The month of October is ADHD awareness month.
So, I thought I’d share with you my personal story of being recently diagnosed with ADHD.
From a young age, I always knew something “wasn’t quite right” with me and the way I behaved and acted around people. At least, that’s how it felt. I’d always struggle to pay attention in school, find myself daydreaming in the middle of class, or just completely losing focus after 5 minutes.
It wasn’t a case of me not being interested, I loved school! I loved learning about new and exciting topics, especially History. But even still, in my favourite classes, where I was really interested, I still found myself going down a rabbit hole in my mind, thinking about who would win between the Avengers and the X-Men in an all-out war… (I still think X-Men would take it).
I can vividly remember sitting in my head teachers office in secondary school, him calling me lazy and uninterested in my academic work, and said I was forgetful. I was thinking to myself in this moment that, no I’m not lazy, I work hard, but I just didn’t understand why I am the way I am.
I often would go home at the end of a school day, upset, confused and angry at myself. I began to believe something was “wrong” with me. My grades started to slip, and I became disinterested in school life, hanging out with my friends less and less often, all because I thought there was something wrong with me.
Fast forward to my time at university. I still had the same feelings that I was living with my whole life. I was still struggling keeping up with assignments, always leaving it to the very last minute. That was the way I had always worked, and I knew no different.
The workload and stress were getting way too much for me, so I had to reach out for help. I had never even considered the fact I might have ADHD but I was recommended to get a free screening through the Disability and Inclusion service at the university.
They are brilliant in there and screened me for ADHD. They spoke to me about living with ADHD and gave me fantastic advice on how to deal with it. After that screening, everything started to make sense in my head. It wasn’t because I was lazy, or couldn’t focus on things, my brain just works slightly different to most people! I just needed to understand this and find the tools that work best for me.
Now, I’ve learned to be more patient with myself, to celebrate the way my mind works, and to see my ADHD as a part of what makes me, me!
So, this ADHD awareness month, I just want to remind everyone who might be struggling, you are not weird, lazy, or broken. Our minds might work differently, but that difference is also our strength!
As I mentioned before, we do offer free ADHD screenings at the university, if you email the team at inclusion@bucks.ac.uk , they will be able to get you booked in for a screening. They offer a wide range of services, not just ADHD screens. I would highly recommend checking them out, they really helped me and I can’t recommend them highly enough!