How I Learned I Wasn't a Lazy Scatterbrain
All the criticism I internalized because of undiagnosed ADHD
I’m sitting in the office of one of the most respected ADHD professionals in the country while she assesses my six-year-old son.
I check my watch for what must be the hundredth time, flick through a magazine I’ve already skimmed from cover to cover, and tap my foot restlessly against the linoleum floor.
Suddenly, the door opens and my son comes spilling out of the room he’s shared with the ADHD expert for the past hour. He grins and charges full tilt into my open arms to get a hug.
“Did you have fun?” I ask.
“Yes! We played with toys and cards.” He takes the magazine from my hands and starts flipping through it. He points to an ad featuring a woman hand-washing dishes. “This lady needs a dishwasher!”
I look to the specialist, a woman I’m guessing is in her early sixties. Her grin mirrors Ian’s excited smile. “He’s delightful,” she says, validating something I already know but the rest of the world often seems to miss. “And he is the most ADHD child I’ve ever met.”
Ian’s diagnosis came with pamphlets, recommended reading, and a prescription for Adderall.
It also delivered an epiphany.
I understood the gist of an ADHD diagnosis and what it meant for Ian. Yes, he had difficulty focusing. He could be forgetful, and he struggled to prioritize things like homework or chores over more immediately rewarding things like creative play or games. And sure, those things could be challenges, but my son was also wildly creative, intensely curious, and deeply empathetic. His little moral compass was true.
In fact, at the end of his first-grade year, his teacher would say to me that Ian was, in her eyes, an old soul, wise beyond his years.
“There are some children so dear that you know you’ll always remember them,” Mrs. L said. “Ian is at the top of that list.”
It was the sort of thing I’d always hoped a teacher would say to me. That I was dear, special, wise. But I never heard those things as a child. Instead, I got comments on my report card that said things like:
“Karen is very bright but not meeting her potential”
“Needs to be more assertive and participate in class”
“Grades could be much higher if not for incomplete work”
It was while reading books about ADHD that the realization settled onto my shoulders like a mantle:
I have ADHD, too.
I spent my school years mostly unable to focus in class unless the subject fascinated me. Instead of listening to lectures or quietly reading, I would open my notebook and, under the guise of taking notes, write stories. (The writing thing became my career, so I’d like to think my inability to pay attention in math still worked out for the best.)
While other kids seemed to have no problem remembering to take their homework home with them, I lived life in a constant panic, often forgetting to bring projects home and missing deadlines as a result.
It was the sort of thing I’d always hoped a teacher would say to me. That I was dear, special, wise. But I never heard those things as a child.
The feedback from teachers and my own parents was nearly constant:
You’re lazy.
You daydream too much.
You’re scatterbrained.
I’d just finished reading Thom Hartmann’s 1997 book “Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception,” in which he suggests that people with ADHD aren’t flawed thinkers but different thinkers — hunters in a world of farmers.
Hartmann posited that while much of the world had evolved toward being task-focused like farmers with structured systems of chores to manage their crops, people with ADHD were hunters. They had traditionally been the ones who remained alert, able to quickly respond to threats and keep their communities safe.
Their impulsivity granted them the ability to make quick decisions that would have been crucial for survival, like deciding whether to fight, flee, or freeze when stalked by a sabertooth tiger. It made them experts at pattern recognition, giving them the innate ability to sense potential dangers or know when things were “off.” They were creative problem-solvers, able to devise new ways of doing things, potentially fueling the advancement of society.
Ian and I were hunters in a world of farmers. (Or, as I put it to my dinosaur-loving son back then, velociraptors in a world of brachiosauruses.)
After reading Hartmann’s book, I wrote to him. I thanked him for awakening me to his “different perception” of Attention Deficit Disorder and freeing me from my own perceptions of myself. I wasn’t lazy. Nor was I scatterbrained. I was simply wired differently and living in a world that wasn’t made to accommodate people like me. (He answered, and he was genuine and lovely to communicate with.)
I had internalized so much criticism and shame. All my life, I’d felt inadequate, disorganized, lazy. I knew I had big ideas, but I didn’t trust myself to follow them through to completion. (News flash: I still don’t. It’s a work in progress.) I became a perfectionist — nothing I ever did felt good enough. (Also a work in progress.)
I never gained the ability to be proud of myself. And I was ashamed when people were proud of me because I wanted to manage their expectations. Sooner or later, I knew, they would see I wasn’t as talented or smart as they thought.
I cried when I learned about Ian’s ADHD diagnosis. But I didn’t cry for him — I cried for myself, the little girl who had believed all her life that the challenges she faced and the criticism she received were all her fault. I cried because I had broken open, and every false perception I’d had of myself was now scattered on the floor in front of me.
And then I began picking up the pieces, remaking myself into the whole person I’ve always felt I could be.