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I was very quiet and painfully shy. I never got in trouble - I was very much a "star" student for my whole education. People close to me might've described me as goofy or ditzy. I don't really relate to the common ADHD childhood experiences that I see all the time.
The big epiphany for me was realizing that for most of my education I wasn't actually listening in class, I just LOOKED like it and was in my own little world. And surely if you pretend you are listening, you are. I never had any behavioral or attention concerns from teachers or my parents though.
This is me to a T. I somehow managed to get all A's and B's (maybe a C here or there but I'd always get it up before end of year) so I slipped under everyone's radar.
Once the structure of grade school was gone my life became a disorganized wreck.
Yeah you have just put my experience to words. Nobody noticed I wasnt paying any attention because I was too shy to disrupt class. Instead I just daydreamed and managed to get good grades because I honestly found it trivial. When I got to university, I completely crumbled
You guys are my people. School was ez pz except for 1 or 2 mandatory classes i hated. In my country we have a lot of flexibility with subject choices so just picked the ones i was actively interested in/good at. For the 2 (out of 7) classes i didn’t like I just daydreamed through them & caused no trouble. Got great grades.
Then uni hit & i had no teacher to guide me & uhhh.. I’ve failed 3 years.. one in a program that was a bad fit for me anyway, one in a program i liked, but had a practical placement I botched because I didn’t know how to submit the paperwork (because I wasn’t listening..), and one year of my MA because i couldn’t get it together enough to write my thesis.. all this was while undiagnosed.
Also quite the same though I was behind in the majority of classes, I was just put into low skill classes and left behind, until college I’d excelled in one single subject.
*When I got to university, I completely crumbled*
This happened to me more than once. I skipped fourth grade and never recovered in half my classes, despite a torturous summer of private teaching at the school. Then when I went to community college and university, every class was different and never recovered in some of them.
There has to be a learned component here of repeated history allowing us to autopilot, and when that is disrupted, we're lost.
That explains why I did so much better in gradeschool vs Highschool. Up til 8th grade I was able to pull on past knowlege and I got away with autopiloting. In hs though, thats when I had to learn new concepts and I couldnt autopilot my way through. I still went on autopilot but I never understood the material.
I think the only reason I did well in school was because A) I love to read and textbooks were my friends and B) I'm really good at test taking. The homework portion of my grades was low because I always forgot to do it, and I could literally walk out of a class and not be able to tell you what I'd learned, but I was a pro at cramming and good at remembering what I read, at least short term.
College was actually better for me because no one yelled at me for not taking notes. The problem is that listening and writing down what I heard at the same time meant either I didn't actually listen, or my notes were useless because I'd fall behind and only catch half of the lecture. Not taking notes meant that I could keep track of what was being said a bit better and didn't get so lost.
I'm sad that other people went through the same thing, but it does take some of the sting out of it looking back years with a diagnosis and knowing that I'm not alone in experiencing it.
This. I was a model student. Naturally intelligent, enjoyed reading and the novelty of learning could zone out and do stuff last minute and pull it off. Used over scheduling and anxiety to make my executive disfunction function.
Take away the structure and add parenthood with a good dose of burnout and boom train wreck.
Wow, this was my exact experience. Refused to believe anything was wrong for so long because I managed to power through, until the realities of unstructured college life, then corporate America, and now parenthood hit.
Recently diagnosed at 35 and working with the doctor to find the right med/dosage. Already seeing an improvement. But even now, I have a hard time fully accepting the diagnosis and using my past “success” as a reason. Seeing all of these experiences really helps center my perspective and validate that I was right to trust my instinct that something was not quite right. Thanks for sharing!
Wow, this describes me exactly. I wasn't diagnosed with depression when i hit the burnout phase of unstructured adulthood. It took a lot of personal advocacy and 11 years to get the right diagnosis. I've only just started stimulants... It's helped so much.
Are you female? I think ADD is often underdiagnosed in girls because it looks more like the symptoms you're describing rather than the more obvious defiance/fooling around/not paying attention that boys often present as.
Yeah, diagnosed at 24 thanks to the observations of my ADHD husband. I even found a lot of difficulty relating to the ADHD girlhood symptoms found in many articles online - I just think the research is still lacking a lot in that area. The "chatty" girl will always be more obvious than the quiet ones, but having some sort of visibility on what it can look like is so helpful. For example, if you tell your friends and family that you are "glad you have anxiety or else you would never get anything done" maybe that's a red flag lol.
Glad you asked. I was hoping OP would request that folks note their bio sex for this reason.
+1 for being an outwardly perfect/attentive/high performing student in grade school while internally 100% winging it. Throw in a heavy dose of trauma-induced people pleasing and you’ve got a recipe for flying fully under the old school diagnostic radar. Didn’t figure it out until I was 35.
yeah. I didnt get diagnosed until I begged for an appointment in my early twenties. My brother went for his first ADHD screening when he was 6. We have the same disorder, we were both suffering without proper help. But his hyperactive type was immediately obvious and disruptive, whilst I slipped under the radar.
I actually got tested as a kid because my brother and mom were ADHD. I still slipped under the radar because the only way he tested for inattentiveness was to get me to count to 100 while trying to distract me. Guess whose hyper focusing ass counted to 100 just fine? I didn't get retested until I sought it out in my early 30's. This time it was on a computer and I scored so high on the inattentive scale that my doctor was amazed I was as functional as I was.
yeah. I got in trouble for doodling instead of working and leaving my seat to talk to friends in like 2nd and 3rd grade but I was real well behaved through the rest of school, though not very good with completing homework especially as everything transitioned from paper to crappy archaic online systems
I wrote the lyrics to the songs stuck in my head in the back pages of my notebooks, and then would flick back to take actual notes when I heard something interesting. The daydreaming was constant, I just found most classes easy (and being able to get A’s on assignments I’d written overnight)
I did this too! Song lyrics and quotes. This whole day dreamy flying under the radar in school theme is my whole life, basically. It hits hard. I was just dx at 46. Reading stuff like this and knowing I wasn’t the only one almost makes me cry. I love it. And as a female of course back then adhd was the last thing anyone suspected. Just “oh she’s such a quiet girl”….while my brain was in space… lol
FWIW, I'm male and my experience was more or less identical to /u/Quatschsky's. I was the extremely quiet, vaguely weird, model student who wasn't paying attention at all and whose academic career disintegrated in college.
(I was undiagnosed because this was the South in the 1970s and 1980s, and I think it would have been physically impossible for me to get a diagnosis. I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 51.)
Chiming in here because this whole comment thread describes me, yet I am male. Didn't get diagnosed till mid 30s.
I struggled through school and college not understanding why it took me so much effort to complete a task that others breezed through.
I had a teacher in middle school tell me once, "I can tell you're doing your best thinking when you're staring out the window." I was, but my thoughts were miles away from the subject being taught!
Still getting used to medication, but it's a whole different world...
Same. I was always day dreaming. I used to read books during class in elementary school too 🤦🏼♀️ As an adult I still struggle to listen during meetings.
this is me too, 100%. I still do the thing where someone is talking to me and i am thinking about how I can look more attentive instead of listening to what they’re saying. “am I nodding enough? too much? eye contact?” its exhausting, tbh!
These comments are all too relatable!
I think I also managed to do well in school up to college (did the bare minimum) and grad school (now struggling) because of my crippling anxiety and fear of failure lol
I never learned proper study habits as I could get by well enough passing tests and doing just enough homework. This made college difficult, but grad school was an organization nightmare and I didn't finish. I wrote a 20 page paper overnight in college and got a B, which in hindsight is clearly not normal.
Omg same! 20 page art history paper written overnight got lost when I touched the plug. Rewrote the whole thing AGAIN the next day after a slight meltdown.
But as a kid? Always off Looking for a quiet book I could read in. Would read multiple books in a day if left to do so. Preferred that to socializing. Got diagnosed at 50 and so much makes sense now.
Also to add - thanks for posting this. I don't often find that I relate to a post so much when it comes to ADHD as a lot of people (not all) talk about how noisy, talkative or disruptive they were. I faced almost the opposite of what other people talk about even when it comes to inattentiveness. I was painfully shy, to the point I wouldn't or rather couldn't talk to anyone; I've also been diagnosed with ASD and if it wasn't for the obvious stress caused by sensory overload I would second guess the diagnosis. Even now I still wonder if it's just adhd that's the cause, with the addition of extreme shyness and sensitivity issues.
No problem :) I've been trying to say stuff like this when applicable post-diagnosis since I know I really needed to hear it before getting a diagnosis (and still do quite frankly)
I was told I was on the ASD spectrum as well, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s just the inner restlessness. It’s not that I can’t look people in the eye, it is that I don’t like to sit through small talk and conversations are difficult because I forget what I want to say if I don’t blurt it out or I struggle to pay follow the conversation if I’m trying to hold the thought until they finish talking. I don’t do well in big social settings or if I’m out with a group of people.
100% relate to this. The teachers and myself only really started to realise there was a problem when I moved to college and did more advanced subjects. Ended up failing Maths as well as a bunch of other subjects.
University I failed the first year and dropped out, before I went to a different one to do something that was more inline with my special interests which I passed just fine. Even at work now I really struggle with reading and understanding documentation, staying present in meetings, and actually answering questions on the subject matter where I am an expert. It's a big problem, no wonder I've lost so many jobs over the years and never really reached the potential of most people that do what I do.
This is exactly me!
Weirdly when I would try to pay attention (looking at the teacher, the board, the screen), I would start falling asleep EVERY.TIME. Even though I was interested in the content and it wasn't boring.
I would have to doodle/do something else and listen at the same time in order to pay attention/stay awake.
But like you, I was very quiet and shy, never got in trouble, did well in school.
Id learn a new formula in math class and id be in my mental playground playing with it. Trying different things. A few minutes, Id snap to reality, they moving on to a different one.
This is interesting to me but for english! I’ve not got a head for maths & I basically slept through classes (always wished I was better at it tho ^^’) but in english I had to dissect every sentence put in front of me lol. It was super fun for me & didn’t get why it wasn’t for others.
Oh it was for all subjects. I got to states competition for competitive newspaper. I was sci-tech, featurez and a bit of photo journ.
Adhd for me is dabbling in multitudes. A bit jumpy but I'm learning to ride the wave and have a couple that stays with me for the long haul.
Reading is fun. So is writing and playing with words. More fun breaking rules and just going ham.
Fair! I’m definitely an all-or-nothing kind of person. My english and art teachers thought I was a fucking savant and both were begging me to go to uni for them (did go to uni for english!).
Butttt every other subject was very much “she’s not disruptive but she’s never listening so her grades are painfully average,, should apply self more blah blah” ^^’
Even now I’m still very all-or-nothing, which is great when that energy is being directed into a productive/life relevant thing.. and not silly things or hobbies (no i totally didn’t forget to write my MA thesis because i learned to sew and physically couldn’t stop..).
Perseverance = physically cant stop. There's a word for it! :D
I be learning to save my energy so I can maintain my mental health and sustain hobbies. Forgiving myself if I cant. Everyday.
This. School wasn’t a problem until later when i needed to study more for it. I spent as much time as possible in the library, and would usually go there during lunch. Often was reading 4 books at all times. Moved a lot so books were easier friends to make than people. My family always thought i had my head in the clouds and wasn’t focused, i don’t think my family knew what to do with that so they just let me be whatever i was. My brother and sister were both high acheiver high focus types, but my sister had adhd very much the high activity and high emotional side of it. Her issues totally overshadowed anything going on with me, i tried to cause as little issues as possible soas not to add on to my parents headaches and it worked pretty well. Again the library is a great solution for all of this, haha.
>The big epiphany for me was realizing that for most of my education I wasn't actually listening in class, I just LOOKED like it and was in my own little world.
Hit the nail on the head
Stop writing my biography.
I was good at reading in class as I would hyperfixate and read ahead. I never did homework though. Because of this my test scores were good, but had trouble handing in homework on time. When I was home I was reading what I wanted to.
Same. However, I was a notorious procrastinator.
One time I forgot I had a 3rd grade science fair project due until the day before and had to do it on the rate of ice melting and spun it as climate science lol. I would also do homework like right before the class it was due.
I managed to be top of my class for years. I even managed to do well the first few years of college. But when I moved into an apartment and had a bunch of chores to do, it all collapsed in on me. I couldn't do work, school, social life, and chores. Just got medicated saturday and I'm over 30.
I feel so validated with this comment and all the others saying the same thing... Like a lot of people don't believe I have it because I got good grades and was very quiet and in honors classes. School was just easy until I got to college that's how I did well. College was the hardest shit ever and I almost dropped out and even had a 2 year break between community and 4 year. People don't understand what's happening on the inside at all and you get good at pretending to be focused so you don't get called out
Yup that’s me 100%, daydreamed my way through school except art and science which engaged me…
I read prolifically before starting my school years and learnt to speed read before I knew it was a technique…in my mind I just wanted to get the end of the story as quickly as possible.
By the time i realised I’d day dreamt most of school away, it was too late to pass exams, my dad was flabbergasted when noticing I was reading LORD OF THE RINGS the night before final math exam…he knew I was escaping the imminent failure…
School sucked for me and I’ve had mediocre jobs in IT all my life.
Wife + 2 kids + mortgage…
But surviving just by sticking to it.
Diagnosed non attentive at 48
I’d get in trouble for reading books under my desk in class because class was boring but I’d still score very high on standardized tests. Teachers just thought I was lazy.
I was exactly the same. I was even tested for ADHD because both my mom and brother were, but I didn't get a diagnosis because the only thing the doctor did to test my attentiveness was ask me to count to 100 while he did things like flick a paper. That's actually the only distraction I remember even though I know he tried others, because it was the first thing he did, and so I hyper focused on the number counting and tuned him out completely. Because I got to 100 and I wasn't really hyper (and also a girl who did well decently in school) he decided I couldn't be ADHD. Never mind that I checked off a ton of the other symptoms.
I was in my early 30's when I finally got tested again, this time by a computer, and it turns out I'm waaay up there on the inattentive scale. I got tested because my driving kept getting worse and worse and I was getting scared. I'm still not the greatest driver, but at least I'm better than I was.
Hi there.
When I was a kid in primary school 5-11 this was the common things in my school reports.
Me, daydreams quite a lot but takes the information in.
Me, has potential but does not apply this to his learning.
Me, is quite intelligent but this gets lost between his brain and putting it in to paper.
This followed me into comprehensive school.
I was never really hyper active but my ADD shows it self mentally my thoughts never switch off and sometimes can be so ‘loud’ that I can’t hear conversations etc.
Edit: Wow I am quite amazed at the response.
Just to add to this through comprehensive school 11-16 1991-1996.
I completely failed I could not organise myself forgot where lessons were, equipment etc
I couldn’t complete tasks or completed them wrong. This ultimately led to me not caring anymore and generally did not do any homework ever.
I went to university in the end at 25 yrs old. This was a task and a half and I felt like I worked really hard and for longer than others but got a 2:2 in the end. So try not to give up folks play to your strengths.
Bill Gates once said this:
I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.
Smart and lazy is a deadly combo, but I'd argue it isn't that we were truly *lazy* as kids - we just were bored. School is boring. I wanted to be building stuff or learning a new instrument or not just constantly *sitting* all day long.
I could've got A's but I wasn't engaged. Why? Because what was being taught was generally either something I already learned or something new that I then I learned faster than everyone else. The school system (at least here in the US) isn't ideal for the kind of kid I was. It was a constant stream of boring shit I already knew or learned faster than everyone else. So, I learned early how I was good at improvisation. I could create something just as good as everyone else on the fly! Why would I try harder than that, if that's all it took to get through the slog of boredom? Doing stuff at the last second at least made it entertaining. Doing stuff ahead of time meant that I'd be bored for longer.
I get how people say that doesn't work in real life, but... I've been doing exactly this and now I'm a software architect at IBM so idk I think there's validity in it, right?
This is so encouraging. I was one of the under-the-radar kids bc I got good grades in school (pinning all your self-worth on being an A student is a good motivator) but you sound exactly like my oldest. He's in 3rd grade and just got his diagnosis. His relationship with school is so different from mine, so it's hard to relate and easy to worry.
But as someone who excelled at school and then completely floundered in the "real world," it's very reassuring to see that the opposite can be true.
Software architect at another big tech company we all undoubtedly use here — this applied to me as well. I learned well, but wasn’t motivated to do school work. Got A’s all day long on tests, but didn’t turn homework in.
I found in the workplace that I was able to do well above average but still struggled to focus and stay interested in things. But I got medicated finally a few months ago, and my output has just become leaps and bounds better, as has my engagement with my work.
If I’d been medicated the first ten years of my career, it’d have accelerated much quicker. Fortunately I’m still under 40, so there’s lots of room to take advantage of things. But it has been incredibly life changing. My ability to stay focused and go deep on problems has skyrocketed. Generally, unmedicated I find it is easier to understand systems at breadth, since each piece requires less sustained focus, which is also valuable. It’s nice to have the option to do either without struggling. Before my diagnosis, I was always at awe with how some of my colleagues could stay on task so long.
100%. The two comments that stick out in my memory the most were “why do you make so many careless errors? I know you understand it.” And “you can answer all the questions in class, why can’t you do the homework?”
Always did well on tests with high pressure, and projects that’s required creativity and had hard deadlines. Doing the summer reading where I had to pace a boring activity… not so easy.
The amount of times I got in trouble for asking for instructions again after losing focus on the oral instructions. Then get told "you should have been paying attention". My reaction was, I thought I was paying attention but now I have no clue what is going on.
Growing up and all the way into middle school, I got in trouble a lot for talking to friends during class, even though I did good on tests. By the time I hit sixth grade, it got so bad that I was kicked out of half my classes. The teachers didn't even write me up; they just wanted me out of the class.
Same, and I pulled off some acrobatics at work. Also became more innatentive, but I still have issues sitting in place too long, and I keept looking for things to do during luls, refused to cut corners.
There were quite a few instances of my procrastinating causing significant issues. I remember teachers always got annoyed I was asking questions to which they had just said the answer.
The teacher being annoyed with the questions is such a real one. I stopped asking questions in math classes because I always struggled with attention. My mind would wander in the middle of taking notes and I was too embarrassed to ask the teacher to go back (it didnt help that I was in honors/AP classes in a really competitive school where the smart kids were exceptionally mean. I remember asking my pre-calc teacher to repeat what she said and she rolled her eyes while the whole class groaned. Traumatizing!)
I would literally spend the night reteaching myself the material from youtube and the textbook because I never got enough out of lessons in school.
I remember one class in high school where the teacher would lecture. And we would have to write down word for word what he said. He said writing things down helped you remember. For me I could absorb the info while freaking out a out writing it all down. I was doing awful on tests. Then my mom got involved and demanded he give me pre written notes and let me record the lesson and just sit there and listen. After that I started passing tests. I didn't even need the notes. His lectures were very interesting and it was easy for me to hold my attention in that situation. (This was a history class and he would get really into the story)
How am I supposed to know?!
In all seriousness, my mind was only ever on my hobbies and obsessions when I was a kid (skateboarding mainly) and that was that. It was a miracle that I managed to do as little homework as I did and it was a failure on the part of my school/parents to not acknowledge possibilities other than laziness.
Exactly how I feel. I was considered too 'intelligent' to go into a trade (horrible problem in society in any case) but didn’t have the academic achievements go on to higher education. So drifted into shit jobs. Still paying for that now at nearly 50. I have a lot of anger that I was dismissed in such a damaging way
This is great, it makes me think of the number of bosses I've had who have tried to get me promoted because I can do well at work and play all the corporate bullshit games, but I just had no interest in it. It sounds like a dream but it's so hard to relate how I feel to "normal" people... because I just don't want it, but everyone else's insistence that I *should* want this gives me weird feelings in the head.
Finally recently diagnosed a year after I decided it's time to change careers away from the desk and try becoming an electrician. Hope I will actually be interested in the promotions this time.
Not double checking my answers on tests and making careless mistakes
"Not applying my potential"
Reading books at the back of the class
Daydreaming
Always handing in my tests at least half an hour earlier than other kids
Talking a LOT lol
Something I know I did then and still do now is only read half the question then answer. Only to get it wrong cause I didn't read the whole thing. This is sometimes skimming the question and not noticing something like "which of the following is NOT..."
I remember looking around at the other kids still doing their tests/checking their work and willing them to hurry up so I wouldn’t be the first one handing mine in yet again.
I remember two things about being in elementary school:
Would not shut up
Would not look up from my book (whatever fantasy novel I was into at the time, I was a huge reader)
I don't remember actually doing much learning in school until I hit middle school. Middle school through college I'm just very very spacey. I would say it's gotten worse in college since lectures are 3 hrs, everyone knows I only have a 20 min attention span. In middle/high school at least it was a different subject of varying importance every 40 minutes with 10 min in between to reset.
Teachers have described me as "bright, but a little too much sometimes". I'm not sure if they minded me reading in class since I still got good grades by not paying any attention then cramming last min. I coasted off natural talent for a good 10 years before falling off.
All through middle and into high school, I'd finish my work and be right back into the latest Shannara or Star Wars book. I'd get a good 20-25 minutes of reading in before the rest of the class finished.
Bro you are me as a kid except I wasn't bright, but a little too much sometimes. I was just reading during class, ignoring teacher, getting As and Bs and Cs in math only(because I hated it)
Then middle school came and I started procrastinating even harder, and legit got so many warnings from my math teacher because I would NEVER do my homework. She put me in a afterschool class for struggling math students because of that. I had As and Bs pretty much every single test.
"Mature for my age", super talkative until I was 6-7 and then super silent. Socially awkward, didn't socialize the best (especially later on, High School was tough) but I was never a total pariah. Overall introverted with some spikes of socializing/over sharing.
I did well in school despite putting very little effort and sometimes forgetting things and being disorganized, until (again, in High School) I started having some difficulties with science subjects - I had zero interest in them and couldn't be bothered to study, and they were increasingly more complex. I was your typical "talented but lazy" kid, I think it was even explicitly stated once or twice.
I wasn't diagnosed at the time, it happened much later. Looking back I don't think it would have helped academically, or not by a lot, but it would have been way easier to establish better and more meaningful relations with others, and not feel left out like I often did. Social interactions without meds were much more overwhelming, I often got lost in the conversation, misinterpreted things, or couldn't follow what others were saying.
I was the quiet kid who didn't say much. But in my head, the conversations never stopped. In school, I was always distracted and couldn't focus. Luckily, I grasped enough to make it to college.
I told my parents I pick up snippets of information and then formulate conclusions off what I heard and what others are doing. And that's what carried me through school
Not hyper. Always in my head and imagination. I performed poorly until 5-6 grade, after that school assignments were slightly less "mechanical". When called out in class I could usually piece together what was said and fake having paid attention. I could cram some homework between classes and get away with it. The stress was like supercharging my memory. I would argue and ask a lot of questions, especially in high school. I was kind of arrogant and annoying, especially to other kids.
I was always sensitive, picky and anxious. Felt like I didnt fit in but was unwilling to do things I disliked or found boring just to be like other kids.
All my teachers thought I was bright, did well on every test, I think my last A was in the second grade lol. Wasn't diagnosed officially until an adult, but I was so far gone in my head by highschool I had a teacher go from trying to get me into gifted to asking my next teacher if I was still a lump on a log 😅
Looking back through old report cards that my mother kept, there are two consistencies. First, shit poor grades unless it was a subject that I really enjoyed and second, comments that read "has the ability to achieve much higher". I've been chasing the second part for 30 + years. I went on to college and graduated with honours but still do not have anything that resembles a career.
The signs were definitely there, labeled gifted as a kid, never studied or even opened a book after school, because i got through stuff faster than others i made my homework at school..
high school was similar the first 2 years but then it hit me, i wasnt gifted or smarter, my brain processed stuff faster or something idk..
but all of a sudden i had to start studying, never knew how so i started flunking, dropping into lower education, until the point where shit was easy again i didnt need to study.. now i obviously regret not having a degree, still cant study so further education is pretty much hopeless
Guess im stuck in my minimum wage home depot kinda job, atleast i get some form diversity in between the mortar, plumbing, woodworking and electricity stuff
Homework was only done at two points in high school for me, either in class right when I got it, or the class before it was due the next day. My mom would always ask if I had homework or if I finished it when I got home. I always said yes because in my mind it was done or would be done by the time I needed to turn it in
I was never hyperactive. I misplaced everything because I used the pile system and my piles would be cleaned or moved by my mom. I would get punished at school and have to put my nose in the wall for forgetting all of my notebooks or homework. I was punished for not paying attention because I wanted to read or draw during class.
26 here and currently staring at my piles while I type this out :)) spent ten minutes yesterday rummaging in them for my keys just to find them in my purse in the other room lolll
Procrastination and forgetful was my middle name. I was a selective mute till about 4th grade then extremely shy. Lived life in my head. Extremely smart but rotted on the vine
Everyone was excited by my abilities in kindergarten, to the point that they moved me to first grade after a month. Tested into the gifted program. I was painfully shy. By third grade was struggling because of homework, but still acing tests. In fourth grade, the teachers called my mom in to discuss possibly putting me in remedial or special ed classes.
Mom was pissed at me. I stayed in the gifted program and barely graduated high school. Always told that I had such potential, if I’d only apply myself.
Your last sentence triggers my gag reflex. If I had a pill for every time my mother said that to me I might have actually succeeded in my gifted program.
I was quiet and shy but in my head there were constant racing thoughts. My grades in school were average, i copied others homework and was always bored. I was fidgety, highly sensitive, demanding and tired most of the time.
I think I most likely got combined, and it f**king sucks. People just straight up disliked and hated me. I never knew the reason as to f**king why.
Later on I learnt that I cannot really control, or it’s freaking hard to control my fidgetiness at times. I can’t process well when I have sensory overload too. I screwed up in the army and got heavily punished for it before too (not a court martial; but basically I had to sign many extra duties).. So, in my country, there is conscription, and male citizens serve 2 years in either the Armed Forces, the Police Force or the Civil Defence Force. For some context, my country is a tiny country in a SEA region. Oh yes, when I went to serve my NS (national service), I hadn’t been formally diagnosed with ADHD yet.
Btw I suspect I could be “on the spectrum” too i.e. ASD or Asperger’s umbrella. It’s not only myself who suspects that possibility; others who crossed paths in my life too — some of them who know a bit and can recognise the traits of people “on the spectrum” (to a certain extent) shared their opinions with me before too. Some professionals who know what they are saying also hinted at that possibility.
But the ADHD does stick out like a sore thumb. Even before my just very fairly recent formal diagnosis, my doctor had suspected I had that condition for quite awhile too already. Anyways, he started me on methylphenidate treatment since earlier this year, so yeah 🤷
There was at least one person with a background in psychology (they studied psychology at at least a Bachelor’s level) who also hinted that I may actually have ADHD (this was before the diagnosis).
My official mental health diagnosis was only anxiety disorder for so long (10+ years at this point, i believe)..
Thanks for reading.
Edit: i have also just learnt to embrace myself as “different”. Being undiagnosed for so long (a large part of my life so far), I developed certain coping mechanisms. Some are unhealthy. I think unaddressed and “missed out” ADHD led to me developing anxiety/depression when I was just shy of turning 18 too.
I’ve learnt to not to care too much about what others think. Like I said, instead of trying to “mask” (which tbh can only work to a certain extent), I have learnt to love myself more. To be kinder and more compassionate to myself. It’s still a struggle though. If people can’t accept me for who I am, then they aren’t worthy to be a part of my life — simple as that.
This is was me too. I was just living life and had plenty of people I got along with but no one went out of their way to be my friend or they would go out of their way to be mean. So I started being mean back, it was the only way I could keep myself safe. Lots of anger issues from being bullied for so long & parentified. I finally got an informal diagnosis of ADHD and it all started to click into place. As a female, as long as I was well behaved, no one asked what was wrong when I was previously a very good student, and then the last few years of school, just doing the bare minimum. It’s been a long road to feel somewhat “seen” by people. It makes me sad that I had to go through that - I just needed one person take it upon themselves to help but no one did.
I got good grades but have always been an huge procrastinator and very stubborn when it came to doing a difficult task-at home. At school I experienced EXTREME RSD in which if I even thought the teacher was looking at me with disappoint, I’d cry. So because of this, I was able to mask the procrastination and other things.
(English isn't my first language so sorry for any mistakes!)
I was constantly drawing or doing anything else instead of paying attention in class. Every teacher I had told my mom the same thing "she's smart, she just needs to focus and try harder". I almost failed high school because I couldn't pass a subject but that teacher understood I had trouble and "approved" me. Like.. he was nice enough to put me a 5 (C) in my final grade.
Fast forward to next year (bachillerato) and I started going downhill even my history teacher told me he would make me take an exam another day 'cause I was LOST. I failed more than one subject throughout those two years and I had to take an exam in july to be able to graduate and take the exams for university (also went wrong and didn't get the grade I needed to enter).
Now? I'm not better but I know my limits. At least I know and understand why there are things I find too difficult than normal.
Talkative as hell, never napped during nap time, and always tried to talk to people during nap time. I honestly just couldn’t shut up 😂. I did well in school but when I got to college, I crashed and burned. Then as I got into my 20’s I was labeled “lazy” etc and at 25 I finally got the diagnosis of ADHD that I knew of all along, felt good to be heard.
I was the good girl who was sat with the boys who were badly behaved or loud ADHDer’s. I politely daydreamed the whole time, couldn’t stay on track, couldn’t focus but I suppose I did it with sweetness. I was talkative until I got in trouble too many times and was publicly shamed so I became hypervigilant and utterly silent. God I hated school so much.
I would draw and stuff on papers during class. Like tests, notebooks work sheets. But i would be finished in class. So every chance that they had. My teachers would use me as example for what to not do on the worksheet or test or notebook or homework. In front of the whole class. It was embarrassing. But everyone didnt like me much in school. So it didn’t bother me to much anymore. I mean the worst was when I was jumped and spit on in the girls locker room or other shit like that.
Not hyperactive at all. Held back my first year of elementary school (was in the 1st grade 2 years). I was a C student and graduated w/ 2.2 GPA.
Rarely completed homework regardless of the abuse. Lots of "you're a smart kid, you just need to try harder / apply yourself." from my parents and any other adult or teacher. As I got older I would frequently fall asleep during classes that were boring and never kept up with reading assignments and homework.
I was then (and now in my 40s) not meant for this society. I'd rather be doing something else with what little time and energy I can pull together.
"\[CiderDrinker2\] is a popular, vibrant and out-going member of the class, with a cheerful disposition and a lively sense of humour. He contributes well to class discussion, but he must remember to put his hand up, wait his turn, and not interrupt others. His written work is bold, imaginative and always interesting to read. He writes with real flair for his age. Unfortunately, he is let down by frequent spelling mistakes and careless errors. His handwriting is sloppy. When engaged in a task he can become totally absorbed, but finds it hard to apply himself to work that does not interest him. Often I have found him day-dreaming, doodling, or writing his own stories when he should be completing a written exercise. He is very quick to absorb new material and concepts, has wide knowledge far beyond the curriculum, and displays obvious intelligence and intellectual curiosity. This enables him to finish complex and novel assignments with apparent ease. However, for some unknown reason he seems to struggle to complete routine tasks. It is almost as if he finds hard things easy and easy things hard. He is clearly bright and has so much potential, if only he would really concentrate and apply himself more consistently, and stop making careless errors. It would also help if he could find the classroom by himself. He's been at this school for four years now and shouldn't get lost in the corridors. Sometimes he just wanders off and is discovered at the back of the library reading books far in advance of his age until someone goes to find him and bring him back to class. And why is he always losing his pens and his lunch-box? It's almost as if he just isn't paying attention."
Pretty much every school report was just variations on that, adapted to age, from 5 to 18. No one told me I had ADHD. I had to figure it out when I was in my 40s. The signs were so bleeding obvious.
Seriously, this thread in general, but especially your reply, is basically begging for school systems to add some autocorrect rules into Word, "did you mean 'shows possible indications of ADHD'?"
"Very intelligent, but doesn't apply himself...daydreams". By middle school, the school system warehoused me more and more into learning disabilities classrooms. The teaching could not interest me. My mind felt like tires on ice, never getting traction. It took me eight years to graduate college. But I'll add that I also loved college. It was the first time I was excited by education.
Mind feeling like “traction on ice” is such a good analogy!
I can also relate to not doing well in grade school and then enjoying college. I was kicked out of school when I was 13 and sent to a school for other people who had been kicked out. Basically it was a daycare for teenagers who misbehaved so we wouldn’t be wondering the street. I started taking classes at a local community college, where for the first time I felt like people treated me like an adult and I could take classes that I wanted to take etc. I now have two masters degrees - it’s amazing what our brains can do for us when it kicks in to gear:)
I was very bright in school, did everything with ease. I was always the one talking and making jokes in the he back of class though. You could say I was hyperactive? Not in the physical sense anyways.
Until I hit about 14-15. Then maths and science classes became very difficult for me. In college I had to study very, which I obviously didn’t know how to do well.
Later in life I job hopped about every other year. Couldn’t keep them. People saw great potential but I didn’t live up to it. Often was tagged as a slacker or someone who didn’t care. My output was very variable.
I got diagnosed a couple months ago, everything now makes sense.
No teachers would have described me as inattentive, but family and friends joked I had the 'concentration/attention span of a flea'. In primary, I had a really colourful inner life I think, so just went on various imaginary adventures in my heard...or distracted other people by incessantly talking (I did get told off for chatting a lot). I was also always in charge of games in the playground because I was quite fun/lively/creative to be around, and made up cool worlds to play imaginary games in. In secondary school I relied on my ability to 'work out how to do it later' so could somehow make up what I was doing or make up an answer, to cover the fact I hadn't listened to anything in class, which meant teachers thought I concentrated well. I also relied on pulling all-nighters (sometimes multiple) before deadlines or exams, as manufacturing that kind of stress was the only way I got stuff done. I also had anorexia from age 13 to about 16, which I think was partly me desperately trying to bring some order to the chaos and inability to focus or function I felt inside. Everything fell apart at uni because the work was too tricky for me to not concentrate on or leave to the last minute - so I had a breakdown.
Not hyperactive. I daydreamed a lot, I hyper fixated on things from a really young age. I always did well in school, things have always come really easy to me when it came to learning. I was always told that my work ethic would fluctuate, I always had problems with procrastination.
None of this became an issue that affected my life negatively until I got older and had to mix school and adult responsibilities. ADHD was never mentioned to my parents at all, which is why they’re so skeptical of my diagnosis. I think my teachers never looked deeper into my behavior because I had good grades, so nothing else mattered to them.
I was the problem child. I was always getting in trouble for breaking rules in school and i just didn't want to be told what to do. I didn't do well in most subjects apart from economics which i scored 92 out of 100 in my IGCSE just because i liked that teacher and that teacher treated me with respect and was very patient with me. The way my mind worked was if i liked you i would do everything not to let you down..
Was diagnosed with C (combined) type but tbh I'm mostly innatentive.
So I was actually seen by child psychiatrists when I was like 2/3 because I couldn't speak appropriately for that age group. (NHS, I'm from UK) And also used to stim by flapping my arms and running around in circles? 🫣
Diagnosed with a developmental language disorder (DLD) but after a year or two of many home visits and a lot of encouragement they deemed me "normal".
Was originally going to be put on an early warning for SEN for when I started school, but got taken off shortly before it started. And all of this support stopped.
Honestly the first few years of school, that I can remember, I was pretty much fine. With a few incidents of acting out.
But come year 3 (idk what grade that is equivalent to in the USA, 3/4?) new schooI and homework. I would just clock watch a lot in class, while daydreaming, and stimming by rubbing my thighs furiously under the table.
I was also very sensitive and got upset/overwhelmed about specific things incredibly easily, usually to do with changes in time table not happening as planned, still got fairly decent to average grades though. And developed social and general anxiety.
Had moments where I would act out and be inappropriate and/or disruptive occasionally.
This essentially continued until I got diagnosed at 25. Getting worse at secondary school and sixth form college (middle/high school in us) where it really started affecting my grades. My social life and so on.
Come to employment/work and university (college) that was the point when I started to realise there was something wrong that they missed all those years ago 😅🥲.
Daydream 24/7. Cannot, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to listen in class. But for biology classes, my attention was a 101%.
No homework is done. I lied a lot because… i just did not want to or couldnt bring myself to do homework. Honestly i forgot 90% of my homework lmao.
Lots of “she has great potential if she just tried”.
Being sleepy. I was sleepy ALL THE DAMN TIME. Like out of the norm sleepy. No matter what i did i was sleepy.. the brain fog was HORRIBLE when I was in my late teens.
Lots of dumb careless mistakes. I could check my work 3 times but somehow get something wrong. Missed appointments. Missed tuitions. Just because i forgot.
Always late for school. And then i just stop bothering turning up on time. Went to school with a wrong pair of shoes before… that’s how muddle headed i am.
Now I’m an adult trying her best BUT IT STILL FEELS THE SAME LOL
I would get engrossed in a book and have to be virtually shaken to realize class had restarted lol.
Trouble making friends and emotionally regulating. Ritualistic to an infuriating degree- still trying to figure out if that's an early acquired coping mechanism or some comorbidity undiagnosed as of yet.
I'm not inattentive, I have combined type, but I do know from the reading I've done that hyperactivity tends to decrease with age and maturity (only up to a point) even for those with the hyperactive kind. As you get older you get better at masking I think, as well as just the increase in impulse control as your prefrontal cortex develops. But obviously it doesn't "cure" you of ADHD, the symptoms are just different.
I used to be able to daydream so vividly it felt like I was watching a tv show or movie. I’d spend most of class staring at the clock/out the window or fully zoned out. Was always the first kid to finish taking tests because I just wanted it to be done with so I could doodle or daydream. Never took tests in order for some reason, always hopped around. I’d occasionally mess up on the scantron or miss questions when I did this, but usually it worked out fine. Described as “organized chaos” by my teachers and family, binder, desk, and locker was always shoved full of crap and I’d turn in wrinkled papers all the time.
Performed well in high school but college became incredibly difficult, I ended up switching to a major so I could pick my own classes related to my interests because I barely squeezed passing grades for my intro stats, bio, and history classes. It became too challenges to pay attention in a lecture environmental at a big public university
Daydreamy, mostly. Easily distracted, slow at doing my work but I was also bright so the teachers were impressed with me when they could get me to engage. I was interested and curious about most of the things we did at school but I did also get into trouble for chatting to a friend or looking out of the window. Probably dyspraxic though I never got a diagnosis for that - I had no body awareness and was always bumping into things/people and was hopeless at sport.
Russell Barkley did a video last week about the 3 different types of ADHD though and he says they are just presentations and will probably change over the course of your life. The kinds of behaviours classified as hyperactive typically reduce as people go into adulthood. I think that's why they used to say kids outgrew ADHD - it was before the inattentive symptoms were really recognised.
Undiagnosed. I was perfectly fine as a kid, super quiet and attentive, but started showing problems in high school; that's when I became a chronic sleeper in class. Teachers never gave me flack for it though, since I was the very gifted top of the class one, and I didn't particularly disrupt the class either. There was this one time a newer teacher got annoyed and purposely woke me up to ask me a question about the subject being reviewed. I gave the correct response and went back to dozing off. The teacher was in shock but said nothing xD
If anything, I gave more trouble to teachers in terms of giving them extra work, but none ever complained about it. I would cram for exams just one day or two in advance, only to forget everything the moment the exam ended. So when we started getting exams pushed the very day of the exam because of the rest of the class' whining for extra time, I would get furious and often ask to take the exam as originally planned. In practice, that meant teachers ended up having to prepare 2 different exams. Looking back, it was a mean thing to do to my teachers, and I started to appreciate the extra time to study once I got into college (as it was impossible to cram everything within 2 days, and it seemed like there was never enough time to review everything before an exam). But back in HS, a delayed exam meant that I had to cram everything all over again; hence my disgust.
My mom called me the absent minded professor. I was bright but would day dream a lot. I was very messy, and bad with social cues until middle school/high school age so I was picked on a lot until that point. I really excelled in school subjects I liked, but barely got through on the others. Good test taker, bad homework doer.
I was a quiet kid who got good grades but never really paid attention to school as a kid. My test taking skills carried me through elementary and middle school. I got used to the praise of being super smart and when high school hit me and I actually had to do stuff on time and study I got wrecked. Parents were disappointed I wasn’t doing well and I lost the praise I was always given… It’s kinda weird knowing I shouldn’t rely on that praise but I still strive for it and don’t get it as much as I used to
very slow. i made a lot of errors in everything, even if i knew the good answer. ''i needed to focus more''. i was always the girl with weird obsessions like... indiana jones, or video games ( in early 90's, video games was not something a lot of kids experimented). i was called a weirdo.
it didn't bothered me because it was the only thing i got for myself. i was good at nothing, especially after the age of 8. not music, not sport, not school... my mom told that i was the proof that a kid can read a lot and still be bad at writing.
Before around 8 yo i would still be the better one in school, sometimes, to remember a text or like that. but after that idk... there was just too much. it was too much. too much things at the time, and it never stopped. then you don't have the basics, and you have to learn more...
it was too hard anyway so i was just thinking about something else until it was time to go lol
i end up re-do years when i was 14, before the end of the mandatory school years (not usa system)
and then is when real shit started lol
I was quiet, bright and had good grades in class but during recess I got scolded almost every day for climbing trees or on top of someplace that wasn’t meant to be climbed.
I got so much negative feedback in Primary School that by the time I got to High School I had just given up. I tried, but it seemed like my teachers could only see what I was doing wrong no matter how much effort I put into my work. So, what was the point?
Looking back at my reports, it's like every one of my teachers had a different piece of the puzzle and no one could be bothered putting it all together.
I was homeschooled and my mom always told me that I would be staring out the window in my own little world. I would also try to distract her from doing her lesson because I was bored with the topic.
I was super active as a kid but the older I got the more tired I became, I procrastinated all the time but people kept just expecting me to grow out of it because I was so different as a kid (I also wasn’t diagnosed until I was 17). I constantly tried to mask by excelling in school and at my hobbies. I was even praised for being one of the best choir students in my year group. Apparently, my gifts and talents were enough to convince people that I wasn’t struggling and that I just didn’t care about certain things.
I was called a daydreamer. I did okay at school, revised fairly last minute for exams.
I don’t think there were many pointers in my childhood.
My parents struggled to give examples of symptoms.
I’ve been diagnosed but I do sometimes doubt it to be honest.
I'm officially diagnosed Inattentive, but I'm definitely combined.
My report cards and progress reports literally all said some variation of "Student is very bright/smart/capable, but
Quiet and shy. I found it hard to pay attention and I got terrible grades in school. I day dreamed a lot. I got in trouble for it too, and got caught doodling all over my text books. I’d make careless mistakes a lot in my school work and tests. I would her overwhelmed and cry easily.
Something I struggled with then and especially now, I won’t be able to pay attention unless I have an genuine interest or something life threatening etc yatta yatta) in, and struggle really hard to pay attention. Even if I KNOW I have to get it done and if someone isnt relying on me, I probably won’t get it done.
I was always talkative as a child but have definitely become more introverted as an adult
I wasn't a big talker at school (didn't really have friends so nobody to talk to) but I always wanted to be up walking around, looking out the window, etc. I had a deal with my second grade teacher that I could be up but had to at least be near my desk, she even let me sit on it which I thought was the best thing ever
I don't remember; I wasn't paying attention to my own behavior and storing that information for later use.
All of my understanding of how I behaved as a child comes from second hand accounts from my parents, teachers, and other adults in my life. I would rarely appear to be paying attention to the task at hand, specifically if it was conversing with others. But then when pressed on not *appearing* to be listening, I'd be able to demonstrate that I was, and this took people by surprise. I'd often fidget or play with whatever was within arms reach, which was distracting to other kids around me and that resulted in my desk being moved to the corner facing the wall in 3rd grade. I would mentally check assignments off my list upon completion, and regularly forget to actually turn them in to the teacher for grading, and some of the teachers were not open to the idea that I had actually done it on time.
It was clear that I didn't operate the way most kids did. Some people around me were accepting of that, some were passively agreeable to it, and some felt that it was unacceptable.
I was always super, super talkative. I wasn't hyper, but I had issues with patience. It would take me a very long time to go to sleep. At one point, I would lay in bed and listen to an entire CD and then some before I fell asleep. My mind was always going, daydreaming in class, distracted by small things, and having to ask what we were supposed to do with an assignment right after the teacher finished explaining it. Then I also had to have the directions told to me several times. I would not study and cram right before the test and usually just associate the answer with exactly what I had just crammed (kinda like short-term photographic memory). I constantly had short-term hyper fixations/obsessions with things and people. It was hard to make true friends because I felt like I was "too much" to deal with being so talkative.
I was just impulsive enough to never get caught but never do anything extremely terrible or illegal. Usually, at the half-semester point, I would have a C, cram, and do last-minute makeup assignments to scrape a b. Somehow, I was number 82 out of over 900 kids in my class. I was polite, well-mannered, respectful of adults, and followed rules. However, I'm learning now that I am very certain I am autistic and that is what held me back from fully giving in to the impulsiveness and always wearing a mask around certain people to be who they expected instead of myself. For almost every ADHD extreme, it was like my autism countered with wanting to follow the rules and do the right thing which caused me a ton of anxiety and being the "wet blanket" in the group.
"Away with the fairies" "clumsy" "forgetful" "lazy" "if only she would focus her energy on the task in hand" "daydreamer" "you would lose your head if it wasn't screwed on"
As a kid I was always in trouble in school. Getting kicked out of class for being a distraction in class. Very impulsive also. Looking back I had so many red flags but it got overlooked I guess. I played many sports and was always outside with friends when I wasn’t playing sports. I think sports did help me though with some of the hyperactivity. Now that I’m older my hyperactivity has settled down but I’ve very inattentive and impulsive still. My impulsiveness went from acting out as a kid to spending money on hobbies I’ll only do for a few months…
I basically talked my way through childhood. Nonstop talking. At the end of 7th grade when everyone got achievement awards, my language arts teacher presented me with the Golden Mouth Award. Academically, I was pretty advanced until high school when my social life became more interesting than my grades. Now at 35, I'm perfectly content keeping to myself, but focus and motivation to follow through on things are my biggest struggles.
I remember transferring from a private Catholic school (behavior problem, though I don't remember what), to a public school. They started me in my normal grade, but we're going to skip me into the next grade after a week or so. But behavior problems. I remember being sent to sit at the arts desk in back of the classroom, as a sort of time out. They gave me the math test at that desk. I drew elephants on it instead. I wasn't shy.
i was a... behavioural child lol. i get pretty bad emotional dysregulation so that plus autistic meltdowns meant i had a lot of 'rages' as my mum called them- never really at school though, just at home. i couldn't explain it but I'd get so white hot angry while arguing with my mum over something that i even blacked out a few times. these mostly petered out by the time i was 16/17.
I've come to realise i also have PDA issues which led to a lot of questioning teachers/authority in primary school. i was mostly an annoying student more than anything though lmao, mostly stuff like calling out in class/being the class clown/distracted by books/not applying myself etc (i did get in school suspended a couple times). books were one of the few things i could really hyperfixate on as a kid and i spent almost all my free time reading (my parents were pretty strict with screen time too) which gave me a good vocabulary & understanding of English. i was the classic 'gifted kid who doesn't *apply themselves*' and could coast on smarts til around grade 10 but by then most report cards had some comment about how i was bright but was struggling due to inattention & falling behind on work. trying to do assignments was hell lmao, my mum ended up sitting next to me and supervising my screen so i couldn't dick around online.
oh also forgot to add im mid 20s f and wasn't diagnosed with anything til i was an adult & seeking treatment myself.
I theorize that the inattentive subtype is simply kids who have managed to figure out how to convert their impulsivity into forms that don't bother adults. I was very well behaved in school, but I hummed constantly and had to run around a lot at recess to get rid of all my excess energy. I had a billion interests and projects on the go at home but never finished any of them. On the emotional axis, I was sensitive and empathetic. I got homesick easily and never managed to go any significant distance from home until I was in my late 20s.
The kid who misbehaves constantly has the same problem; they just never figured out how to hide it from the adults.
So quiet. My parents always joked that it was so easy to forget I existed half the time bc I was so quiet. My teachers even forgot I existed in class so much that my teacher in elementary school moved my desk right in front of his desk. He figured by sitting me in his direct line of site, I wouldn’t be forgotten.
My mom said I was the “perfect” kid bc she could sit me down anywhere and I would just sit there quietly. Turns out that’s not anywhere close to a “perfect” kid bc I’m so much more messed up than either of my sisters.
Kindergarten- I hid my teachers’ erasers and liked to cause problems. They stuck me in gifted.
After that, I was quiet and shy and the ideal student. I did my homework during class and got by without paying attention
I was passed through each grade all the way through high school. My mom has my old report cards with all Fs and Ds to prove it. I most certainly would have benefitted from a different learning style or school, but that wasn't an option available to us...
I was painfully shy, had an overactive imagination, and was tired all the time. I have memories from early elementary school, falling asleep in class when I was in maybe 1st or 2nd grade. I always had a messy room and poor hygiene because I was too preoccupied with writing stories or intensely playing with my toys to do all the things I was supposed to be doing (thankfully as an adult now, I always keep my room clean and have way better hygiene haha). I was a really good student academically, always getting 100s on quizzes and I could even read books by myself and write sentences by the time I was around 4 years old. When I was in early elementary school, my behavior on report cards usually said "needs improvement", but I excelled in a lot of other ways. I guess it had its benefits and drawbacks as a kid. I’m finishing college now and I’m still an A student, but my behavior has changed for the better and I’m much more organized. I’m glad things worked out and that I am still holding onto that passion, creativity, and drive that I had when I was little.
Talkative and a daydreamer. I used to fail those binder quizzes they would give and was always told I was unorganized (accurate). I was never in trouble at school, though, and I managed all A’s and B’s (with a C or two in HS and one in MS because chemistry makes no sense) because I’m naturally smart. College was when it hit me and I was finally diagnosed. Figured it out and graduated with my BA and here I am, and I’m just fine ❤️
Quiet and shy. I was inattentive but I was still able to do well in school. I was very sensitive and still am as an adult.
I was more hyperactive at home. I was diagnosed as an adult. Similar to how I was as a child, I’m quiet at work and can be very hyperactive at home still or either too too tired to do anything after work…there’s no in between. I think I masked very well as a kid and all hell broke loose once I transitioned into full on adulthood outside of college. I was always getting trouble at work for a plethora of things and my boss was also very unprofessional and so it resulted in really bad anxiety and difficulty controlling my emotions. I improved as I moved through my twenties but still had a hard time with work. I ended up switching jobs sites and my bosses weren’t so toxic which helped me out a lot too.
I think I was already quite inattentive, but it was probably harder to notice because as a kid, things were more stimulating, even class. In primary school, we had manual activities instead of just lessons, and frequent recess, so I think it was harder to notice that I was inattentive and unfocused. I would also forget some things, but my mother was always checking my bag for example, so it was also noticed less. It's when I started high school where I packed my own things and had long tedious classes that I really started to realise how hard it was for me to focus. That's when I was starting to get a lot of comments from teachers about either talking too much with my classmates during lessons, or drawing in my notebooks too much because in my opinion it helped me listen but the teachers thought it meant I wasn't listening.
The teacher had the school send me to a psychologist lol
Got up in the middle of her talking (3rd grade) so I could look out the window; or eat snacks while she was talking; put glue between my fingers and wait for it to dry lol
I was still listening so I didn’t get why I couldn’t also look out the window? Why could I play with paper clips while you talk? I need to be doing something physical while I listen or else I’ll just completely daydream and miss everything.
I was mostly quiet at school…and was probably more hyperactive at home. I’m that way as an adult now quiet at work with anxious energy and hyperactive in my home life. I rarely got in trouble at school and would be very sensitive if I did. I was sensitive if someone raised their voice at me or if I got in trouble as child or adult at work. I spent my early adult years crying but was also in a toxic work environment. I got better as I got older but still struggled to get things done but my bosses weren’t toxic.
I was pretty obviously hyperactive and had a serious inability to focus. Was expelled from my first school for being disruptive age 6, failed every exam despite being considered clever and being in the top set all through school. Was often lost in my thoughts and imagination but also very quick witted and light hearted which I now think was a coping mechanism. I never and still don’t had many friends and would have one very close friend but that’s it. Looking back I was obviously struggling but no one noticed. Was only diagnosed at 53.
I wasn't hyperactive, only in speech. As in, i talked a lot, hard and fast. There was always something on my mind i wanted to share with others.
School did go well, even though i didn't pay attention, everything came really easy to me, until i started university. Did not get shit done for 5 years, cause i couldn't just wing it and like working behind a bar better. Got a diploma after 9 years but a level lower than uni. Started working as a manager for the restaurant i worked at and realized that this is not for me forever. So i decided to go back to study. I kept my job and now i am doing my masters degree as well, It is tough, but i guess rewarding once i get through it.
I could walk, talk, ride a bike, read and do maths earlier than all of my peers, but I didn’t talk to adults, I had trouble sitting still unless I was focusing on something I loved and people thought I might be deaf because I didn’t react to them. I had a lot of talents and no discipline. I loved martial arts, still do, because I could fight people in a way that was safe. Still got in fights at school though. Before I was sent to school, I had to be examined by some psychologist (I think everyone had to) and she told my parents I was autistic. Which is possible, but no one ever followed up. I also had an imaginary friend and saw ghosts. Everyone liked me and simultaneously I never fit in. And my grandmother recently told me that she thought I might have been assaulted or something as a child because I couldn’t stand men. In my mind I didn’t like or dislike anyone. Some men were just too loud in my opinion.
I feel like all of that should have been a little concerning to my parents or teachers, but I was diagnosed at 24 when I took it into my own hands because I was struggling lol
I was a calm asshole with attention problems. Generally quiet and shy but mad when interrupted. That's how teachers described me in primary school. As time went on I got better at controlling my emotions. I generally had problems with time blindness, deadlines, managing my tasks. I also fiercely refused to do anything that wasn't interesting to me at the moment. I got terrible grades everywhere beside those few courses I liked but teachers were always surprised when I actually put in some work in order to pass at the end of the semester. So yeah "talented but lazy and mean" for me.
I am undiagnosed but everything is adding up now that I look back on things. Grew up in the 80s. I was pretty hyper, had a stutter (probably unrelated). Did some strange things. This also doesn’t apply but brought a dead snake into show in tell in kindergarten(put it in my backpack). I supposedly mooned the 6th grade class (also kindergarten) As I moved up I got all As, finished my work really fast, never had homework. But talked all the time in class. my name stayed up on the chalkboard every day and only name really. they’d just keep adding checks to it. played all sports. when i hit 12 or so i became a bit more introverted. Still did ok in school but studied very little. i’m college it was a major challenge bc studying was important but was so hard to force myself to do it. i’d go to library and within 15 minutes i’d be on computer lab checking emails. As I got older my memory is terrible, dreams are extremely vivid, so hard for me to read, watch a full movie or stay on task working. Who knows really but i have a feeling i had some form of it a long time ago and went undiagnosed and of course it doesn’t just fully go away
Struggling with chronic fatigue/pain, sleepy. Only not sleepy when disassociating into books or games.
Now still the same, except that physical co-morbidities means I can't even do those things.
I grew up in an academically intense area of the country and did well but never as well as I could’ve done. I would draw to pay attention. When I looked at my drawings I could remember exactly what the teacher was saying. It’s something to do with combined visual and kinetic memory. Unfortunately only my parents believed me. I had teachers rip up my drawings in front of the class and scream awful things at me, had my notebook confiscated, etc. My mom had to talk to the principal about it who actually said she dealt with the same thing and thankfully advocated for me. Fun stuff! I also daydreamed a ton. No hyperactivity. I had ongoing, complex, movie-like stories in my head all the time. The drawing was the only thing that helped. These things are why I love being an adult contrary to a lot of people. Being a kid with a learning disability and another undiagnosed medical condition that I wouldn’t be believed about until adulthood was quite traumatic.
I was inattentive. I also remember SO many times I was quite literally bored to tears. It felt so hard to do anything mentally stimulating even though I wanted to. I did not do well in school but also never bothered to try to study either
I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous way for anyone to address ' bad ' behavior. Please try not to allow yourself to feel too awful about it?
I was in school a LOT of years ago, before ADHD was recognized and dealt with beyond ' hyperactive ' and I wasn't ( much ). Teachers absolutely knew I was reading another book inside the text and drawing too. Just got bored after blowing through material. Point being they knew and must have had the teacher radar thing telling them what was up. So before this stuff was really recognized trust the ( real ) pros to pick up on us you know?
Looking back ( and please no one be upset with this ) picked up a ton of interests going down ADHD rabbit holes, still at them.
Guess I'm saying that idiotic book your teacher has is wildly not ok. And please try not to allow that kind of thing to define you? The word ' bad ' bugs me. A LOT.
I’m inattentive and was diagnosed at 14, but didn’t take a stimulant until recently
I never applied myself and couldn’t remember anything unless I studied the night before a test. My behavior was god awful and I was an emotional wreck always doing/saying impulsive things that would get me in trouble
Was also bullied a lot for OCD symptoms and not sure if ADHD made this worse or not… luckily being treated for both now
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I was very quiet and painfully shy. I never got in trouble - I was very much a "star" student for my whole education. People close to me might've described me as goofy or ditzy. I don't really relate to the common ADHD childhood experiences that I see all the time. The big epiphany for me was realizing that for most of my education I wasn't actually listening in class, I just LOOKED like it and was in my own little world. And surely if you pretend you are listening, you are. I never had any behavioral or attention concerns from teachers or my parents though.
This is me to a T. I somehow managed to get all A's and B's (maybe a C here or there but I'd always get it up before end of year) so I slipped under everyone's radar. Once the structure of grade school was gone my life became a disorganized wreck.
Yeah you have just put my experience to words. Nobody noticed I wasnt paying any attention because I was too shy to disrupt class. Instead I just daydreamed and managed to get good grades because I honestly found it trivial. When I got to university, I completely crumbled
You guys are my people. School was ez pz except for 1 or 2 mandatory classes i hated. In my country we have a lot of flexibility with subject choices so just picked the ones i was actively interested in/good at. For the 2 (out of 7) classes i didn’t like I just daydreamed through them & caused no trouble. Got great grades. Then uni hit & i had no teacher to guide me & uhhh.. I’ve failed 3 years.. one in a program that was a bad fit for me anyway, one in a program i liked, but had a practical placement I botched because I didn’t know how to submit the paperwork (because I wasn’t listening..), and one year of my MA because i couldn’t get it together enough to write my thesis.. all this was while undiagnosed.
Damn, I’m failing too. Best of luck to ya.
Also quite the same though I was behind in the majority of classes, I was just put into low skill classes and left behind, until college I’d excelled in one single subject.
*When I got to university, I completely crumbled* This happened to me more than once. I skipped fourth grade and never recovered in half my classes, despite a torturous summer of private teaching at the school. Then when I went to community college and university, every class was different and never recovered in some of them. There has to be a learned component here of repeated history allowing us to autopilot, and when that is disrupted, we're lost.
That explains why I did so much better in gradeschool vs Highschool. Up til 8th grade I was able to pull on past knowlege and I got away with autopiloting. In hs though, thats when I had to learn new concepts and I couldnt autopilot my way through. I still went on autopilot but I never understood the material.
I think the only reason I did well in school was because A) I love to read and textbooks were my friends and B) I'm really good at test taking. The homework portion of my grades was low because I always forgot to do it, and I could literally walk out of a class and not be able to tell you what I'd learned, but I was a pro at cramming and good at remembering what I read, at least short term. College was actually better for me because no one yelled at me for not taking notes. The problem is that listening and writing down what I heard at the same time meant either I didn't actually listen, or my notes were useless because I'd fall behind and only catch half of the lecture. Not taking notes meant that I could keep track of what was being said a bit better and didn't get so lost.
I'm sad that other people went through the same thing, but it does take some of the sting out of it looking back years with a diagnosis and knowing that I'm not alone in experiencing it.
Exactly me!
This. I was a model student. Naturally intelligent, enjoyed reading and the novelty of learning could zone out and do stuff last minute and pull it off. Used over scheduling and anxiety to make my executive disfunction function. Take away the structure and add parenthood with a good dose of burnout and boom train wreck.
Wow, this was my exact experience. Refused to believe anything was wrong for so long because I managed to power through, until the realities of unstructured college life, then corporate America, and now parenthood hit. Recently diagnosed at 35 and working with the doctor to find the right med/dosage. Already seeing an improvement. But even now, I have a hard time fully accepting the diagnosis and using my past “success” as a reason. Seeing all of these experiences really helps center my perspective and validate that I was right to trust my instinct that something was not quite right. Thanks for sharing!
Why, hello there big brother. You have just described my entire life all the way down to the burnout train wreck.
Wow, this describes me exactly. I wasn't diagnosed with depression when i hit the burnout phase of unstructured adulthood. It took a lot of personal advocacy and 11 years to get the right diagnosis. I've only just started stimulants... It's helped so much.
SAME
Yep .. I feigned listening - a lot !
Are you female? I think ADD is often underdiagnosed in girls because it looks more like the symptoms you're describing rather than the more obvious defiance/fooling around/not paying attention that boys often present as.
Yeah, diagnosed at 24 thanks to the observations of my ADHD husband. I even found a lot of difficulty relating to the ADHD girlhood symptoms found in many articles online - I just think the research is still lacking a lot in that area. The "chatty" girl will always be more obvious than the quiet ones, but having some sort of visibility on what it can look like is so helpful. For example, if you tell your friends and family that you are "glad you have anxiety or else you would never get anything done" maybe that's a red flag lol.
Glad you asked. I was hoping OP would request that folks note their bio sex for this reason. +1 for being an outwardly perfect/attentive/high performing student in grade school while internally 100% winging it. Throw in a heavy dose of trauma-induced people pleasing and you’ve got a recipe for flying fully under the old school diagnostic radar. Didn’t figure it out until I was 35.
Same
yeah. I didnt get diagnosed until I begged for an appointment in my early twenties. My brother went for his first ADHD screening when he was 6. We have the same disorder, we were both suffering without proper help. But his hyperactive type was immediately obvious and disruptive, whilst I slipped under the radar.
I actually got tested as a kid because my brother and mom were ADHD. I still slipped under the radar because the only way he tested for inattentiveness was to get me to count to 100 while trying to distract me. Guess whose hyper focusing ass counted to 100 just fine? I didn't get retested until I sought it out in my early 30's. This time it was on a computer and I scored so high on the inattentive scale that my doctor was amazed I was as functional as I was.
yeah. I got in trouble for doodling instead of working and leaving my seat to talk to friends in like 2nd and 3rd grade but I was real well behaved through the rest of school, though not very good with completing homework especially as everything transitioned from paper to crappy archaic online systems
I wrote the lyrics to the songs stuck in my head in the back pages of my notebooks, and then would flick back to take actual notes when I heard something interesting. The daydreaming was constant, I just found most classes easy (and being able to get A’s on assignments I’d written overnight)
I did this too! Song lyrics and quotes. This whole day dreamy flying under the radar in school theme is my whole life, basically. It hits hard. I was just dx at 46. Reading stuff like this and knowing I wasn’t the only one almost makes me cry. I love it. And as a female of course back then adhd was the last thing anyone suspected. Just “oh she’s such a quiet girl”….while my brain was in space… lol
FWIW, I'm male and my experience was more or less identical to /u/Quatschsky's. I was the extremely quiet, vaguely weird, model student who wasn't paying attention at all and whose academic career disintegrated in college. (I was undiagnosed because this was the South in the 1970s and 1980s, and I think it would have been physically impossible for me to get a diagnosis. I didn't get a diagnosis until I was 51.)
Chiming in here because this whole comment thread describes me, yet I am male. Didn't get diagnosed till mid 30s. I struggled through school and college not understanding why it took me so much effort to complete a task that others breezed through. I had a teacher in middle school tell me once, "I can tell you're doing your best thinking when you're staring out the window." I was, but my thoughts were miles away from the subject being taught! Still getting used to medication, but it's a whole different world...
Same. I was always day dreaming. I used to read books during class in elementary school too 🤦🏼♀️ As an adult I still struggle to listen during meetings.
Me too! The only time I got in trouble in elementary school was when I repeatedly got caught reading a book in my lap during lessons.
I got through a lot of books back in the day though 😂
this is me too, 100%. I still do the thing where someone is talking to me and i am thinking about how I can look more attentive instead of listening to what they’re saying. “am I nodding enough? too much? eye contact?” its exhausting, tbh!
Bro you explained it so perfectly
These comments are all too relatable! I think I also managed to do well in school up to college (did the bare minimum) and grad school (now struggling) because of my crippling anxiety and fear of failure lol
I never learned proper study habits as I could get by well enough passing tests and doing just enough homework. This made college difficult, but grad school was an organization nightmare and I didn't finish. I wrote a 20 page paper overnight in college and got a B, which in hindsight is clearly not normal.
Omg same! 20 page art history paper written overnight got lost when I touched the plug. Rewrote the whole thing AGAIN the next day after a slight meltdown. But as a kid? Always off Looking for a quiet book I could read in. Would read multiple books in a day if left to do so. Preferred that to socializing. Got diagnosed at 50 and so much makes sense now.
Also to add - thanks for posting this. I don't often find that I relate to a post so much when it comes to ADHD as a lot of people (not all) talk about how noisy, talkative or disruptive they were. I faced almost the opposite of what other people talk about even when it comes to inattentiveness. I was painfully shy, to the point I wouldn't or rather couldn't talk to anyone; I've also been diagnosed with ASD and if it wasn't for the obvious stress caused by sensory overload I would second guess the diagnosis. Even now I still wonder if it's just adhd that's the cause, with the addition of extreme shyness and sensitivity issues.
No problem :) I've been trying to say stuff like this when applicable post-diagnosis since I know I really needed to hear it before getting a diagnosis (and still do quite frankly)
I was told I was on the ASD spectrum as well, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s just the inner restlessness. It’s not that I can’t look people in the eye, it is that I don’t like to sit through small talk and conversations are difficult because I forget what I want to say if I don’t blurt it out or I struggle to pay follow the conversation if I’m trying to hold the thought until they finish talking. I don’t do well in big social settings or if I’m out with a group of people.
100% relate to this. The teachers and myself only really started to realise there was a problem when I moved to college and did more advanced subjects. Ended up failing Maths as well as a bunch of other subjects. University I failed the first year and dropped out, before I went to a different one to do something that was more inline with my special interests which I passed just fine. Even at work now I really struggle with reading and understanding documentation, staying present in meetings, and actually answering questions on the subject matter where I am an expert. It's a big problem, no wonder I've lost so many jobs over the years and never really reached the potential of most people that do what I do.
This is exactly me! Weirdly when I would try to pay attention (looking at the teacher, the board, the screen), I would start falling asleep EVERY.TIME. Even though I was interested in the content and it wasn't boring. I would have to doodle/do something else and listen at the same time in order to pay attention/stay awake. But like you, I was very quiet and shy, never got in trouble, did well in school.
Id learn a new formula in math class and id be in my mental playground playing with it. Trying different things. A few minutes, Id snap to reality, they moving on to a different one.
This is interesting to me but for english! I’ve not got a head for maths & I basically slept through classes (always wished I was better at it tho ^^’) but in english I had to dissect every sentence put in front of me lol. It was super fun for me & didn’t get why it wasn’t for others.
Oh it was for all subjects. I got to states competition for competitive newspaper. I was sci-tech, featurez and a bit of photo journ. Adhd for me is dabbling in multitudes. A bit jumpy but I'm learning to ride the wave and have a couple that stays with me for the long haul. Reading is fun. So is writing and playing with words. More fun breaking rules and just going ham.
Fair! I’m definitely an all-or-nothing kind of person. My english and art teachers thought I was a fucking savant and both were begging me to go to uni for them (did go to uni for english!). Butttt every other subject was very much “she’s not disruptive but she’s never listening so her grades are painfully average,, should apply self more blah blah” ^^’ Even now I’m still very all-or-nothing, which is great when that energy is being directed into a productive/life relevant thing.. and not silly things or hobbies (no i totally didn’t forget to write my MA thesis because i learned to sew and physically couldn’t stop..).
Perseverance = physically cant stop. There's a word for it! :D I be learning to save my energy so I can maintain my mental health and sustain hobbies. Forgiving myself if I cant. Everyday.
This. School wasn’t a problem until later when i needed to study more for it. I spent as much time as possible in the library, and would usually go there during lunch. Often was reading 4 books at all times. Moved a lot so books were easier friends to make than people. My family always thought i had my head in the clouds and wasn’t focused, i don’t think my family knew what to do with that so they just let me be whatever i was. My brother and sister were both high acheiver high focus types, but my sister had adhd very much the high activity and high emotional side of it. Her issues totally overshadowed anything going on with me, i tried to cause as little issues as possible soas not to add on to my parents headaches and it worked pretty well. Again the library is a great solution for all of this, haha.
>The big epiphany for me was realizing that for most of my education I wasn't actually listening in class, I just LOOKED like it and was in my own little world. Hit the nail on the head
Stop writing my biography. I was good at reading in class as I would hyperfixate and read ahead. I never did homework though. Because of this my test scores were good, but had trouble handing in homework on time. When I was home I was reading what I wanted to.
Same. However, I was a notorious procrastinator. One time I forgot I had a 3rd grade science fair project due until the day before and had to do it on the rate of ice melting and spun it as climate science lol. I would also do homework like right before the class it was due. I managed to be top of my class for years. I even managed to do well the first few years of college. But when I moved into an apartment and had a bunch of chores to do, it all collapsed in on me. I couldn't do work, school, social life, and chores. Just got medicated saturday and I'm over 30.
Hard relate.
I feel so validated with this comment and all the others saying the same thing... Like a lot of people don't believe I have it because I got good grades and was very quiet and in honors classes. School was just easy until I got to college that's how I did well. College was the hardest shit ever and I almost dropped out and even had a 2 year break between community and 4 year. People don't understand what's happening on the inside at all and you get good at pretending to be focused so you don't get called out
Yup that’s me 100%, daydreamed my way through school except art and science which engaged me… I read prolifically before starting my school years and learnt to speed read before I knew it was a technique…in my mind I just wanted to get the end of the story as quickly as possible. By the time i realised I’d day dreamt most of school away, it was too late to pass exams, my dad was flabbergasted when noticing I was reading LORD OF THE RINGS the night before final math exam…he knew I was escaping the imminent failure… School sucked for me and I’ve had mediocre jobs in IT all my life. Wife + 2 kids + mortgage… But surviving just by sticking to it. Diagnosed non attentive at 48
I’d get in trouble for reading books under my desk in class because class was boring but I’d still score very high on standardized tests. Teachers just thought I was lazy.
This is so relatable. Things started to go downhill for me, when math became too difficult to teach myself in junior year of high school lol
I was exactly the same. I was even tested for ADHD because both my mom and brother were, but I didn't get a diagnosis because the only thing the doctor did to test my attentiveness was ask me to count to 100 while he did things like flick a paper. That's actually the only distraction I remember even though I know he tried others, because it was the first thing he did, and so I hyper focused on the number counting and tuned him out completely. Because I got to 100 and I wasn't really hyper (and also a girl who did well decently in school) he decided I couldn't be ADHD. Never mind that I checked off a ton of the other symptoms. I was in my early 30's when I finally got tested again, this time by a computer, and it turns out I'm waaay up there on the inattentive scale. I got tested because my driving kept getting worse and worse and I was getting scared. I'm still not the greatest driver, but at least I'm better than I was.
Same!
Hi there. When I was a kid in primary school 5-11 this was the common things in my school reports. Me, daydreams quite a lot but takes the information in. Me, has potential but does not apply this to his learning. Me, is quite intelligent but this gets lost between his brain and putting it in to paper. This followed me into comprehensive school. I was never really hyper active but my ADD shows it self mentally my thoughts never switch off and sometimes can be so ‘loud’ that I can’t hear conversations etc. Edit: Wow I am quite amazed at the response. Just to add to this through comprehensive school 11-16 1991-1996. I completely failed I could not organise myself forgot where lessons were, equipment etc I couldn’t complete tasks or completed them wrong. This ultimately led to me not caring anymore and generally did not do any homework ever. I went to university in the end at 25 yrs old. This was a task and a half and I felt like I worked really hard and for longer than others but got a 2:2 in the end. So try not to give up folks play to your strengths.
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Bill Gates once said this: I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it. Smart and lazy is a deadly combo, but I'd argue it isn't that we were truly *lazy* as kids - we just were bored. School is boring. I wanted to be building stuff or learning a new instrument or not just constantly *sitting* all day long. I could've got A's but I wasn't engaged. Why? Because what was being taught was generally either something I already learned or something new that I then I learned faster than everyone else. The school system (at least here in the US) isn't ideal for the kind of kid I was. It was a constant stream of boring shit I already knew or learned faster than everyone else. So, I learned early how I was good at improvisation. I could create something just as good as everyone else on the fly! Why would I try harder than that, if that's all it took to get through the slog of boredom? Doing stuff at the last second at least made it entertaining. Doing stuff ahead of time meant that I'd be bored for longer. I get how people say that doesn't work in real life, but... I've been doing exactly this and now I'm a software architect at IBM so idk I think there's validity in it, right?
This is so encouraging. I was one of the under-the-radar kids bc I got good grades in school (pinning all your self-worth on being an A student is a good motivator) but you sound exactly like my oldest. He's in 3rd grade and just got his diagnosis. His relationship with school is so different from mine, so it's hard to relate and easy to worry. But as someone who excelled at school and then completely floundered in the "real world," it's very reassuring to see that the opposite can be true.
Oh yeah I'm definitely like this too. I got straight A's in school. Got out of school and now I'm like flopping around like a fish outta water.
I don’t think it was boredom for me - more that my internal where/how-do-I-even-start brain paralysis presented like laziness on the outside.
Software architect at another big tech company we all undoubtedly use here — this applied to me as well. I learned well, but wasn’t motivated to do school work. Got A’s all day long on tests, but didn’t turn homework in. I found in the workplace that I was able to do well above average but still struggled to focus and stay interested in things. But I got medicated finally a few months ago, and my output has just become leaps and bounds better, as has my engagement with my work. If I’d been medicated the first ten years of my career, it’d have accelerated much quicker. Fortunately I’m still under 40, so there’s lots of room to take advantage of things. But it has been incredibly life changing. My ability to stay focused and go deep on problems has skyrocketed. Generally, unmedicated I find it is easier to understand systems at breadth, since each piece requires less sustained focus, which is also valuable. It’s nice to have the option to do either without struggling. Before my diagnosis, I was always at awe with how some of my colleagues could stay on task so long.
Mine said that I’d get frustrated with myself when I wasn’t understanding something and was sensitive.
100%. The two comments that stick out in my memory the most were “why do you make so many careless errors? I know you understand it.” And “you can answer all the questions in class, why can’t you do the homework?” Always did well on tests with high pressure, and projects that’s required creativity and had hard deadlines. Doing the summer reading where I had to pace a boring activity… not so easy.
I can't fathom the amount of times I've heard "Not applying himself fully" or "Understands the content, but struggles to put thoughts to paper".
The amount of times I got in trouble for asking for instructions again after losing focus on the oral instructions. Then get told "you should have been paying attention". My reaction was, I thought I was paying attention but now I have no clue what is going on.
Growing up and all the way into middle school, I got in trouble a lot for talking to friends during class, even though I did good on tests. By the time I hit sixth grade, it got so bad that I was kicked out of half my classes. The teachers didn't even write me up; they just wanted me out of the class.
Yep that’s me when I was child
I'm undiagnosed(but about 90% sure I have ADHD) and this has got me thinking.
Same, and I pulled off some acrobatics at work. Also became more innatentive, but I still have issues sitting in place too long, and I keept looking for things to do during luls, refused to cut corners.
My adhd led to Maladaptive daydreaming disorder lol
There were quite a few instances of my procrastinating causing significant issues. I remember teachers always got annoyed I was asking questions to which they had just said the answer.
The teacher being annoyed with the questions is such a real one. I stopped asking questions in math classes because I always struggled with attention. My mind would wander in the middle of taking notes and I was too embarrassed to ask the teacher to go back (it didnt help that I was in honors/AP classes in a really competitive school where the smart kids were exceptionally mean. I remember asking my pre-calc teacher to repeat what she said and she rolled her eyes while the whole class groaned. Traumatizing!) I would literally spend the night reteaching myself the material from youtube and the textbook because I never got enough out of lessons in school.
Same. A lot of time spent in class was essentially wasted. I had to redo everything at home.
I remember one class in high school where the teacher would lecture. And we would have to write down word for word what he said. He said writing things down helped you remember. For me I could absorb the info while freaking out a out writing it all down. I was doing awful on tests. Then my mom got involved and demanded he give me pre written notes and let me record the lesson and just sit there and listen. After that I started passing tests. I didn't even need the notes. His lectures were very interesting and it was easy for me to hold my attention in that situation. (This was a history class and he would get really into the story)
How am I supposed to know?! In all seriousness, my mind was only ever on my hobbies and obsessions when I was a kid (skateboarding mainly) and that was that. It was a miracle that I managed to do as little homework as I did and it was a failure on the part of my school/parents to not acknowledge possibilities other than laziness.
Exactly how I feel. I was considered too 'intelligent' to go into a trade (horrible problem in society in any case) but didn’t have the academic achievements go on to higher education. So drifted into shit jobs. Still paying for that now at nearly 50. I have a lot of anger that I was dismissed in such a damaging way
Forever destined to be the smartest people in rooms we are not interested in being in
Yup, don't mind me, just gonna steal this sentence.
This is great, it makes me think of the number of bosses I've had who have tried to get me promoted because I can do well at work and play all the corporate bullshit games, but I just had no interest in it. It sounds like a dream but it's so hard to relate how I feel to "normal" people... because I just don't want it, but everyone else's insistence that I *should* want this gives me weird feelings in the head. Finally recently diagnosed a year after I decided it's time to change careers away from the desk and try becoming an electrician. Hope I will actually be interested in the promotions this time.
Ouch felt that at the mitochondrial level, that was only the high school I go where I want now
Not double checking my answers on tests and making careless mistakes "Not applying my potential" Reading books at the back of the class Daydreaming Always handing in my tests at least half an hour earlier than other kids Talking a LOT lol
You are me except it's not talking, it's blabbering. And I would just have random spacing out moments that I wouldn't call daydreams. Yes.
Something I know I did then and still do now is only read half the question then answer. Only to get it wrong cause I didn't read the whole thing. This is sometimes skimming the question and not noticing something like "which of the following is NOT..."
I remember looking around at the other kids still doing their tests/checking their work and willing them to hurry up so I wouldn’t be the first one handing mine in yet again.
Me to a T. I’ve been diagnosed twice by two different docs but the imposter syndrome shit is real. It’s nice to come on here and be validated
Well, shit. Looking back, I did all of this.
I remember two things about being in elementary school: Would not shut up Would not look up from my book (whatever fantasy novel I was into at the time, I was a huge reader) I don't remember actually doing much learning in school until I hit middle school. Middle school through college I'm just very very spacey. I would say it's gotten worse in college since lectures are 3 hrs, everyone knows I only have a 20 min attention span. In middle/high school at least it was a different subject of varying importance every 40 minutes with 10 min in between to reset. Teachers have described me as "bright, but a little too much sometimes". I'm not sure if they minded me reading in class since I still got good grades by not paying any attention then cramming last min. I coasted off natural talent for a good 10 years before falling off.
All through middle and into high school, I'd finish my work and be right back into the latest Shannara or Star Wars book. I'd get a good 20-25 minutes of reading in before the rest of the class finished.
Bro you are me as a kid except I wasn't bright, but a little too much sometimes. I was just reading during class, ignoring teacher, getting As and Bs and Cs in math only(because I hated it) Then middle school came and I started procrastinating even harder, and legit got so many warnings from my math teacher because I would NEVER do my homework. She put me in a afterschool class for struggling math students because of that. I had As and Bs pretty much every single test.
"Mature for my age", super talkative until I was 6-7 and then super silent. Socially awkward, didn't socialize the best (especially later on, High School was tough) but I was never a total pariah. Overall introverted with some spikes of socializing/over sharing. I did well in school despite putting very little effort and sometimes forgetting things and being disorganized, until (again, in High School) I started having some difficulties with science subjects - I had zero interest in them and couldn't be bothered to study, and they were increasingly more complex. I was your typical "talented but lazy" kid, I think it was even explicitly stated once or twice. I wasn't diagnosed at the time, it happened much later. Looking back I don't think it would have helped academically, or not by a lot, but it would have been way easier to establish better and more meaningful relations with others, and not feel left out like I often did. Social interactions without meds were much more overwhelming, I often got lost in the conversation, misinterpreted things, or couldn't follow what others were saying.
I was the quiet kid who didn't say much. But in my head, the conversations never stopped. In school, I was always distracted and couldn't focus. Luckily, I grasped enough to make it to college.
I told my parents I pick up snippets of information and then formulate conclusions off what I heard and what others are doing. And that's what carried me through school
Yes - constantly filling in the blanks and being wrong a lot, but too embarrassed to admit it.
Not hyper. Always in my head and imagination. I performed poorly until 5-6 grade, after that school assignments were slightly less "mechanical". When called out in class I could usually piece together what was said and fake having paid attention. I could cram some homework between classes and get away with it. The stress was like supercharging my memory. I would argue and ask a lot of questions, especially in high school. I was kind of arrogant and annoying, especially to other kids. I was always sensitive, picky and anxious. Felt like I didnt fit in but was unwilling to do things I disliked or found boring just to be like other kids.
I was reserved because I learnt to mask from a very young age
Same, I think (only half jokingly) that I developed anxiety as a coping mechanism.
All my teachers thought I was bright, did well on every test, I think my last A was in the second grade lol. Wasn't diagnosed officially until an adult, but I was so far gone in my head by highschool I had a teacher go from trying to get me into gifted to asking my next teacher if I was still a lump on a log 😅
Looking back through old report cards that my mother kept, there are two consistencies. First, shit poor grades unless it was a subject that I really enjoyed and second, comments that read "has the ability to achieve much higher". I've been chasing the second part for 30 + years. I went on to college and graduated with honours but still do not have anything that resembles a career.
The signs were definitely there, labeled gifted as a kid, never studied or even opened a book after school, because i got through stuff faster than others i made my homework at school.. high school was similar the first 2 years but then it hit me, i wasnt gifted or smarter, my brain processed stuff faster or something idk.. but all of a sudden i had to start studying, never knew how so i started flunking, dropping into lower education, until the point where shit was easy again i didnt need to study.. now i obviously regret not having a degree, still cant study so further education is pretty much hopeless Guess im stuck in my minimum wage home depot kinda job, atleast i get some form diversity in between the mortar, plumbing, woodworking and electricity stuff
Homework was only done at two points in high school for me, either in class right when I got it, or the class before it was due the next day. My mom would always ask if I had homework or if I finished it when I got home. I always said yes because in my mind it was done or would be done by the time I needed to turn it in
Virtually silent in school - always zoned out and in my head
Yeah, silent. Had a small group of friends who were also silent. They were paying attention, while I had to be told how to do things step by step.
I was never hyperactive. I misplaced everything because I used the pile system and my piles would be cleaned or moved by my mom. I would get punished at school and have to put my nose in the wall for forgetting all of my notebooks or homework. I was punished for not paying attention because I wanted to read or draw during class.
the pile system is so real
I'm 35 and still pile It makes sense and is convenient to me but to others it looks like catastrophic mess I wish I didn't do this!!!
26 here and currently staring at my piles while I type this out :)) spent ten minutes yesterday rummaging in them for my keys just to find them in my purse in the other room lolll
Procrastination and forgetful was my middle name. I was a selective mute till about 4th grade then extremely shy. Lived life in my head. Extremely smart but rotted on the vine
Everyone was excited by my abilities in kindergarten, to the point that they moved me to first grade after a month. Tested into the gifted program. I was painfully shy. By third grade was struggling because of homework, but still acing tests. In fourth grade, the teachers called my mom in to discuss possibly putting me in remedial or special ed classes. Mom was pissed at me. I stayed in the gifted program and barely graduated high school. Always told that I had such potential, if I’d only apply myself.
Your last sentence triggers my gag reflex. If I had a pill for every time my mother said that to me I might have actually succeeded in my gifted program.
Ah, yes. My mother was always so mad at me because I wasn’t academically show-offable.
Did she also hit you with "what will people think of *me*?"
I was routinely caught daydreaming & told I had potential but needed to “work harder”, etc.
I was quiet and shy but in my head there were constant racing thoughts. My grades in school were average, i copied others homework and was always bored. I was fidgety, highly sensitive, demanding and tired most of the time.
I think I most likely got combined, and it f**king sucks. People just straight up disliked and hated me. I never knew the reason as to f**king why. Later on I learnt that I cannot really control, or it’s freaking hard to control my fidgetiness at times. I can’t process well when I have sensory overload too. I screwed up in the army and got heavily punished for it before too (not a court martial; but basically I had to sign many extra duties).. So, in my country, there is conscription, and male citizens serve 2 years in either the Armed Forces, the Police Force or the Civil Defence Force. For some context, my country is a tiny country in a SEA region. Oh yes, when I went to serve my NS (national service), I hadn’t been formally diagnosed with ADHD yet. Btw I suspect I could be “on the spectrum” too i.e. ASD or Asperger’s umbrella. It’s not only myself who suspects that possibility; others who crossed paths in my life too — some of them who know a bit and can recognise the traits of people “on the spectrum” (to a certain extent) shared their opinions with me before too. Some professionals who know what they are saying also hinted at that possibility. But the ADHD does stick out like a sore thumb. Even before my just very fairly recent formal diagnosis, my doctor had suspected I had that condition for quite awhile too already. Anyways, he started me on methylphenidate treatment since earlier this year, so yeah 🤷 There was at least one person with a background in psychology (they studied psychology at at least a Bachelor’s level) who also hinted that I may actually have ADHD (this was before the diagnosis). My official mental health diagnosis was only anxiety disorder for so long (10+ years at this point, i believe).. Thanks for reading. Edit: i have also just learnt to embrace myself as “different”. Being undiagnosed for so long (a large part of my life so far), I developed certain coping mechanisms. Some are unhealthy. I think unaddressed and “missed out” ADHD led to me developing anxiety/depression when I was just shy of turning 18 too. I’ve learnt to not to care too much about what others think. Like I said, instead of trying to “mask” (which tbh can only work to a certain extent), I have learnt to love myself more. To be kinder and more compassionate to myself. It’s still a struggle though. If people can’t accept me for who I am, then they aren’t worthy to be a part of my life — simple as that.
This is was me too. I was just living life and had plenty of people I got along with but no one went out of their way to be my friend or they would go out of their way to be mean. So I started being mean back, it was the only way I could keep myself safe. Lots of anger issues from being bullied for so long & parentified. I finally got an informal diagnosis of ADHD and it all started to click into place. As a female, as long as I was well behaved, no one asked what was wrong when I was previously a very good student, and then the last few years of school, just doing the bare minimum. It’s been a long road to feel somewhat “seen” by people. It makes me sad that I had to go through that - I just needed one person take it upon themselves to help but no one did.
I got good grades but have always been an huge procrastinator and very stubborn when it came to doing a difficult task-at home. At school I experienced EXTREME RSD in which if I even thought the teacher was looking at me with disappoint, I’d cry. So because of this, I was able to mask the procrastination and other things.
(English isn't my first language so sorry for any mistakes!) I was constantly drawing or doing anything else instead of paying attention in class. Every teacher I had told my mom the same thing "she's smart, she just needs to focus and try harder". I almost failed high school because I couldn't pass a subject but that teacher understood I had trouble and "approved" me. Like.. he was nice enough to put me a 5 (C) in my final grade. Fast forward to next year (bachillerato) and I started going downhill even my history teacher told me he would make me take an exam another day 'cause I was LOST. I failed more than one subject throughout those two years and I had to take an exam in july to be able to graduate and take the exams for university (also went wrong and didn't get the grade I needed to enter). Now? I'm not better but I know my limits. At least I know and understand why there are things I find too difficult than normal.
Just so you know, your English is fantastic :)
I think Dr Russell Barkley? said that it's normal for people to act one way as a child and another as an adult
Not sure, I wasn't really paying that much attention
Talkative as hell, never napped during nap time, and always tried to talk to people during nap time. I honestly just couldn’t shut up 😂. I did well in school but when I got to college, I crashed and burned. Then as I got into my 20’s I was labeled “lazy” etc and at 25 I finally got the diagnosis of ADHD that I knew of all along, felt good to be heard.
I was the good girl who was sat with the boys who were badly behaved or loud ADHDer’s. I politely daydreamed the whole time, couldn’t stay on track, couldn’t focus but I suppose I did it with sweetness. I was talkative until I got in trouble too many times and was publicly shamed so I became hypervigilant and utterly silent. God I hated school so much.
I would draw and stuff on papers during class. Like tests, notebooks work sheets. But i would be finished in class. So every chance that they had. My teachers would use me as example for what to not do on the worksheet or test or notebook or homework. In front of the whole class. It was embarrassing. But everyone didnt like me much in school. So it didn’t bother me to much anymore. I mean the worst was when I was jumped and spit on in the girls locker room or other shit like that.
Not hyperactive at all. Held back my first year of elementary school (was in the 1st grade 2 years). I was a C student and graduated w/ 2.2 GPA. Rarely completed homework regardless of the abuse. Lots of "you're a smart kid, you just need to try harder / apply yourself." from my parents and any other adult or teacher. As I got older I would frequently fall asleep during classes that were boring and never kept up with reading assignments and homework. I was then (and now in my 40s) not meant for this society. I'd rather be doing something else with what little time and energy I can pull together.
"\[CiderDrinker2\] is a popular, vibrant and out-going member of the class, with a cheerful disposition and a lively sense of humour. He contributes well to class discussion, but he must remember to put his hand up, wait his turn, and not interrupt others. His written work is bold, imaginative and always interesting to read. He writes with real flair for his age. Unfortunately, he is let down by frequent spelling mistakes and careless errors. His handwriting is sloppy. When engaged in a task he can become totally absorbed, but finds it hard to apply himself to work that does not interest him. Often I have found him day-dreaming, doodling, or writing his own stories when he should be completing a written exercise. He is very quick to absorb new material and concepts, has wide knowledge far beyond the curriculum, and displays obvious intelligence and intellectual curiosity. This enables him to finish complex and novel assignments with apparent ease. However, for some unknown reason he seems to struggle to complete routine tasks. It is almost as if he finds hard things easy and easy things hard. He is clearly bright and has so much potential, if only he would really concentrate and apply himself more consistently, and stop making careless errors. It would also help if he could find the classroom by himself. He's been at this school for four years now and shouldn't get lost in the corridors. Sometimes he just wanders off and is discovered at the back of the library reading books far in advance of his age until someone goes to find him and bring him back to class. And why is he always losing his pens and his lunch-box? It's almost as if he just isn't paying attention." Pretty much every school report was just variations on that, adapted to age, from 5 to 18. No one told me I had ADHD. I had to figure it out when I was in my 40s. The signs were so bleeding obvious.
Seriously, this thread in general, but especially your reply, is basically begging for school systems to add some autocorrect rules into Word, "did you mean 'shows possible indications of ADHD'?"
"Away with the faeries" But I also have a dissociative disorder 😬
"Very intelligent, but doesn't apply himself...daydreams". By middle school, the school system warehoused me more and more into learning disabilities classrooms. The teaching could not interest me. My mind felt like tires on ice, never getting traction. It took me eight years to graduate college. But I'll add that I also loved college. It was the first time I was excited by education.
Mind feeling like “traction on ice” is such a good analogy! I can also relate to not doing well in grade school and then enjoying college. I was kicked out of school when I was 13 and sent to a school for other people who had been kicked out. Basically it was a daycare for teenagers who misbehaved so we wouldn’t be wondering the street. I started taking classes at a local community college, where for the first time I felt like people treated me like an adult and I could take classes that I wanted to take etc. I now have two masters degrees - it’s amazing what our brains can do for us when it kicks in to gear:)
My parents told me I can't have ADHD because as a kid my head was always in a book.
I was very bright in school, did everything with ease. I was always the one talking and making jokes in the he back of class though. You could say I was hyperactive? Not in the physical sense anyways. Until I hit about 14-15. Then maths and science classes became very difficult for me. In college I had to study very, which I obviously didn’t know how to do well. Later in life I job hopped about every other year. Couldn’t keep them. People saw great potential but I didn’t live up to it. Often was tagged as a slacker or someone who didn’t care. My output was very variable. I got diagnosed a couple months ago, everything now makes sense.
No teachers would have described me as inattentive, but family and friends joked I had the 'concentration/attention span of a flea'. In primary, I had a really colourful inner life I think, so just went on various imaginary adventures in my heard...or distracted other people by incessantly talking (I did get told off for chatting a lot). I was also always in charge of games in the playground because I was quite fun/lively/creative to be around, and made up cool worlds to play imaginary games in. In secondary school I relied on my ability to 'work out how to do it later' so could somehow make up what I was doing or make up an answer, to cover the fact I hadn't listened to anything in class, which meant teachers thought I concentrated well. I also relied on pulling all-nighters (sometimes multiple) before deadlines or exams, as manufacturing that kind of stress was the only way I got stuff done. I also had anorexia from age 13 to about 16, which I think was partly me desperately trying to bring some order to the chaos and inability to focus or function I felt inside. Everything fell apart at uni because the work was too tricky for me to not concentrate on or leave to the last minute - so I had a breakdown.
Not hyperactive. I daydreamed a lot, I hyper fixated on things from a really young age. I always did well in school, things have always come really easy to me when it came to learning. I was always told that my work ethic would fluctuate, I always had problems with procrastination. None of this became an issue that affected my life negatively until I got older and had to mix school and adult responsibilities. ADHD was never mentioned to my parents at all, which is why they’re so skeptical of my diagnosis. I think my teachers never looked deeper into my behavior because I had good grades, so nothing else mattered to them.
I was the problem child. I was always getting in trouble for breaking rules in school and i just didn't want to be told what to do. I didn't do well in most subjects apart from economics which i scored 92 out of 100 in my IGCSE just because i liked that teacher and that teacher treated me with respect and was very patient with me. The way my mind worked was if i liked you i would do everything not to let you down..
Was diagnosed with C (combined) type but tbh I'm mostly innatentive. So I was actually seen by child psychiatrists when I was like 2/3 because I couldn't speak appropriately for that age group. (NHS, I'm from UK) And also used to stim by flapping my arms and running around in circles? 🫣 Diagnosed with a developmental language disorder (DLD) but after a year or two of many home visits and a lot of encouragement they deemed me "normal". Was originally going to be put on an early warning for SEN for when I started school, but got taken off shortly before it started. And all of this support stopped. Honestly the first few years of school, that I can remember, I was pretty much fine. With a few incidents of acting out. But come year 3 (idk what grade that is equivalent to in the USA, 3/4?) new schooI and homework. I would just clock watch a lot in class, while daydreaming, and stimming by rubbing my thighs furiously under the table. I was also very sensitive and got upset/overwhelmed about specific things incredibly easily, usually to do with changes in time table not happening as planned, still got fairly decent to average grades though. And developed social and general anxiety. Had moments where I would act out and be inappropriate and/or disruptive occasionally. This essentially continued until I got diagnosed at 25. Getting worse at secondary school and sixth form college (middle/high school in us) where it really started affecting my grades. My social life and so on. Come to employment/work and university (college) that was the point when I started to realise there was something wrong that they missed all those years ago 😅🥲.
Daydream 24/7. Cannot, physically IMPOSSIBLE for me to listen in class. But for biology classes, my attention was a 101%. No homework is done. I lied a lot because… i just did not want to or couldnt bring myself to do homework. Honestly i forgot 90% of my homework lmao. Lots of “she has great potential if she just tried”. Being sleepy. I was sleepy ALL THE DAMN TIME. Like out of the norm sleepy. No matter what i did i was sleepy.. the brain fog was HORRIBLE when I was in my late teens. Lots of dumb careless mistakes. I could check my work 3 times but somehow get something wrong. Missed appointments. Missed tuitions. Just because i forgot. Always late for school. And then i just stop bothering turning up on time. Went to school with a wrong pair of shoes before… that’s how muddle headed i am. Now I’m an adult trying her best BUT IT STILL FEELS THE SAME LOL
I was extremely quiet and anxious. Procrastinating and getting into my own head and hyper-fixating were and still is an issue
I would get engrossed in a book and have to be virtually shaken to realize class had restarted lol. Trouble making friends and emotionally regulating. Ritualistic to an infuriating degree- still trying to figure out if that's an early acquired coping mechanism or some comorbidity undiagnosed as of yet.
I'm not inattentive, I have combined type, but I do know from the reading I've done that hyperactivity tends to decrease with age and maturity (only up to a point) even for those with the hyperactive kind. As you get older you get better at masking I think, as well as just the increase in impulse control as your prefrontal cortex develops. But obviously it doesn't "cure" you of ADHD, the symptoms are just different.
I was always daydreaming and seemed dazed and would miss things people would say to me. And I was VERY disorganized all the time.
I used to be able to daydream so vividly it felt like I was watching a tv show or movie. I’d spend most of class staring at the clock/out the window or fully zoned out. Was always the first kid to finish taking tests because I just wanted it to be done with so I could doodle or daydream. Never took tests in order for some reason, always hopped around. I’d occasionally mess up on the scantron or miss questions when I did this, but usually it worked out fine. Described as “organized chaos” by my teachers and family, binder, desk, and locker was always shoved full of crap and I’d turn in wrinkled papers all the time. Performed well in high school but college became incredibly difficult, I ended up switching to a major so I could pick my own classes related to my interests because I barely squeezed passing grades for my intro stats, bio, and history classes. It became too challenges to pay attention in a lecture environmental at a big public university
Daydreamy, mostly. Easily distracted, slow at doing my work but I was also bright so the teachers were impressed with me when they could get me to engage. I was interested and curious about most of the things we did at school but I did also get into trouble for chatting to a friend or looking out of the window. Probably dyspraxic though I never got a diagnosis for that - I had no body awareness and was always bumping into things/people and was hopeless at sport. Russell Barkley did a video last week about the 3 different types of ADHD though and he says they are just presentations and will probably change over the course of your life. The kinds of behaviours classified as hyperactive typically reduce as people go into adulthood. I think that's why they used to say kids outgrew ADHD - it was before the inattentive symptoms were really recognised.
Undiagnosed. I was perfectly fine as a kid, super quiet and attentive, but started showing problems in high school; that's when I became a chronic sleeper in class. Teachers never gave me flack for it though, since I was the very gifted top of the class one, and I didn't particularly disrupt the class either. There was this one time a newer teacher got annoyed and purposely woke me up to ask me a question about the subject being reviewed. I gave the correct response and went back to dozing off. The teacher was in shock but said nothing xD If anything, I gave more trouble to teachers in terms of giving them extra work, but none ever complained about it. I would cram for exams just one day or two in advance, only to forget everything the moment the exam ended. So when we started getting exams pushed the very day of the exam because of the rest of the class' whining for extra time, I would get furious and often ask to take the exam as originally planned. In practice, that meant teachers ended up having to prepare 2 different exams. Looking back, it was a mean thing to do to my teachers, and I started to appreciate the extra time to study once I got into college (as it was impossible to cram everything within 2 days, and it seemed like there was never enough time to review everything before an exam). But back in HS, a delayed exam meant that I had to cram everything all over again; hence my disgust.
My mom called me the absent minded professor. I was bright but would day dream a lot. I was very messy, and bad with social cues until middle school/high school age so I was picked on a lot until that point. I really excelled in school subjects I liked, but barely got through on the others. Good test taker, bad homework doer.
I was a quiet kid who got good grades but never really paid attention to school as a kid. My test taking skills carried me through elementary and middle school. I got used to the praise of being super smart and when high school hit me and I actually had to do stuff on time and study I got wrecked. Parents were disappointed I wasn’t doing well and I lost the praise I was always given… It’s kinda weird knowing I shouldn’t rely on that praise but I still strive for it and don’t get it as much as I used to
very slow. i made a lot of errors in everything, even if i knew the good answer. ''i needed to focus more''. i was always the girl with weird obsessions like... indiana jones, or video games ( in early 90's, video games was not something a lot of kids experimented). i was called a weirdo. it didn't bothered me because it was the only thing i got for myself. i was good at nothing, especially after the age of 8. not music, not sport, not school... my mom told that i was the proof that a kid can read a lot and still be bad at writing. Before around 8 yo i would still be the better one in school, sometimes, to remember a text or like that. but after that idk... there was just too much. it was too much. too much things at the time, and it never stopped. then you don't have the basics, and you have to learn more... it was too hard anyway so i was just thinking about something else until it was time to go lol i end up re-do years when i was 14, before the end of the mandatory school years (not usa system) and then is when real shit started lol
I was quiet, bright and had good grades in class but during recess I got scolded almost every day for climbing trees or on top of someplace that wasn’t meant to be climbed.
I was very quiet and day dreaming. I am/ newer was hyper active I have add mild
I got so much negative feedback in Primary School that by the time I got to High School I had just given up. I tried, but it seemed like my teachers could only see what I was doing wrong no matter how much effort I put into my work. So, what was the point? Looking back at my reports, it's like every one of my teachers had a different piece of the puzzle and no one could be bothered putting it all together.
I was never hyper. I was dreamy, creative, quiet, and read alot.
I was more hyperactive as a kid then learned to suppress and internalize all my symptoms after getting in trouble and now I’m more inattentive
Told I was annoying a lot. I also couldn’t make up my mind on things. Hm…I don’t remember the rest 😅
I was homeschooled and my mom always told me that I would be staring out the window in my own little world. I would also try to distract her from doing her lesson because I was bored with the topic.
little fuckin' space cadet. "Earth to Entarian"
I was super active as a kid but the older I got the more tired I became, I procrastinated all the time but people kept just expecting me to grow out of it because I was so different as a kid (I also wasn’t diagnosed until I was 17). I constantly tried to mask by excelling in school and at my hobbies. I was even praised for being one of the best choir students in my year group. Apparently, my gifts and talents were enough to convince people that I wasn’t struggling and that I just didn’t care about certain things.
I was called a daydreamer. I did okay at school, revised fairly last minute for exams. I don’t think there were many pointers in my childhood. My parents struggled to give examples of symptoms. I’ve been diagnosed but I do sometimes doubt it to be honest.
I'm officially diagnosed Inattentive, but I'm definitely combined. My report cards and progress reports literally all said some variation of "Student is very bright/smart/capable, but
I was inattentive.
Quiet and shy. I found it hard to pay attention and I got terrible grades in school. I day dreamed a lot. I got in trouble for it too, and got caught doodling all over my text books. I’d make careless mistakes a lot in my school work and tests. I would her overwhelmed and cry easily.
Something I struggled with then and especially now, I won’t be able to pay attention unless I have an genuine interest or something life threatening etc yatta yatta) in, and struggle really hard to pay attention. Even if I KNOW I have to get it done and if someone isnt relying on me, I probably won’t get it done. I was always talkative as a child but have definitely become more introverted as an adult
I wasn't a big talker at school (didn't really have friends so nobody to talk to) but I always wanted to be up walking around, looking out the window, etc. I had a deal with my second grade teacher that I could be up but had to at least be near my desk, she even let me sit on it which I thought was the best thing ever
I don't remember; I wasn't paying attention to my own behavior and storing that information for later use. All of my understanding of how I behaved as a child comes from second hand accounts from my parents, teachers, and other adults in my life. I would rarely appear to be paying attention to the task at hand, specifically if it was conversing with others. But then when pressed on not *appearing* to be listening, I'd be able to demonstrate that I was, and this took people by surprise. I'd often fidget or play with whatever was within arms reach, which was distracting to other kids around me and that resulted in my desk being moved to the corner facing the wall in 3rd grade. I would mentally check assignments off my list upon completion, and regularly forget to actually turn them in to the teacher for grading, and some of the teachers were not open to the idea that I had actually done it on time. It was clear that I didn't operate the way most kids did. Some people around me were accepting of that, some were passively agreeable to it, and some felt that it was unacceptable.
I was always super, super talkative. I wasn't hyper, but I had issues with patience. It would take me a very long time to go to sleep. At one point, I would lay in bed and listen to an entire CD and then some before I fell asleep. My mind was always going, daydreaming in class, distracted by small things, and having to ask what we were supposed to do with an assignment right after the teacher finished explaining it. Then I also had to have the directions told to me several times. I would not study and cram right before the test and usually just associate the answer with exactly what I had just crammed (kinda like short-term photographic memory). I constantly had short-term hyper fixations/obsessions with things and people. It was hard to make true friends because I felt like I was "too much" to deal with being so talkative. I was just impulsive enough to never get caught but never do anything extremely terrible or illegal. Usually, at the half-semester point, I would have a C, cram, and do last-minute makeup assignments to scrape a b. Somehow, I was number 82 out of over 900 kids in my class. I was polite, well-mannered, respectful of adults, and followed rules. However, I'm learning now that I am very certain I am autistic and that is what held me back from fully giving in to the impulsiveness and always wearing a mask around certain people to be who they expected instead of myself. For almost every ADHD extreme, it was like my autism countered with wanting to follow the rules and do the right thing which caused me a ton of anxiety and being the "wet blanket" in the group.
"Away with the fairies" "clumsy" "forgetful" "lazy" "if only she would focus her energy on the task in hand" "daydreamer" "you would lose your head if it wasn't screwed on"
As a kid I was always in trouble in school. Getting kicked out of class for being a distraction in class. Very impulsive also. Looking back I had so many red flags but it got overlooked I guess. I played many sports and was always outside with friends when I wasn’t playing sports. I think sports did help me though with some of the hyperactivity. Now that I’m older my hyperactivity has settled down but I’ve very inattentive and impulsive still. My impulsiveness went from acting out as a kid to spending money on hobbies I’ll only do for a few months…
I was talkative in class but got away with it because of amazing grades. I was never very attentive in class and zoned out often.
I basically talked my way through childhood. Nonstop talking. At the end of 7th grade when everyone got achievement awards, my language arts teacher presented me with the Golden Mouth Award. Academically, I was pretty advanced until high school when my social life became more interesting than my grades. Now at 35, I'm perfectly content keeping to myself, but focus and motivation to follow through on things are my biggest struggles.
I remember transferring from a private Catholic school (behavior problem, though I don't remember what), to a public school. They started me in my normal grade, but we're going to skip me into the next grade after a week or so. But behavior problems. I remember being sent to sit at the arts desk in back of the classroom, as a sort of time out. They gave me the math test at that desk. I drew elephants on it instead. I wasn't shy.
i was a... behavioural child lol. i get pretty bad emotional dysregulation so that plus autistic meltdowns meant i had a lot of 'rages' as my mum called them- never really at school though, just at home. i couldn't explain it but I'd get so white hot angry while arguing with my mum over something that i even blacked out a few times. these mostly petered out by the time i was 16/17. I've come to realise i also have PDA issues which led to a lot of questioning teachers/authority in primary school. i was mostly an annoying student more than anything though lmao, mostly stuff like calling out in class/being the class clown/distracted by books/not applying myself etc (i did get in school suspended a couple times). books were one of the few things i could really hyperfixate on as a kid and i spent almost all my free time reading (my parents were pretty strict with screen time too) which gave me a good vocabulary & understanding of English. i was the classic 'gifted kid who doesn't *apply themselves*' and could coast on smarts til around grade 10 but by then most report cards had some comment about how i was bright but was struggling due to inattention & falling behind on work. trying to do assignments was hell lmao, my mum ended up sitting next to me and supervising my screen so i couldn't dick around online. oh also forgot to add im mid 20s f and wasn't diagnosed with anything til i was an adult & seeking treatment myself.
I theorize that the inattentive subtype is simply kids who have managed to figure out how to convert their impulsivity into forms that don't bother adults. I was very well behaved in school, but I hummed constantly and had to run around a lot at recess to get rid of all my excess energy. I had a billion interests and projects on the go at home but never finished any of them. On the emotional axis, I was sensitive and empathetic. I got homesick easily and never managed to go any significant distance from home until I was in my late 20s. The kid who misbehaves constantly has the same problem; they just never figured out how to hide it from the adults.
So quiet. My parents always joked that it was so easy to forget I existed half the time bc I was so quiet. My teachers even forgot I existed in class so much that my teacher in elementary school moved my desk right in front of his desk. He figured by sitting me in his direct line of site, I wouldn’t be forgotten. My mom said I was the “perfect” kid bc she could sit me down anywhere and I would just sit there quietly. Turns out that’s not anywhere close to a “perfect” kid bc I’m so much more messed up than either of my sisters.
Kindergarten- I hid my teachers’ erasers and liked to cause problems. They stuck me in gifted. After that, I was quiet and shy and the ideal student. I did my homework during class and got by without paying attention
I was passed through each grade all the way through high school. My mom has my old report cards with all Fs and Ds to prove it. I most certainly would have benefitted from a different learning style or school, but that wasn't an option available to us...
I was painfully shy, had an overactive imagination, and was tired all the time. I have memories from early elementary school, falling asleep in class when I was in maybe 1st or 2nd grade. I always had a messy room and poor hygiene because I was too preoccupied with writing stories or intensely playing with my toys to do all the things I was supposed to be doing (thankfully as an adult now, I always keep my room clean and have way better hygiene haha). I was a really good student academically, always getting 100s on quizzes and I could even read books by myself and write sentences by the time I was around 4 years old. When I was in early elementary school, my behavior on report cards usually said "needs improvement", but I excelled in a lot of other ways. I guess it had its benefits and drawbacks as a kid. I’m finishing college now and I’m still an A student, but my behavior has changed for the better and I’m much more organized. I’m glad things worked out and that I am still holding onto that passion, creativity, and drive that I had when I was little.
Talkative and a daydreamer. I used to fail those binder quizzes they would give and was always told I was unorganized (accurate). I was never in trouble at school, though, and I managed all A’s and B’s (with a C or two in HS and one in MS because chemistry makes no sense) because I’m naturally smart. College was when it hit me and I was finally diagnosed. Figured it out and graduated with my BA and here I am, and I’m just fine ❤️
Quiet and shy. I was inattentive but I was still able to do well in school. I was very sensitive and still am as an adult. I was more hyperactive at home. I was diagnosed as an adult. Similar to how I was as a child, I’m quiet at work and can be very hyperactive at home still or either too too tired to do anything after work…there’s no in between. I think I masked very well as a kid and all hell broke loose once I transitioned into full on adulthood outside of college. I was always getting trouble at work for a plethora of things and my boss was also very unprofessional and so it resulted in really bad anxiety and difficulty controlling my emotions. I improved as I moved through my twenties but still had a hard time with work. I ended up switching jobs sites and my bosses weren’t so toxic which helped me out a lot too.
Bright, smart, kind, energetic, and yet greatly struggled to really keep up with things, especially as life progressed and got harder
They stopped giving me homework in some classes and told me I was a waste 🙃
I played tens of thousands of hours of RS2, OSRS and League of Legends
I think I was already quite inattentive, but it was probably harder to notice because as a kid, things were more stimulating, even class. In primary school, we had manual activities instead of just lessons, and frequent recess, so I think it was harder to notice that I was inattentive and unfocused. I would also forget some things, but my mother was always checking my bag for example, so it was also noticed less. It's when I started high school where I packed my own things and had long tedious classes that I really started to realise how hard it was for me to focus. That's when I was starting to get a lot of comments from teachers about either talking too much with my classmates during lessons, or drawing in my notebooks too much because in my opinion it helped me listen but the teachers thought it meant I wasn't listening.
The teacher had the school send me to a psychologist lol Got up in the middle of her talking (3rd grade) so I could look out the window; or eat snacks while she was talking; put glue between my fingers and wait for it to dry lol I was still listening so I didn’t get why I couldn’t also look out the window? Why could I play with paper clips while you talk? I need to be doing something physical while I listen or else I’ll just completely daydream and miss everything.
I was mostly quiet at school…and was probably more hyperactive at home. I’m that way as an adult now quiet at work with anxious energy and hyperactive in my home life. I rarely got in trouble at school and would be very sensitive if I did. I was sensitive if someone raised their voice at me or if I got in trouble as child or adult at work. I spent my early adult years crying but was also in a toxic work environment. I got better as I got older but still struggled to get things done but my bosses weren’t toxic.
I was pretty obviously hyperactive and had a serious inability to focus. Was expelled from my first school for being disruptive age 6, failed every exam despite being considered clever and being in the top set all through school. Was often lost in my thoughts and imagination but also very quick witted and light hearted which I now think was a coping mechanism. I never and still don’t had many friends and would have one very close friend but that’s it. Looking back I was obviously struggling but no one noticed. Was only diagnosed at 53.
I wasn't hyperactive, only in speech. As in, i talked a lot, hard and fast. There was always something on my mind i wanted to share with others. School did go well, even though i didn't pay attention, everything came really easy to me, until i started university. Did not get shit done for 5 years, cause i couldn't just wing it and like working behind a bar better. Got a diploma after 9 years but a level lower than uni. Started working as a manager for the restaurant i worked at and realized that this is not for me forever. So i decided to go back to study. I kept my job and now i am doing my masters degree as well, It is tough, but i guess rewarding once i get through it.
I could walk, talk, ride a bike, read and do maths earlier than all of my peers, but I didn’t talk to adults, I had trouble sitting still unless I was focusing on something I loved and people thought I might be deaf because I didn’t react to them. I had a lot of talents and no discipline. I loved martial arts, still do, because I could fight people in a way that was safe. Still got in fights at school though. Before I was sent to school, I had to be examined by some psychologist (I think everyone had to) and she told my parents I was autistic. Which is possible, but no one ever followed up. I also had an imaginary friend and saw ghosts. Everyone liked me and simultaneously I never fit in. And my grandmother recently told me that she thought I might have been assaulted or something as a child because I couldn’t stand men. In my mind I didn’t like or dislike anyone. Some men were just too loud in my opinion. I feel like all of that should have been a little concerning to my parents or teachers, but I was diagnosed at 24 when I took it into my own hands because I was struggling lol
I was a calm asshole with attention problems. Generally quiet and shy but mad when interrupted. That's how teachers described me in primary school. As time went on I got better at controlling my emotions. I generally had problems with time blindness, deadlines, managing my tasks. I also fiercely refused to do anything that wasn't interesting to me at the moment. I got terrible grades everywhere beside those few courses I liked but teachers were always surprised when I actually put in some work in order to pass at the end of the semester. So yeah "talented but lazy and mean" for me.
The report card said I was always looking out the window.
I am undiagnosed but everything is adding up now that I look back on things. Grew up in the 80s. I was pretty hyper, had a stutter (probably unrelated). Did some strange things. This also doesn’t apply but brought a dead snake into show in tell in kindergarten(put it in my backpack). I supposedly mooned the 6th grade class (also kindergarten) As I moved up I got all As, finished my work really fast, never had homework. But talked all the time in class. my name stayed up on the chalkboard every day and only name really. they’d just keep adding checks to it. played all sports. when i hit 12 or so i became a bit more introverted. Still did ok in school but studied very little. i’m college it was a major challenge bc studying was important but was so hard to force myself to do it. i’d go to library and within 15 minutes i’d be on computer lab checking emails. As I got older my memory is terrible, dreams are extremely vivid, so hard for me to read, watch a full movie or stay on task working. Who knows really but i have a feeling i had some form of it a long time ago and went undiagnosed and of course it doesn’t just fully go away
Struggling with chronic fatigue/pain, sleepy. Only not sleepy when disassociating into books or games. Now still the same, except that physical co-morbidities means I can't even do those things.
I grew up in an academically intense area of the country and did well but never as well as I could’ve done. I would draw to pay attention. When I looked at my drawings I could remember exactly what the teacher was saying. It’s something to do with combined visual and kinetic memory. Unfortunately only my parents believed me. I had teachers rip up my drawings in front of the class and scream awful things at me, had my notebook confiscated, etc. My mom had to talk to the principal about it who actually said she dealt with the same thing and thankfully advocated for me. Fun stuff! I also daydreamed a ton. No hyperactivity. I had ongoing, complex, movie-like stories in my head all the time. The drawing was the only thing that helped. These things are why I love being an adult contrary to a lot of people. Being a kid with a learning disability and another undiagnosed medical condition that I wouldn’t be believed about until adulthood was quite traumatic.
I was inattentive. I also remember SO many times I was quite literally bored to tears. It felt so hard to do anything mentally stimulating even though I wanted to. I did not do well in school but also never bothered to try to study either
I'm sorry but that's a ridiculous way for anyone to address ' bad ' behavior. Please try not to allow yourself to feel too awful about it? I was in school a LOT of years ago, before ADHD was recognized and dealt with beyond ' hyperactive ' and I wasn't ( much ). Teachers absolutely knew I was reading another book inside the text and drawing too. Just got bored after blowing through material. Point being they knew and must have had the teacher radar thing telling them what was up. So before this stuff was really recognized trust the ( real ) pros to pick up on us you know? Looking back ( and please no one be upset with this ) picked up a ton of interests going down ADHD rabbit holes, still at them. Guess I'm saying that idiotic book your teacher has is wildly not ok. And please try not to allow that kind of thing to define you? The word ' bad ' bugs me. A LOT.
I’m inattentive and was diagnosed at 14, but didn’t take a stimulant until recently I never applied myself and couldn’t remember anything unless I studied the night before a test. My behavior was god awful and I was an emotional wreck always doing/saying impulsive things that would get me in trouble Was also bullied a lot for OCD symptoms and not sure if ADHD made this worse or not… luckily being treated for both now