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Re: Can you have ADHD but still excel scholastically?

Re: Can you have ADHD but still excel scholastically?2011-01-26T19:01:26+00:00

The Forums Forums What is it? Do I Have it? Can you have ADHD but still excel scholastically? Re: Can you have ADHD but still excel scholastically?

#99653

Curlymoe115
Member
Post count: 206

I had poor grades in public and high school and the first time I went to college. I didn’t bother doing homework or really focus on getting good grades. I always knew the answer and would blurt it out before the teacher even had a chance to finish asking the questions. I would intuitively get the answer in math but would get a failing mark because I couldn’t prove my work. I usually ended up with the poorest math teacher with the lowest skill level who needed a filler course and could convince him of my hair ball reason for why my answer that could possibly in a different universe be correct. My poor social skills led the guidance counselor in grade 5 to ask someone to volunteer to be my friend. (On a different note we have now been friends for 32 years with some different moments of her wanting to be with someone cooler which would leave me baffled and despondent). I was the blue bullet. I had a nylon hood on my jacket and I would run around at recess solving the worlds problems as the “Blue Bullet” instead of really interacting with my peers. I hung around the supervision teacher and would entertain them with stories from my imaginary world. Later when it was no longer appropriate to act out my fantasy world I joined solitary but social activities such as library club and newspaper so that I could still look like I was part of something but was basically left alone. I was always picked last in sports so I invented reasons not to participate in gym or recess. In grade 8 during one of the periods where me and my bff were not talking (she wasn’t talking to me) I slipped into a severe depression and read 22 hours a day for 9 months. Great for my vocabulary but at that time no one seemed to notice. I failed grade 8 and had to take summer school to make it up. For 6 weeks we did everything that was taught in one year and I ended up with the best marks of my life up to that point.

I attended high school with my peers and I was suddenly in a bigger pond where there was even less attention paid to my individual eccentricities. I could choose the classes where I would flourish and ignore the ones I wouldn’t. I have absolutely no ability to pick up a second language. I can memorize it but ten minutes later it is simply gone. So instead I took film studies which plays to my strengths of irrelevant trivia. I have an incredible memory for things that interest me but I am a big picture learner. I never remember the word for word of a conversation but can repeat what we talked about 20 years later if I can picture it in my mind. After grade 9 I didn’t have to show how uncoordinated I was in a gym class but could entertain people with my stories in English class. My marks still weren’t great but I passed everything except math because I could remember enough to spit it out on a test. Math I did two or three times each but eventually passed. Never really learning the material enough to be fluent but could memorize enough to pass.

The first time I went to college I decided that I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I never read the paper or watched boring news but it seemed like it would be a great career. I talked my way into the program because when I am dreaming big I can always convince someone else of my sincerity. I was 17 years old, wet behind the ears but I worked exceptionally hard at this. But I lacked discipline and I had a really hard time talking to strangers. So that meant that I would stammer through interviews and usually tried to interview people I knew. But as an added bonus I made a few “friends” that I saw every day and kept them entertained with my stories. The fact that I still had a hard time completing assignments on time ultimately meant I dropped out after 1 semester.

When I decided, after a particularly depressing period, when I found out that the person I thought was my boyfriend was actually just using me, to join the military I took the testing and did fantastic. The careers open to me were astounding. I could be an engineer or an astronaut. What I wanted to be was an Oceanographic Operator because you spent all your time on a Naval base plotting courses for ships and watching sea life. It sounded fantastic but they convinced me that I should become a Supply Clerk. Pretty heady stuff, eye roll. But when I got to the training base I found it really difficult to follow instructions constantly and live with 33 other people 24 hours a day. I was always one step behind when drill was called out because of the echo and would wait until people started to move and mimic them. I didn’t function well on 3 hours sleep, had a really hard time sleeping with all the distractions of other people and barely avoided becoming a “individual”. The lack of sleep caused my double vision and migraines to flare up repeatedly and at Christmas time I ended up being hospitalized with pneumonia. I was told just before I went home for Christmas break that I was being released because of my migraines and double vision, so when I went back after the break I knew I only had two more weeks to live through before I was free. So suddenly I could just enjoy it. Instead of the commanders barking at me making me want to cry I just smiled and did my thing. What could they really do to me, I was going home anyway. I met my husband in Base Holding because his mother had passed away and he was given a compassionate discharge to be with his senior father. My quirkiness drew him to me and I made him laugh instead of having to always remember his mothers passing. That was 22 years ago, and we have now been married 21 years and we still laugh and have a good time together.

So now I am married to a person who supports us and I stay home and be the front line person. I am free to pursue the activities that make me happy and to raise our kids. My spouse was raised by parents who were already creeping to middle age when he was born and his siblings were over 15 years older then him. He was an only child of parents who already knew the ropes and let him basically have his way in 90 percent of everything. He was encouraged to follow his mews wherever it took him and to spend as much time as possible pursuing quiet or outdoor activities that did not divert the attention of his very busy and tired parents. Things that were too expensive for younger parents struggling with mortgage payments were no barrier and he had everything his little heart desired to dismay of his older siblings who were trying to bring up children at the same time and watching this brother get everything they could not afford to give their own children. So he is spoiled and used to getting his own way. He is old fashioned but a great believer in the invincibility of women cause his own mother was superwoman. He also likes his own privacy when he is home and spends a great amount of time apart. Once in a while he will decide that I should get a job and work out of the home. As long as I am still available at his beck and call, and still have 100 percent responsibility for the kids. Meals must be ready when he is ready to eat (even if the kids have to heat up soup for him) and he likes us to be there to listen to his stories. So every once in a while I leave the house in pursuit of a career to show remind him how much he hates it. I have pursued Clerk Typist, Computer Programmer, and finally I pursued Business Administration. I got fantastic marks in Business Administration, I was 15 years older then most and had been here before. I love accounting and economics and most of the courses. I used my love of computers and the courses that I had previously taken while trying to be a computer programmer and graduated on the Presidents List with a Business Administration Diploma with E-Commerce Specialization. The classes that I did especially well in I would end up tutoring my peers. I was on the Deans List and the Presidents list of the college but then the professors said that business also wanted a well rounded person. I needed to volunteer my hours. So we re-started the Business Society and I became the Social Director and Vice President. We raised money for activities that we wanted to pursue and had film clubs and pub crawls for the younger members.

Then I started my own business after college and was quite successful as long as I didn’t mind working 18 or 19 hours a day. I took on jobs that were money losers so I didn’t disappoint anyone and spent a great deal of every day driving between jobs because I never really efficiently set up a schedule to minimize wasted hours. My kids ended up as slaves to the business because there was always someone who needed us. After 2 years I was burned out and the weather was too hot to stay there any longer. When we moved back to Alberta we decided that our new city would not really accommodate this business without a lot of drastic changes so I went to work for someone else. I took job after job that started out fun but would quickly become mundane and would usually bring me into conflict with my co-workers. Finally 2 years ago I decided to just bow out again. I was approached last spring to be a life insurance agent. It sounded good until I found out that you were really going to be hitting up your family and friends to become your customer. But I quickly got my license and I found it really easy even though they all complained they had to do it 2 or 3 times or just barely passed. So I have my license and have never been on an appointment. But it is mine and no one can take it away, yeah me.

To make a long story short (too late) I have always found academics easy. I am a storer of incredible fonts of knowledge and usually use this to help my friends, acquaintances, and strangers but really have no real desire to put myself out there any more. I am quirky and march to my own drum and most people just don’t “get” me. My spouse thinks I walk on water most of the time even though I am a terrible housekeeper but I’m an incredible friend. I do my own thing and have trained him that he gets 1 request a day. If I get more then 1 thing done that is a bonus but don’t count on it. So today it may be do the litter boxes or the laundry but probably not both. Some days lightning can strike and he better comment on it and praise me. He is really good with this and that makes putting up with his spoiled bad tempered self worth it. My castle is my fortress and I am safe within my walls. Maybe one day I will find that one thing that suddenly starts my engine and makes me want to leave my little cocoon. But so far I am happy to just be me.

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