ADHD in a Society that Expects Perfection by Madyson

ADHD in a Society that Expects Perfection by Madyson - April 2019 Scholarship Essay

When I was a little girl, I had always dreamt of what it would be like when I grew up. Having a car, spending time with friends, and getting good grades was all I thought about. When I started elementary school, I enjoyed making new friends and learning was fun! However, in first grade, my perspective, attitude, and love for school took a turn. School suddenly became hard. I found it difficult to focus and pay attention. I was easily distracted by noises in the hallway, the tapping of pencils on a desk and even the ticking of the classroom clock. That year, I was diagnosed with ADHD. It took me struggling how to learn with ADHD to truly understand that my disability doesn’t define me.
In the beginning, ADHD was a label to me. I felt like an outcast. Often I would daze off and forget what was going on in class and in conversations. I was “that” kid that annoyed everyone because I would shake my leg to help my anxious energy. I felt disconnected from my peers. I was slower at learning than they were. The worst part was when the resource teachers would call me out of class for extra one on one time because I wasn’t retaining the content I was supposed to be learning. Being young, I didn’t understand that ADHD wasn’t as bad as I believed it to be.
Middle school brought on new challenges. I was surrounded by a new group of people in one of our areas largest school districts. Kids would ask why it takes me so long to finish my work, or why I had to take a test in a different room. When I would tell them the reason, I felt judged. Sometimes I received funny looks. This took a toll on my confidence and made me feel ashamed of myself. It also made me question things about myself. I questioned, why did God make me this way? What did I do wrong to deserve this disability? When I talked to family or friends about my feelings, they never fully understood what I was going through. After receiving encouragement from my resource teachers and extra help in and outside the classroom, I was finally starting to get the grades I worked so hard to obtain. I left middle school with a new perspective and confidence for learning.
ADHD didn’t only affect me academically, it also affected me on the basketball court. When I played Junior Varsity basketball for my school, I had a difficult time remembering multiple plays and learning higher level drills. My coaches would say to me “Mady, you’re not trying hard enough, focus more and you’ll get it.” Beginning of the season, we had our biggest game of the year against our team rival. That morning, I was so nervous and excited that I packed the wrong shorts for the game. As a consequence, my coach benched me the entire game. He told me I wasn’t responsible enough to play. After talking with my coach and educating him about my disability, he then found ways to help me learn plays and gave me tools to remember the color shorts and jersey to bring. These tools helped me become more organized in and outside the classroom and made me realize that the people around me care about my success. I ended my Junior Varsity season as the team MVP.
Being a senior in high school, I look back and thank God every day for these struggles. I am graduating with a 91.3 average and a three year member of the National Honor Society! I am able to focus on all that my Creator says of me. We all have struggles. Mine happens to be living with ADHD in a world where society expects perfection. I choose to live by Psalm 139:13-16 (The Message): “... I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, the days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.”