Neurodiversity

In grade 3, the year 2003, at the young age of 8 years old, I was “diagnosed” (labelled) with a reading and writing learning disability by my elementary school Resource Teacher.

I remember going through a full day, or maybe even a couple days worth of tests… reading, counting, writing, remembering. I remember it was hard. I remember I was uncomfortable. I remember being the only girl in the room, with two or three of my male classmates. They were the bad kids though. They were always interrupting and getting into trouble. Was I a bad kid?

After that I remember I was always pulled out of class to go to the Resource Room to do my work, it was quieter, it was easier to think. But a lot of the time we would just be playing games together, or doing things we enjoyed. I liked writing stories, if you couldn’t tell.

This label defined me for the duration of my public school journey.

I couldn’t read.

I didn’t know how to spell, my writing was terrible.

I was provided with resources, such as the Kurzweil reading program. I was able to use Microsoft Word to write my assignments to help with my spelling (and so the teachers could read my assignment). These resources helped me keep up, they helped me succeed in a system that I had felt like I was drowning in.

In high school I continued to utilize my resources, I continued to do my best, and succeed. In 2012 I graduated, completed a ‘victory lap’ in 2013 and in the 2013/2014 school year I attended University.

The University I went to had an amazing Student Resource Centre, it was a well oiled machine dedicated to helping students with learning disabilities, like myself, succeed.

When I enrolled as a student with a learning disability they sent me off to be evaluated by a Psychiatrist.

It was a full 8 hour day of testing, I had to pack a lunch, it was a long day. I was tested alongside one of my peers who also had some form of learning disability. Once we completed the extensive testing, we waited. When I was finally pulled into the Psychiatrist’s office to go over my results, I was nervous, but also annoyed, because I already knew what was wrong with me, why do they need to torture me with these daunting tests again?

I was called in, I sat down on the couch in the Doctor’s office, and I will never forget the words said to me:

“So, you actually don’t have a learning disability, you have Anxiety and ADHD.”

I was shocked. So shocked I couldn’t even believe it, I didn’t even know what to ask, what I needed to know. I remember the overwhelming feeling of embarrassment from being so blindsided, it flushed over me. I was beet red, I began sweating. I felt sick. I wished so badly in those moments that my mom was in the room with me to help me get more information about the situation. I sat back on the couch as he explained how Anxiety and ADHD feed off of each other and create a cycle of ADHD symptoms and Anxiety.

I honestly don’t remember much from that conversation. I do, however, remember the fear, the discomfort, the betrayal I felt. I felt angry. I felt deceived. My whole life I was told, I thought, that I just could not read, or write. And here to find out 10 years later, after 10 years of schooling, after 10 years of living life “with reading and writing learning disabilities”, that I am Neurodivergent. My brain works differently. I feel things differently. I experience life differently.

For 10 years I was told that I just couldn’t do these things, that I couldn’t read at my grade level, that I couldn’t write properly. I was provided with crutches for a disability I didn’t have, instead of the resources that would have helped me understand how my brain actually worked.

Thinking back on it, I’m still mad. I still get a knot in my chest. I lived my whole memorable life up until that point unknowingly coping with the Neurodiversity of my brain WITHOUT EVEN REALISING.

Not to mention the University thought that, since I didn’t actually have a learning disability, that I magically wouldn’t need the resources I had used, the resources I had depended on to succeed…

I was terrified, they were going to take away my only chance to successfully complete University. That was a meeting I brought my mother to, thankfully. She was, and continues to be my biggest resource and advocate. And mom alongside an incredible Student Resource Professor, helped plead my case; I was allowed to continue to utilize the resources that had been provided to me the last decade.

This isn’t a poor me story. This isn’t a look at what I did, look at what I endured, story. This is a look at how far we’ve come, as a society. Look at the knowledge we now have. I understand I was a young girl in 2003, a demographic they probably hadn’t considered could even have ADHD at the time. That’s fine. I just wish that my elementary school Resource teacher would have sent my test results to a psychiatrist to be evaluated instead of doing it herself. Instead of just labelling me. A label that not only was WRONG, but stuck with me for over a decade.

Now that I know I have ADHD, now that I can accurately label my Neurodivergence, I am empowered. I am able to see how my brain works differently from a Neurotypical brain, I am able to differentiate between traits that had been forced onto me, the societal conditioning that I soaked up. I am able to drop the mask I didn’t even realize I was holding up, for so long.

I reflect and realize now why I felt so differently in my body, in my mind. I am different. And I’m so grateful to have learned that information about myself. My ADHD diagnosis is not a label, it is not a band aid or an excuse for things in my life. It is a roadmap of how to approach my life, and how my brain works.

I am 28 years old, I was misdiagnosed with two learning disabilities 20 years ago, and in 2013 I was properly and accurately diagnosed. My self understanding and acceptance has only increased since then. And it continued to grow.