Same with autism.
If you get low grades, off to special ed with you.
High grades? Oh you're just a socially awkward dork or quirky nerd or something.
As long as you're not disruptive, they don't give a shit.
If you're malleable enough, the machine will mash you into place.
Truth. I remember being in school in the 90s when they were giving Ritalin to everyone who didn't want to sit still in class. Shit was wild. And then you have me, with a healthy case of ADD but since I wasn't a social butterfly, that just meant I wasn't motivated.
Oh man, one of my people! My parents, my school, my teachers just watched me fail with an under 1.0 average, while I scored 95th percentile in every standardized test. I was lazy, undisciplined, and unmotivated, and it made me hate myself.
I feel like this would be a red flag now, but back then, even the school counselors were only worried about my impact on other students. Since it was minimal, they let me just stay there and fail... my best friend, who's every bit at sharp as me, got Ritalined into fucking oblivion and put in remedial classes. Jokes on me tho, he got a diploma from HS.
GED is just another standardized test. If I knew how easy it was back in my junior year, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble.
Dude, all the same here. I tested insanely high on that aptitude test in elementary school and was placed in their version of honors. But the teachers would get pissed because I wouldn't do any homework, yet somehow aced all my tests and scored minimum 90th percentile on all standardized tests. I just paid attention to the lessons but had no interest in the busy work.
I ended up just doing the CA proficiency exam and got out of high school on my 17th birthday, and then got a diploma at 25 to make my mom happy.
Ritalin made me a zombie. Thankfully Adderall existed. I wish I could get some as an adult. That shit made me superhuman.
They had me and my brother on I think it was Concerta, and yeah there was something not right about that stuff. Adderall was great for getting shit done, but no way I'd want to take it everyday.
And if you had ADD, ODD, and breaking the curve grades, they took every opportunity to lock you up in jail that they could.
At least that's what happened to me.
And if you are disruptive, they diagnose you with odd and beat you to make you shut up. You can't win
Same with autism. It wasn't until I had my master's degree in math and teaching high school at age 39 that it ever occurred to me that I was autistic. A colleague and I had a mutual student, and he told me that he thought she might be autistic and that he was going to refer her to the school's diagnostician for testing.
So I found myself curious about the symptoms of autism, because Rain Man was my frame of reference. I researched the symptoms in the middle of a Geometry team meeting, and everything I read had my sitting up further and further in my seat, until I just blurted out "Oh my GAWD...?!" My colleagues asked what, and I said "Y'all...I think I might be autistic?" They looked at one another quizzically, like they were shocked at my personal revelation. One of them replied, "Wait...you didn't know?!" I said, "....what, you DID know?!?" She was like "Yes! We all know that about you! You seriously didn't know? 😂" HELL NO I DIDN'T KNOW!
I immediately called my mom on the phone to tell her that I thought I might be autistic. "Yyyyyeah...your dad and I always thought you might be." HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOM WTF?????? 😲😲😲WHY DIDN'T YOU EVER GET ME TESTED?!? "Well, you always made such good grades that we just didn't think it mattered that much.
I have since been diagnosed with ASD Level 1, and I think back a lot on my life lived. I marvel at how much easier my life would have been if I hadn't had to develop all of these coping mechanisms myself. I did well in school despite my autism. I earned two degrees despite my autism. I hold down teaching jobs despite my autism. The biggest problems I've had in my life, though, have been personal relationships. I can't imagine how much richer my life might be right now had I known all along how to exist as a self-aware autist in a neurotypical world.
I don't know the popular opinion on this, but I personally think you did a great job learning how to be your best self without having a label. Everyone is unique and everyone will have to learn how to do things their way, having children labeled as something when they already do well might just make them feel more alienated, or be like "I'm X that's why I'm like this" instead of finding their way to be productive/have fun.
Of course it'll help people struggling but not knowing what's wrong. But if you're a type of person who can feel/see what works for you and what doesn't and find solutions for yourself, you might even make your quirks your strength. One frequent thought I have is, how many of the scientists or philosophers in the past were actually autistic? Or had quirks that made them who they are, but would definitely be "problematic" when they were young by today's standards.
TLDR: My opinion is everyone is unique, using your quirks to do things others can't is what makes some people great. Making everyone fit a "normal", and medicating/.... everyone else doesn't seem like a good idea.
There's not medication for autism, and self-awareness is immensely helpful
Or...and just a thought...maybe people know their own truths better than you ever possibly could, and when they tell you that early diagnosis and therapy would have helped them immensely, you just believe them?
Also, I got diagnoses for Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks as well as Major Depressive Disorder, and having those diagnoses as a teen might have helped as well, ya know?
Would you tell someone who doesn't have legs that they'd be better off without a wheelchair because then they'd be free to "find their own way to be productive/have fun"? Or is this reserved for disorders that you can't see?
My medication doesn't fundamentally change who I am, it just makes me less shit at the things I am most shit at, so that my daily life is less of a constant struggle.
And sure, it's possible to imagine a world where having ADHD wouldn't be such a problem, just like it's possible to imagine a world where not having legs wouldn't be a problem. But that's not the world we live in!
Try not paying your bills and telling your landlord and credit card company that it's fine, you're just not one for rigid schedules and you're finding your own way. Or instead of doing your job at work, do something completely different and see if your boss accepts that you're just quirky.
Dude, so fucking real. I just got denied meds because "If you can learn a big part in a play, then you must have very mild adhd."
I'm convinced that most psychiatrists and psychologists have control issues that they satisfy through their practice. It makes them feel powerful to be able to gatekeep, judge and implicitly control their patient's life and get paid for it.
I wish I could talk to someone who actually knows what adhd is like, and not just some boomer with a fancy piece of paper
Extend that to anybody involved with patient care and medicine.
Wait till you see what they let you do if you're good at sports.
Wait till you see what they let you ~~do~~ raw dog if you're good at sports.
Ftfy
Cheerleaders, teachers, whatever you want. The football players at my high school could do no wrong because they won state once.
Goddamn, this innocuous post brought me to tears. Been having a rough time, I guess
Hugs.
You can't change the past but you can change the future.
Can you though? At least in most of the US if you aren't already getting psychological help, you have to pay for it yourself, and will just have to figure out a self medication schedule that works for you.
I pay for both a psychiatrist and a psychologist and while my psychologist knows for sure I have ADHD neither of then can prescribe me stimulants so instead I'm on Lexapro so at least I don't have to care.
It's weird how many people on here attribute good grades to being good at everything else in life. Or minimizing the probable and unnecessary struggle some individuals go through to get those good grades because of the system they were put in. I got good grades because i worked many times harder than my peers. I shouldn't have to. No one does. I was privileged enough to have enough resources to do as well as i did. Most people with my condition don't. I've also struggled a lot more at other tasks, and in the work place. But i got good grades, so fuck me right?
Yeah. It's so fucking shortsighted to be like, "Eh, you did fine, look at your grades. You can't be that disabled." Like, you putzes, are you kidding me? If I hadn't been spending all my mental energy clearing all these pointless obstacles, I might have cured fucking pancreatic cancer by now. It's not just about what's convenient for caretakers, teachers, and a health team, it's about being denied the opportunity that most other people are handed without asking to achieve everything they're capable of doing.
being good at shit doesn't mean I can have good grades either
My autism allows me to do it work, create servers, host websites and make my own Foss projects
This won't however mean I'll be getting 100 from my chemistry exam just because I can loop hello world a hundred times
Back in school I literally helped other students cram 30 minutes before a test, using flash cards I made and used all week, only to have them breeze in and get a higher score than me.
Do you know how great it would be to only barely try, and succeed anyway? I can't even imagine.
I suspected i had adhd when i was 16, begged my mom to go to a psychologist. The psychologist told me i was playing too many video games ಠ_ಠ
As a parent of a child with ADHD, I'm cautious about using stimulant medication unless it's clearly the best course of action. My main goal is to help my child succeed, and academics is a big component of that.
I see many of my son's ADHD symptoms in myself, and I believe I may have also had/have ADHD. Despite this, I've been successful in my life. This personal experience makes me hesitant to automatically turn to medication as the solution for my child. I prefer to explore other options first, unless there's a strong reason to consider it, such as struggling academically.
When my son entered high school he became mature enough to participate in the decision-making process regarding his own treatment. Because of that it was easier for me/us to get him a prescription of Adderall and feel good about it as parents.
Edit: since it seems to not be clear, my son is on ADHD meds and has been for the past three or four years. We talked to him about it and he prefers taking the medication and has had input in the dosage that he's taking.
Unsolicited advice incoming:
Help your kid get a diagnosis ASAP and try to find a medication that works. The drugs are just a tool, but your kid won't know whether they help without trying them.
At some point, they may find themselves unmedicated and down in an ADHD hole — having the diagnosis and knowing which medications may help is crucial to dig out of the hole.
This is true for every psychological condition and has only tangentially to do with grades. There needs to be a burden of suffering (German: "Leidensdruck") in order for a psychological condition to be considered a "problem" that needs "fixing". As long as the the person doesn't have this and society doesn't force anything on that person (because for example they broke the law), there is nothing to act upon. This is also why some famous and/or successful people are crazy. The FBI has done some investigations into the concept of a the corporate psychopath, which can be successful managers, which are undiagnosed psychopaths.
PS: I am no expert
https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/the-corporate-psychopath
Does anyone else have the incling ADHD and PTSD are the same thing? Human brain thinks it's in danger and kicks into survival mode
Adhd kids get told negative things way more often that other kids, and that is traumatic. Undiagnosed Adhd leads to anxiety and depression because of it, which makes it very similar to ptsd. But since it's chronic and over a long time period, it is separate from ptsd, as the cause is Adhd, and not the trauma itself.
Tbf same if you are 'slower'
I don't have anything and I never will because I'm never getting tested. I did get "classified" and never had a fair chance at a real education. Even failure meant I needed to be in the program and every success showed how well the program was working. I grew up thinking I would only be a drag on other people. In high school, I decided to start feeling better about myself. Something those years of being removed from class so I could have meaningless conversations with the school therapist never could. I thought the school would support my efforts to fix my education, but I only got pushed down, told "I would be happier without the risk of failure", lied to about classes being full, withheld test results when I tried testing into better classes. I would like nothing more then to get the diploma revoked and seeing as how I never fulfilled the basic state requirements, I should be able to, but like with most things, the written law doesn't matter if no one is willing to enforce it.
Fuck my school. Fuck the "team building" exercises they made me do. Fuck the "opportunities" they provided for me.
My therapist diagnosed me with ADD, I did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people. Turned out I don’t have that, but have childhood trauma. Trauma and ADD have a lot of similar symptoms. Once I started addressing the trauma, my symptoms went away.
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