The Early Years
It’s a typical first grade classroom. The magic carpet on the floor with the teacher’s chair at the front with an easel, the letters of the alphabet all across the top of the wall, the treasure chest with candy in it in the corner. The year is 1999. Twenty-three 6 year old children (including yours truly) are working on a Halloween-themed craft project. I’m working diligently on my scarecrow. Cutting and gluing furiously, trying to make it look perfect. When I was done, I showed Mrs. Taylor my handiwork. She seemed proud of me and immediately went to go hang it up on the wall with the other childrens’ projects. I went about the rest of my work, with no idea what was about to happen.
About a week passes by, and my mother gets a phone call. Before we go any further, a little background on my parents: My mom and dad are both educators, with about 40-50 years of experience in the field between them. Mom was a band director at our local junior high school for many years, and just recently became an assistant principal at a high school. My dad is a band director and percussion instructor. They are both invested and loving parents who want nothing more than what’s best for their daughters, which is why what happens next is so heartbreaking.
This phone call came from Mrs. Taylor in the middle of the day. Now when parents get that kind of phone call coupled with “I think you need to come down here,” their heart is coming up their throat while their stomach is falling out the other end. My mother was scared to say the least. She ran over there as fast as she could (which didn’t take long, the junior high was next door.)
Here’s a direct quote from my mother about how this conversation and what happened immediately after went down: “She met me at the door crying saying that she hated to tell me this but knew that she needed to-she felt that Lindsey had ADD. She exhibited all the classic symptoms. She was very upset to have to tell me but she wanted Lindsey to have the school experience that she deserved. We immediately got you in to the pediatrician and he wanted us to complete some questionnaires and your teacher and counselor too. It was a series of questions about your behaviors in certain situations. Once we had those done, the Dr. felt like medication would help you so he prescribed the Adderal. Immediately, we saw changes in you that indicated that the the medication was indeed working.”
Now as a happy-go-lucky 6 year old, I had no idea what was happening or that I was really any different than my classmates. All I knew now was that I was expected to take a pill (a very small dose of Adderal) every morning before I left for school (which my mother was very diligent in reminding me of.) And the medicine made me feel weird. After a while, I realized it kind of made me slow down. My brain wasn’t always tired and I could slow down and do my due diligence when it came to my assignments. I didn’t know that this was how everyone else in my class felt already. But I was “normal!” And my parents could now put their minds at ease that I would never be scrutinized for my ADD, because it was easily masked. (in a different post, I will go into more detail about my struggle with medication and how I finally found what worked for me.)
Junior High and High School
You’re probably thinking I’m going to go into a bunch of detail about what I struggle ADD caused me as a child and how school was hard….. Sorry, it didn’t, and it wasn’t. Academically I was above a lot of students. I ended up graduating with Honors with a cumulative 4.3 GPA. I attribute a lot of my success to invested parents. My parents wanted me to succeed more than anything. My schools also provided planners for all of their students, that some teachers required they be signed and brought back to make sure we were recording all of our assignments and our homework. I also wrote down any personal or school-related events that I felt important to keep up with. Finally, I worked VERY hard to maintain my good grades. With an uneven playing field, my desire to succeed in school evened it out.
However, social relationships were always a struggle. I don’t know if you know this, but teenagers are the freaking worst species of humans there is (besides adults.) Now don’t get me wrong, I was never really outwardly teased by people who were supposed to be my friends, but I was usually left out of things. In every picture, I was always on the end. I felt like I had to insert myself into conversations to be included. I never got the inside jokes. Then when I heard that someone was talking about me behind my back, it was always the same thing. “She’s so loud,” “she doesn’t understand when she’s not wanted,” “Why does she keep trying to hang out with us when we’ve clearly shown we don’t want her around?” I definitely didn’t pick up on the social cues that my “friends” were putting out. I spend a lot of time at home, which I didn’t mind. I’m an introvert by nature so that ended up working out great.
College
College got a little bit harder. I still lived at home in an effort to save money, so parental support was always there if I ever felt I needed it, but it wasn’t automatically given. My parents didn’t really insert themselves in my life. They let me be and do my own thing (which they should’ve. I was 18 and needed to learn how to do things on my own.) I got a job and contributed to my family, did my taxes, kept up with assignments/class times/tests, pretty much all on my own (with the help of my Lilly Pulitzer planner.) I was on the Dean’s list every semester and kept up my grades to keep my scholarships. It was here I learned that I should color code everything.
Organization in other areas of life was pretty hard though. My room was always an (organized) mess. I knew where everything was, its place was just on the floor. My car looked like a tornado went through it, or like a homeless person lived in there. I would zone out a lot. I was easily distracted, especially if I took my laptop into my classes with me.
Adult Life
After I graduated college, my parents went with me to make major life decisions so I didn’t rush into them. After I did all the research, my mom and I helped me pick out my first apartment. When my car died, they went with me to buy another one, and co-signed my leases (something most parents have to do with their child’s first lines of credit.)
Budgeting continues to be a struggle. Since I get paid once a month, I’ve been putting safeguards in place to make sure I can make it from one month to the next. I’ve also started a high-yield savings account, paid my auto loans on time, and started writing down all of my expenses. (But that’s a separate blog post.)
I’m still an introvert, but I get out and hang out with friends whenever I can (and it doesn’t interfere with my gym schedule.) I try my best to make friends wherever I go, because life’s awfully lonely without a tribe to have your back.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my story! For any questions/comments about this blog post or any other ideas about future blog posts, email me at fightprayteach@gmail.com
The ADD Educator 