Different

At the age of 14 I was diagnosed with inattentive adhd. As if I didn’t have enough to be worried about as a freshman in high school and all the drama girl’s like me deal with.

In a way, it was sort of a relief as no one (not even my mom) really believed that there was something wrong as I was an above average student. Teachers just passed me off as lazy, or thought I wasn’t working hard enough, but what no one understood was that I was working 4 times harder than anyone else just to get average grades.

Even my family would some times look at me like I was dumb when I got a simple math problem wrong because I couldn’t focus. I would try to say that my brain just didn’t work like theirs. It was hard to tell my parents why I couldn’t get A’s on tests, especially as my dad has a Phd in mathematics, and my mom is also super smart.

One day I just couldn’t deal with trying to pass this off, so I was tested and was then diagnosed. My pediatrician prescribed me a prescription called Concerta, and I’m now a straight A student who passes every test with flying colors.

At first it made me so mad that no one ever believed me when I would try to explain that I just couldn’t remember where I left my cellphone or why I could never remember to follow through on directions or how I felt. Sometimes I just wanted to cry because no one understood what I was going through but than I realized that I should be proud because I’m learning lessons about hard work that most don’t learn until later.

Having ADHD makes me unique and different, and I should be proud of being different and not ashamed of it. Having ADHD has only made me stronger, and it may make things hard sometimes, but in the end I just come out more confident in being different.