ADHD & Me
Daydreamer. Escapist. Space cadet. Poured out of the mouths of well-meaning teachers, family members, and friends, these labels—accompanied by laughter and a reminder to “stay focused”—have defined me since childhood. It wouldn’t be until my senior year of high school however, that a new label, assigned to me by a psychologist, would join this gentle ribbing: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, otherwise known as ADHD.
Senior year, for me, arrived at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Having struggled with anxiety and depression throughout high school, the added stressors of quarantine and the transition to college just around the corner prompted me to reach out to a therapist for help. During that first meeting, she confirmed that not only did I have generalized anxiety and depressive episodes, but that I also had ADHD. The other two disorders most likely stemmed from the fact that I had been diagnosed so late in life.
But how had I gone seventeen years without any of the adults in my life noticing symptoms? ADHD is known for appearing mainly in children with easily identifiable symptoms such as hyperactivity, impulsiveness, low frustration tolerance, poor planning skills, and extreme disorganization.
According to psychologist Kristie Jones, “ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood, and is usually first diagnosed during the elementary school years after a teacher notifies a parent that their child has been exhibiting behaviors during class time.” My brother had been sent home with one of these notices while he was in kindergarten and attending the same elementary school that I had several years before. Our parents often commented that we had similar dispositions and personalities. So why did I slip through the cracks?
The answer lies in our gender.
Millions of female and femme-identifying individuals diagnosed with ADHD slip right past the average diagnosis age of seven, just like I did, simply because it is harder to spot our symptoms at first glance. “Girls tend to exhibit more internal symptoms, such as inattentiveness. This is much harder for teachers to spot, as it looks like they are just daydreaming. Additionally, girls tend to have a stronger desire to please authority figures and work harder to mask any undesirable traits, which indirectly leads them to unknowingly develop coping strategies for ADHD,” Jones shared. “Boys with ADHD are usually seen with high levels of hyperactivity, extreme disorganization, and other external symptoms. Things that would be disruptive in a classroom and so easy for a teacher to notice.”
Art by Aleks Carney
Conversations with my therapist revealed that, though I was firmly on the inattentive side of the ADHD scale, not all of my symptoms were internal. Our sessions had me reexamining my experiences in school as she tried to help me understand just how much of an impact the disorder had already had on my life. My “daydreams” and “active imagination” were states of dissociation. The inability to start work until the deadline wasn’t laziness, but ADHD paralysis. Using a planner couldn’t magically cure all my organizational problems because my brain was hardwired to be disorganized. I remember feeling increasingly frustrated that I hadn’t been diagnosed earlier. So many misunderstandings and other issues could have been avoided if I had only understood why my brain worked the way it did sooner.
During one of these sessions, I realized one of my teachers had noticed something strange with my behavior. She just hadn’t reported it as a potential sign of ADHD. During a parent-teacher conference, my third grade teacher complained to my parents about my focus in class. She informed them that I never seemed to pay attention to the lessons on the board, and that she would have to say my name three times before I answered her questions. When my parents approached me about the issue, I told them I was trying to pay attention, but I kept zoning out and missing sections of the lesson. In the end, nothing ever came of this confrontation since my grades weren’t suffering. Instead, I was sent to an eye doctor, and a conclusion was reached that my inability to focus on instructions was an eyesight deficiency that prevented me from seeing the board.
It was only when I got to high school that I started really noticing how bad my ability to stay organized and focused was. I enrolled in AP and honors level classes, because I believed it was the only way to get accepted to my dream school. The material was so much harder, and my anxiety just kept getting worse and worse because I was falling behind for the first time. Almost every night I would be awake until the early hours of the morning, struggling to complete homework that should have been finished weeks before. It seemed like nothing I did would help me catch back up, and my mental health suffered immensely because of it.
Developmental pediatricians such as Dr. Patricia Quinn, who specializes in ADHD in women and girls, say that boys are more than twice as likely to get diagnosed with the disorder than girls are. 50 to 75 percent of female and femme-identifying individuals with ADHD will live their entire lives without a diagnosis.
If I hadn’t decided to advocate for myself and seek help, a critical part of who I am would have gone undiscovered. My diagnosis didn’t automatically improve my mental health or magically enhance my ability to focus. I didn’t become a master multitasker after a single therapy session. ADHD is something you learn to live with, not cure. But knowing what makes me tick allowed me to take control of my disorder, instead of my disorder controlling me. I’m healing. The system might have failed me, but if people are willing to take notice and listen, then it might not fail some other little kid sitting at a desk, wondering why all she can think about is a crack in the wall that looks like a dinosaur.