David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
3 Things I’ve Learned Since My ADHD Diagnosis
by Helen Dwork, ADDitude
September 19, 2018
1. There is nothing wrong with me
I hate to stay in one place for too long, I can’t tolerate mundane tasks, and I struggle with being on time or knowing how long tasks will take me. Does this make me lazy or stupid?
I used to think so.
I felt judged because skills I struggled with seemed to come effortlessly to everyone else. Before I knew about attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD), I wondered quite often what was “wrong” with me. I disproportionately focused on the things I wasn’t good at.
The question I should have asked myself: “What makes me different? Special? Brilliant?”
2. Being different is rare - and powerful
It genuinely is. I’m not saying that it isn’t hard sometimes, because we live in a world run by “normal” people who don’t always appreciate “different.” But learning about ADHD has helped me start to accept some of the things that I struggle with. It’s also shown me so many advantages to being different:
3. My attention isn’t a deficit
I am very attentive; I just can’t pay attention to anything that I don’t think is teaching me something new or challenging my assumptions.
When I first started taking medication for ADHD, I set some goals for myself - things I wanted to achieve in the short term. One of these was to read a whole book, every single page, and ideally from start to finish.
Anyway, last week I decided that this is no longer my key aspiration.
Why? I realized that, subconsciously, I’d decided on this goal with the intention of trying to make myself more like other people, with no real benefit to myself. So I’ve set myself a new goal - work toward making my life revolve around the things I love.
by Helen Dwork, ADDitude
September 19, 2018
1. There is nothing wrong with me
I hate to stay in one place for too long, I can’t tolerate mundane tasks, and I struggle with being on time or knowing how long tasks will take me. Does this make me lazy or stupid?
I used to think so.
I felt judged because skills I struggled with seemed to come effortlessly to everyone else. Before I knew about attention deficit disorder (ADHD or ADD), I wondered quite often what was “wrong” with me. I disproportionately focused on the things I wasn’t good at.
The question I should have asked myself: “What makes me different? Special? Brilliant?”
2. Being different is rare - and powerful
It genuinely is. I’m not saying that it isn’t hard sometimes, because we live in a world run by “normal” people who don’t always appreciate “different.” But learning about ADHD has helped me start to accept some of the things that I struggle with. It’s also shown me so many advantages to being different:
- I have fresh and creative ideas when others run out of inspiration
- I am extremely empathetic, which helps me get the best out of people whom others would have written off
3. My attention isn’t a deficit
I am very attentive; I just can’t pay attention to anything that I don’t think is teaching me something new or challenging my assumptions.
When I first started taking medication for ADHD, I set some goals for myself - things I wanted to achieve in the short term. One of these was to read a whole book, every single page, and ideally from start to finish.
Anyway, last week I decided that this is no longer my key aspiration.
Why? I realized that, subconsciously, I’d decided on this goal with the intention of trying to make myself more like other people, with no real benefit to myself. So I’ve set myself a new goal - work toward making my life revolve around the things I love.
