For a second, imagine that you were sitting in a classroom in an unspecified lesson. You hear your teacher’s voice for a moment and then suddenly something outside catches your eye. Maybe it was a squirrel running up a tree, maybe it was a leaf blowing in the wind or maybe it was nothing in particular. You carry on looking outside for a while and then your mind wanders to what was on TV last night, the weekend’s football fixtures, what is in your lunchbox, etc. Then there is suddenly movement in front of you – another worksheet! Yet, the words on this one make no sense, as if it was in a different language. It suddenly dawns on you that you had missed all of the information needed to do any of the worksheet while you were thinking about nothing in particular. Then the fear creeps in. Am I going to be in trouble? Will my teacher shout at me? How can I behave so nobody finds out what has just happened? I don’t know what happened or why it happened. I just know that it wasn’t my fault, but I don’t know how to describe it in a way that won’t make me sound like a terrible student. I felt like I had no choice but to stay silent. It happened again and again. It was starting to worry me, but I continued to stay silent.
I finally got my answer as to what it was aged 22 – ADHD. My brain developed differently. I find it almost impossible to focus on something that isn’t interesting. It is less scary now that I know what it is, but there are also negative feelings for me. As a little girl growing up in the 2000’s there was no real information out there about how ADHD affects me. We all experience it slightly differently and there are so many symptoms. The information still wasn’t there while I was a teenager in the 2010’s. I acted as soon as I heard about the differences with ADHD in women and girls. The lack of information meant that I was unable to achieve my potential at school. I missed so much work through blanking out and not understanding, because I was sitting through subject after subject with a GCSE syllabus that I found ridiculously boring. I saw my classmates thriving because they were focusing and looked like they knew what they were doing. I felt stupid and the effect on my mental health was huge. I just wish that I was diagnosed as a child. My life to date could have been so much better.
ADHD in Girls: Recognising Key Symptoms
ADHD in girls – particularly if it’s the inattentive type of ADHD formerly called ADD – can look like this:
- Daydreaming quietly in class
- Feeling anxious or sad
- Exhibiting silliness or apparent ditziness
- Acting shy or inattentive
- Trouble maintaining friendships
- Picking at cuticles or skin
- Being a perfectionist
If you’d like to read on this subject, visit The ADHD Centre.
