As long as you’re alive, you’ll never stop learning. As I continue to learn more about ADHD and go through the journey of managing life with ADHD, I learn more and more every day.
Recently, I joined a Facebook group with ADHD women from around the world where we share our experiences and give each other tips on how to be fully productive members of society. It was through the group and links to professionals that I understood why having ADHD is considered a mental illness and neurological disorder.
I’ve been vehemently against being viewed as disabled or mentally ill because of previous unpleasant experiences that I’ve had with people that bullied me for traits that are common with people with ADHD. It’s a commonly shared trauma amongst people who are neurodivergent because it may seem that you’re confirming what your bullies mistreated you over.
The reality, however, is that one has to be diagnosed with ADHD because even the most productive person will have issues coping with it without training or medication. The fact is that, if not diagnosed, a person may suffer from health problems directly related to ADHD and not get the proper treatment because the doctor doesn’t know to check for ADHD-related diseases.
Being part of the group has made me realize the importance of having a strong community of neurodivergent people around you if you are neurodivergent. Our shared experiences help us live more productive lives and we become better people in the process. When you are neurodivergent, you grow up with a sense of being different and often get labelled weird. Surrounded by other people with the same condition as me for once, I feel perfectly normal and feel comforted because I’m perfectly normal for someone with ADHD.
In a Facebook group for ladies with ADHD, I asked if anyone else routinely lost their phones in their hands, something that people around me often chided me for. And within thirty minutes there were ten ladies talking about losing their phones while talking on it, losing it while watching Netflix and buying devices to help them find it when it’s lost.
For once, I wasn’t the weird girl who lost their phones in their hands but a perfectly normal and functioning human being with ADHD.
