this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
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[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Damn. Are you me? I'm not a programmer so I guess not.

I was hounded by one of my HS teachers to put in a little more effort, constantly.

I got annoyed by this and basically rage-wrote an essay that was due in the span of a few hours the night before it was due. Despite my lack of sources (I couldn't be bothered to look up the information), I still got an A on the paper. She stopped telling me to try harder. IDK if that's because she realized I didn't do poorly because I couldn't understand, because I clearly did, or she was just satisfied that she got me to do something and didn't bother pestering me about it, but regardless, I felt like I won.

I never did that well on anything else in her class. I just couldn't be bothered.

20+ years later, it turns out I have ADHD. So yeah. That explains a lot.

[–] olutukko@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

School before realizing I have concentration problems was mysterious time. I juat didn't feel like doing stuff and I didn't know why.

Also yeah your teacher propably just thought that you would need extra work to understand the course. I had a teacher who actually told me that when he first started teaching me he thought I'm a bit dumb, a below average student. But then he came to realize that I'm actually really smart but I just don't do anything. It felt weird because at the same time I wad proud that a teacher actually said to me that I am smart. But at the same time I started wondering that why I indeed didn't do anything.

I'm going to finally get my meds though, I just have to piss in a jar to prove I'm not smoking weed for like half a year lol. But I have gotten to the point where I don't feel like it's going to be an issue. I'm about to turn 24, weed used to be my coping mechanism to a lot of stuff but I have matured now and I feel like a long break would just do really good. Also I want those meds cuz my school isn't going that well and I want to graduate and get a job already :D the courses aren't hard but I usually lose the motivation one montv in and after that trying to finish the course is insanely hard

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I was diagnosed a few years ago. I was 39. I've been on meds since.

My HS experience was fairly typical for an ADHD kid before ADHD was a thing.... I was called lazy, I was told I needed to apply myself (whatever that means), etc. I believed it. I just thought I was a lazy ass little shit. I didn't know why, but the evidence was clear. I understood the information, I just didn't do any of the work.

Oh well. Live and learn. I eventually made it through college, and into a career, all without meds. It was a painful struggle, especially when dealing with the more monotonous tasks associated with having a job.... I was chronically late, I slept in a lot... I was just all over the place.

Now, with the meds, I still have my hair share of bad days, but when I'm faced with the horrendous burden of monotonous tasks, instead of having to force myself to do it, I usually have more of an attitude of "whelp, I better get this done so I can move on". It's no longer an impossible task to simply get myself started on something that's not very stimulating.

It's nice.

[–] olutukko@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That does sound reallu peaceful compared to this. I bet it was even harder at you time of youth when people didn't understand the condition.

It's honestly really super weird nobody noticed that I might be a bit odd. Like I had alll the signs now that I recall. Even some stuff related to asperger. But I just went straight trough the filters

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 1 points 7 months ago

Well, my parents weren't the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all that they did for me, but I rarely ever saw my doctor outside of getting shots or whatever... Typical stuff.

Basically, unless I had an obvious and physical problem, like a not insignificant injury or infection, we dealt with it ourselves. So I'm not surprised that I fell through the cracks, so to speak.

I did ok in school. I could have done way better, but I at least passed pretty much every class I took. There were some exceptions in college due to extenuating circumstances, but I got it done.

The change happened when I started researching ADHD because my SO has a solid diagnosis for it, so I wanted to understand them a little bit better, and a lot of the symptoms just resonated with me. So I took action, got assessed and now I'm medicated for it and I couldn't be happier about it. My brain works differently. I'm different. That's not a bad thing (could you imagine how boring it would be if we were all the same?). I'm proud of myself.

I'm not really shy about telling people about it, though I tend to keep it to myself until it's relevant... I don't go into a room full of new people and blurt out that I'm on meds for ADHD. But if someone asks, I don't have any hesitation in telling them. There's so shame in it, there's no reason to be ashamed of it. My brain works counterintuitively, and I've done my job as a human, and gotten treatment so I can function normally. I'm not responsible for my brain chemistry being all screwed up.

Anyways. I feel like I'm talking in circles now. I hope you have a good day.