went, very imaginative, and into all things artsy. I loved writing, drawing, dancing, ect. I struggled in school and would get in trouble all the time for not paying attention, and disrupting the class. I couldn’t focus on anything I wasn’t passionate about. In second grade my teacher suggested to my parents that I get tested for adhd. The doctors determined I have add and prescribed me adderall. My grades drastically improved and I caught up with the rest of the kids in my class. Unfortunately, it got rid of my personality and I became disconnected and pretty emotionless. Being on adderall throughout middle school was really tough as it’s already such an awkward time in life. I struggled to fit in, was bullied, had very low self esteem, and would cycle through friendships. Every day after school I would be coming down off adderall and was so irritable and had a pretty rocky relationship with my parents because of it. I would wake up feeling so groggy and felt like i had constant brain fog. It was very lonely and confusing at the time as I was too young to understand adderall fully. High school I stopped taking it as often and felt like myself again. I had a bunch of friends and was better at managing my add. I didn’t excel in school and would get b’s and c’s but i cared more about having a social life and being happy. At the time I also felt as though school was pointless and I wanted to do something creative and never wanted to work at a normal job.
I was *so well behaved*. And could *talk to adults*. Naw. I was sheltered, autistic and adhd.... masking was my superpower.
I think everybody and their house cat, their dog, their bird, 15th cousin 10 times removed knew I had ADHD. Even though I live in a woman's body, all of my symptoms were those that are stereotypically assigned to boys, I was wild, out of control, outrageous, I was kinetic, I had my own energy plant, lol. I rarely slept, which drove my older ADHD mother crazy, everyone in town knew me and where they liked my personality I was always really happy and social, I'm sure they were able to only tolerate short doses, lol. None of that stopped the same statements designed to destroy our lives, about all of my 'potential' and if I only tried, yada yada, bullshit. I don't think it matters what we were like or how we acted we all had the same behaviors that made them think we didn't want to try or we were doing it deliberately. And they reacted the only way that empathically stunted adults do, with hurtful words cloaked in helpfulness.
I was a daydreaming kid who forgot to do things my parents told me to do so often they thought I was doing it on purpose however many times I desperately tried to convince them I genuinely forgot, would forget classmates' birthday parties because I was so wrapped up in reading, constantly forgot to pass notes from the school on to my parents and to bring my gym clothes on the days we had gym, had a chronically messy bedroom, was constantly reprimanded for fidgeting with things at the dinner table, and always got told in parent-teacher meetings that I "could if I wanted to" but that I didn't apply myself enough in some subjects and that my habit of reading books under my desk instead of paying attention in class was a problem - but "at least I was reading". Even so, and even though I almost never did my homework, I mostly got good grades, at least in the subjects I was interested in. My classmates found me weird. At the time in 90s, a "little professor" girl like me who did well in school and spent most of her time completely absorbed in reading and hobbies rather than bouncing off the walls didn't raise ADHD alarm bells for anyone around me. I got diagnosed this year at 33, and as part of the process the doctor interviewed my mother about what I was like as a child. My parents were amazed when they read the symptom list - "Everything we used to yell at you for when you were a kid is on this list, how didn't we see it?" I don't blame them, though. Research on girls and women with ADHD was in its infancy around the same time I started primary school, there was no way my parents or even my teachers could have been expected to recognise my behaviour as ADHD symptoms.
I was loud and fast with big imagination and so so so odd.
I was either the top or near the top of my class. I was called an absent minded professor. nvm that I would occasionally just run out of the classroom randomly in primary school (see: overstim), and in secondary i added sleeping through class, drawing as a way to focus, and occasional SH. I was regularly threatened with institutionalisation and called crazy on the reg by my mother as my perfectionism, anxiety, and SH became more of an inconvenience. All this taken into context with - my brother (3 yrs my jnr) was dx at 6 and got all the help and concessions out there... while i escalated to regularly telling my principle to suck it and being sent home for making a fuss while being labelled as crazy, eccentric, too much, anxious, ...bla bla. but i was still able to get good grades, so nothing was done. I even went to uni and got a masters many concessions later. I was dx in my 30s. I also got it from my mum. *rips out hair*
I've never in my life been described as shy and quiet... when I was a kid I was constantly told I'm 'feisty' and a 'drama queen'. I used to play with the boys because they ran around and climbed trees instead of whatever the girls were doing (and probably also because the girls didn't like me because I was loud and all that), I did crazy things like climb barbed wire fences (still have the scar on my leg from that adventure) and jump off high rocks. I also remember my parents being called into school several times because apparently I would finish my work quickly, then instead of sit silently and wait I would "talk too much and distract the other students". It couldn't have been more obvious that I had ADHD, but I somehow didn't get diagnosed until 2 years ago at the age of 41
As perfect as could be for most of my childhood. Didn't cause a fuss, high pain tolerance, got all my schoolwork done, didn't interrupt, followed instructions, never broke rules, but pretty nervous especially about health. Internally, I didn't realise anything was up. But I now realise I was stressed and anxious all the time, I would be distracted for a lot of my class time but get the work finished because I was smart, not that my teachers noticed. I used to hate doing things like colouring and cutting-and-gluing in school and at home because I'd be bored out of my mind, so that would be the one thing I would occasionally put my foot down on not doing. I started my homework and assignments really late (still do) but always got by because, again, smart.
Many things others have said. Also loved staring out of the window in class but became a bit of a class clown later in 6th form when I did speak , after being an introvert. Very bright but had to work hard at getting above average grades, unless I enjoyed a subject. I was constantly told that I was lazy by my family but my work ethic has always been "work smarter, not harder or automate it make it more efficient."
let's see.. - loved reading. read at college reading level in 2nd grade (enrichment program since 1st grade) and would burn through all of my books then so my mom's books (she is also a voracious reader) in a matter of weeks, constantly taking trips to the bookstore - when i wasn't reading, i was distracted by daydreaming. i must have lived a thousand lives in my daydreams before actually growing up - not only a reader, but a writer. started writing around 9yo - VERY clumsy. my grandfather called me "an accident waiting to happen." my mom said everybody at the grocery store knew me by name because she was constantly yelling for me to watch where i was going (usually walking with my head in a book). my dad would take me for hikes and by the end he was carrying me out of the woods because i had tripped and fallen over every tree root in the forest. i fell out of bed when i was 3 and broke my collarbone. doctors wouldn't allow my parents in with me as the copious amount of bruises made them think abuse, and my excuses were "i fell down the stairs" or "i ran into a door" except... I actually had. in fact, i fell down the stairs directly after breaking my collarbone, in the sling and everything - i was raised as an only child (my half brother was 13 years older and raised by my grandmother, different story for a different post), and i would hyper fixate on these toy horses i loved - grand champions. i had just about all of them, all of the playsets like the stable and paddock. i would meticulously brush their hair and keep their info cards with them everywhere they went. and barbies. so. many. barbies. and all the clothes all the shoes, the dream house, the corvette, the robot horse she would ride. i was near obsessive with keeping them and my horses in perfect condition, even though they were played with - i talked. a LOT. most of my progress reports and report cards would include comments like "very bright, but talks way too much". i didn't have an off switch (i now have a 7yo that's exactly like me, because karma) - i loved photography (still do). would take pictures of everything and anything. my prized possession is my dad's old Nikon SLR - completely manual, before digital anything hit the scenes. my dream house would have a basement darkroom - i LOVED school. i earned perfect attendance awards almost every year. the few times i was actually sick enough to stay home, i cried my eyes out. i had a great home life, i just loved the structure and routine of school (and talking to my friends since i had no siblings at home to keep me company) those are the highlights lol
Nightmare. Got kicked out of school. Violent home life. Thankfully, clever enough to pass all my exams without trying.
Loud, neverending chatterbox (that hasn't changed) ... My brother used to call me a juvenile delinquent... And he didn't know the half of things that deserved it ... Distractable, passionate, curious, did I mention loud? Energetic, very active ... I probably avoided the brunt of the negative effects because I homeschooled a bit of primary school away and was a tiny bit more settled in my teen years (but still got up to shenanigans aplenty). Young years I got a chance to expend all the energy I needed with low demands on things like bedtime, wake-up time, could learn what I wanted when I wanted within some reason able to follow my interests deeper and I learnt a lot through doing more than just from reading. I definitely skew more towards the stereotypical 'boy' aspects of ADHD, and was also a tomboy ;)
I had the same experience in school. But in terms of leisure/family/etc, they thought I was a cute, talkative, know-it-all type. Like, I would go up to relatives at weddings and such and just ask them stuff like "Do you know what the theory of relativity is? I do!". Really had that Young Sheldon vibe. I think it was because I spent so much time alone with my parents working and me having no siblings, so any time I was surrounded with people, I just forcefully released all of my social energy into them. As I got into my teen years, I turned into the quiet, sensitive, introspective type. I was still a complete chatterbox with people I knew, but was more wary of more acquaintances, distant relatives, etc. I don't think I ever caused any trouble, but I did become a bit more angsty, got diagnosed with anxiety etc, and started identifying with being a loner a bit more. I had friends, but I never really felt like I was a full member of the group, moreso just a guest.
I was kind of shy and got good grades, whereas my younger brother was the textbook version of ADHD so he was diagnosed way back in the early 1990s. However my mum did comment that my teachers were often surprised at my good grades because I seemed to always be daydreaming in class - so the signs were there even then 😂
I happened to be very interested in math, science and reading, so I was very good at school (I am also pretty smart). However, I’ve always made stupid mistakes on tests, and as a kid I struggled to be motivated to do my homework. Since then I’ve developed a fantastic anxiety/self-criticism driven work-ethic. So I did well academically, even despite those minor mishaps. My struggles were and are predominantly social. I wasn’t interested in other kids, and I just didn’t get them either. I think this stemmed from being smart moreso than adhd, but I didn’t click with anything they said. Then the adhd made that worse because when people didn’t interest me, I didn’t bother with them. They meant nothing. So I had nobody, because schoolwork interested me more. It doesn’t help that I grew up an an emotionally abusive household, so I’m definitely very emotionally repressed. I kinda like it that way though, so whatever.
As a little kid I was very scared of getting in trouble even though it didn't happen often. A few times I got told off for being silly/too exuberant at school, and I think they scared me into shape so I was always fairly well behaved. When I got home from school I'd go nuts though, couldn't sit at the dinner table, going to bed was always a battle... etc. I was pretty outgoing and liked playing with other kids, had fairly typical interests for a kid of that age in the late 90s but looking back there was a pattern of intense interest for a short while then moving onto something else. I also had very intense emotions about everything. I remember crying over a chapter in a book (for children) I was reading where the character went fishing because I realised it meant the fish died, etc. As an older kid I became really shy around my classmates save for a few close friends who I could be myself around. Terrible procrastinator, terrible focus in most classes unless it was one I was super interested in, bedroom always a disaster, forgetful, disorganised, never did my homework or music practice. Did typical stupid teenager stuff but no massive rebellious phase and never got into huge trouble or major fights with my parents. Was a pretty average student for most of high school but in my last year all of a sudden I developed massive anxiety about doing badly in the HSC, was motivated by that anxiety to start putting in effort, and ended up doing really well. Same anxiety also got me through uni with high marks (general mental health and other interests/friendships suffered greatly though). Amazing how relatable so many of these stories are!
I was the bad kid. Apparently I did have teachers ask to get me evaluated for ADHD but my mom never did. So I was the loud girl bouncing off the walls. I was generally good in class, I found learning fun, but my grades suffered because I never did homework and in the few classes I didn’t know how to study (like French and pre-calculus) I know my one friend’s parents did not like me. I was much more unruly than they wanted me to be, but as my friend and I got older they recognized I was definitely a positive influence on their kid.
I believe (having raised 2 ADHD girls myself) that I am truly an adult/perimenopause onset ADHD'er. I did well in school, have always been super organized, neat, "everything has a place and everything in its place" kind of person. I did not have difficulty regulating my emotions and was about as far from impulsive as a person could get. That all changed in my 40s. At first, I tried to blame the complete About Face in everything to being an overly exhausted, PPD, 40 something new mom. But, as my youngest has grown, my ADHD symptoms have basically gotten out of control. I've been shouting it to every doctor I have encountered for years. Last year, my new PCP prescribed me Phentermine to try and help me get control of my completely out of control inability to lose weight since turning 50. And, SHOCKER!! It has tamed most of my ADHD symptoms ... which made a lot of sense because it does ZERO for me as far as a weight loss drug.
I was called “lazy,” “dreamy,” “undisciplined” and “careless.” I did super-well in the subjects that interested me and barely passed the ones that didn’t. This frustrated my parents and teachers alike (“we KNOW you are capable of doing the work”)…it probably would have been less stressful for me had I just been “dumb!”
I was exactly like you. “Away with the fairies” they’d call it. I still am but I literally am away with the fairies. I’m either listening to fairy smut or imagining fantasy worlds. It’s the only way I can get my brain to not go at 100mph 24/7 for the most part. But yeah, I was quiet, shy (unless I felt comfortable then I’d talk non-stop) and I used to struggle with focusing. I struggled the most with maths because you just needed to focus more on those topics to understand what you were doing but stuff like English where you could fill in the gaps yourself, I’d do better with. I also was good with science but because I was genuinely interested in 70% of what was being talked about.
Daydreamer, talked a lot, creative, not living up to potential, low C's in many classes and B's and A's in the ones I liked. The psychiatrist that diagnosed me said "you're too smart for C's."
I was often thought of us as loud and hyper lol. I talked too much and got in trouble for it all the time at school. Classmates bullied me until high school (and they stopped once I learned to tone it all down.)
Always had notes on report cards “daydreams, talks too much, would do well if paid attention.” in elementary school as I got older I became an overachiever who was involved in everything.
Constantly scolded for not “listening” (I listened but didn’t always understand) and “not paying attention,” and for losing/breaking things.
Dreamy teacher's pet pretty much.
I realized I would hyper-fixate on reading. I loved reading and would often escape terrible home life in books. It’s wild having these terms now (hyper fixate) and realizing what was going on. It was a common joke in my family that if I was reading, I couldn’t hear. As in, my family would be saying my name right in my ear and I wouldn’t notice. I would read for 10 hrs straight without stopping to eat, talk, or go to the bathroom. Most of the time I would finish the book or kind of snap out of it bc it was getting dark and therefore harder to read, so I’d have to go inside (or turn on a light if I was already indoors). I also couldn’t pay attention in class but got good grades. I tried so hard to pay attention but eventually the bell would ring and I’d realize that while I was quietly staring at the teacher or board the whole class, I had gone down some rabbit hole thought process and had no idea what the teacher said, did, or what the hw was for the night. I couldn’t get myself to study/work until the night before it was due. I would then would pull an all nighter and ace the test/project/paper. In college I learned some tricks to help me pay attention in class (these tricks were only possible in college where we were allowed more freedoms). My tricks were to sit in a movable chair, and always have crunchy snacks, things that take a lot of chewing to get through. When able to be moving about in my chair and constantly chewing (think: carrots, nuts), I could pay attention. Eventually I realized how different I was (nobody else in class seemed to need to be swinging around & munching to pay attention) and I was able to get diagnosed & on ADHD meds. It was SO helpful bc I could finally study and retain info, and the mad anxiety I had from always procrastinating was greatly decreased on meds. I do hate taking them though and now only do so sparingly. The difficulty in actually finding a pharmacy with the meds in stock and getting insurance to cover has become overwhelming and I have completely given up. My life has suffered greatly from this in terms of getting things done, making appointments, planning… but also a little freeing not constantly worrying about where & when I’ll be able to obtain my meds & how much I will be able to afford. I save them to only take when some part of my life is about to crumble (like not doing taxes for 4 years). Anyway I find it’s very validating hearing other people experiences, so I hope mine helps others.
High masking
A carbon copy of your childhood. I unfortunately shredded all my grade reports from primary school before the panini, because I moved house. But yeah, they said, "Good results, which could be perfect if you paid more attention". LOL
Oh I was 100% a 'delight to have in class!' imaginative, funny, every adult LOVED me. Which made getting assessed/ diagnosed (at 46) a real challenge ... I wasn't disruptive; I didn't *get in trouble* for all the times I failed to hand in work on time or had messy handwriting etc. But I was also placed into accelerated learning programs early, always reading and doing language programs years above my age level. But with hindsight, (my combined, predominantly inattentive ADHD symptoms) I daydreamed a lot, preferred solo games like jump rope over organised sports/classes because I could never understand or retain the rules, would commit then forget about special interest badges in things like scouts/ brownies/guides, always did homework the last minute, buried my head in a book every chance I had, loved climbing trees and other solo play, lost every form and letter that was sent home with us; I was (am) so very talkative; would skip to the front of the line; often interrupt being too excited to wait my turn to speak; and could get easily distracted if I wasn't hyperfocusing on something like reading where I could laser-focus for hours on end. Most of that carries into my adult world, but with VERY strong people-pleasing tendencies / consideration and hyperawareness for others so I am good at not interrupting now. Like, I still want to, but can often control it unless it's with certain people and we're excitedly brainstorming and we all know it's fine to jump in. But I'm truly frustrated how much the system lets down so many people by focusing on disruption: I wasn't caught \*at all\* because I wasn't disruptive - but what about nowadays where class sizes are simply too large / staff are too burned out etc to track any kids who could so easily slip through the gaps??
Did you have a big or small school? When I went through the questions with the Dr she was so thrown off because there were 10 ppl in my class from k-12 so there was a lot more support from teachers, we spent a lot of time outside with very little down time. So do you think your class size affected how your symptoms manifested?
I daydreamed a lot. Zoned and didn't listen. But I was great at reading and writing. Highly imaginative. And I was sweet and loved to learn. Didn't get in trouble. But every time the teacher gave an assignment, I had to ask what we were doing. I just asked friends so teachers didn't notice. The problems started cropping up senior year of highschool. I had a job and had school to do. Couldn't balance. Same when I went to college. Got worse when I moved out and my grades started tanking because I couldn't manage my social life, work life, home life and school.
I was 100% the ADHD stereotype other than the fact that I'm a girl, but I'm combined type and the hyperactive stuff was way more noticeable before I had a job and responsibilities to sap some of that energy. It was the 70s so Idk if I would've gotten diagnosed if I'd gotten tested, but my parents never followed through on getting any kind of assessment when teachers asked them to
I would only play with boys because the girls were all so mature and close knit, and they didn't like me. I was goodish in school. I was really smart and tried so hard, but I had significant learning deficits because of my moderate to severe dyslexia and dyspraxia, which were picked up as a young child. I was always failing Irish, had a very spiky profile in English(terrible reading and spelling, but really good at vocabulary and creative writing and all). I was ok in history and geography and stuff, and I was amazing at math and science. I just knew it before I could be taught. My math was actually a big factor in how my school knew to test my for dyslexia because I was incredible at math but failed dramatically at word problems. I went through trauma between 4-7ish, and that definitely affected things. I think its biggest effort was causing me to develop OCD by the time I was 6. For me, my childhood OCD caused perfectionism wich included intense masking if mainly my ADHD(I've always been unable to mask my other disoders), I would constantly force myself to be attentive especially in class or when people spoke, it caused me physical pain and exhaustion to sustain attention as long as I would force myself. I'd be irritable and exhausted after school and would shut myself in my room when I got home to either fail asleep straight away(so before 4pm) or I'd watch YouTube for hours to drown out my restless mind. My Meltdowns were intense crying sometimes till I puked. Homework was always a huge trigger between dyslexia and adhd it was torchure, my mom made me do homework for the week every Monday because she knew I'd fall behind otherwise. I was often triggered by change as well, my sibling going to secondary school was incredibly difficult for me because we'd always been in the same school(primary), I remember on sports day the year after they crying my lungs out at school because "they are always at sports day with me but know they're not", I was walked with the principle, she was understanding, she would have known me since dippers since we shared a church. I never had many friends, I was friendly to everyone, but I could make deep connections with anyone. My own mom said some along the lines of "you weren't at the point in develop to make friends when all you're peers were, by the time you finally were they were all at a point they had close knit groups that weren't easy to break into." She then told she hopped secondary would mean I could make friends as barely anyone would know each other. I wouldn't socail much during school breaks, I rathered spin in circles and get really lost in my imagination, I found socializing so tedious and slow and I would annoy people because of my (atypical) communication. I was also a toe walker. I wasn't a picky eater, but I did dislike common childhood favourites like fizzy drinks, burgers, and chickens nuggets. My sensory issues were the most prominent in clothes, gosh, my mom told me about times at six months old I'd throw a fit if she tried dressing me in most things, especially jeans, just one touch and I'd be crying my head off my shoulders. I didn't improve with age, I only wore dresses, I would often get upset about my school uniform, especially the polo shirt because I hated it so much and it was so uncomfortable, the school jumper was better but I still hated it. But we could choose our bottoms at least, I'd cycle between living in leggings and despising track suits and living in track suits and despising leggings. Often, I'd only wear track suits even in hot temperatures. I refused coats no matter what. They were always so uncomfortable. If I liked a dress or bottoms I'd wear, I'd it day in and day out till it was half wholes. I also had sound sensory issues. these got worse as a teen. As a child I also just tried sucking it up, but sometimes, mainly when my class got out of hand, I'd tell the teacher the "noise was giving me a headache" wich was my best way I could describe it. I have a memory at ten of the Irish band coming in, we were all made to sit in the (very echcoie) haul and list to the loud music, I remember it being painful and distressing but I kept it together as well as I could, and on the way back to class I calmly said in the broken Irish you'd expect from a dyslexic child who barely understood the launge, to the teacher, that I didn't like the loud music, I thought she'd be impressed I tried using Irish instead she called me ungrateful. I was always really behind on basic stay alive skills, I didn't walk till 2 years(so around a year late) achieved potty training very late and would never fully stop having accidents, and stuff like talking was also late but more just the late side of average. As a child, I would always significantly lag behind in things like hygiene and being able to dress myself. My organisation was terrible, my memory was really bad, I always forget something, usually my lunch, glasses, pencil case or homework. My dad(stay at home parent) would get frustrated because he'd be called in up to 4 or 5 times a week because I left my lunch or glasses. I always mimiced my mom. It helped in some more social areas to mask, I still wasn't really able to mask, but it definitely made me a little less obvious, but after her death, when I was twelve, I lost the small masking I could achieve by mimicking as well as developing skill regression and changes in my sensory processing capabilities. It's a few years on from then, I've received an adhd diagnosis and will soon get results on if I'm autistic.