Still reading “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Crazy or Stupid?” – a book for and about adults with add. And this is all me, especially that last bit.
note: I’m trans male, but I grew up female bodied and socialized as female. I didn’t start hormone therapy until my mid-20s.
When I was going through treatment a year or so ago (I’m in my 30s) to get me on the right meds, my therapist asked me why no one had ever thought to test me for ADHD during my schooling years. I think I laughed, one of those hysterical, completely mirthless laughs when the situation is just so ridiculous and painful that you just have to laugh.
“Well, I’m trans,” I said, voice bitter and echoing years of hopelessness. “And girls just don’t *get* ADHD, they say. I never exhibited the “typical” hyperactivity, I never had outbursts or couldn’t sit still, except for a bouncing leg or tapping pen. I was just a so-so student. I wasn’t applying myself. I just needed to work harder.”
My therapist, a cis-woman, got this deep look on her face. That look that screams solidarity, feminist outrage. A healer’s rage over the neglect of a person in need.
If I’d had her in my life when I was younger maybe I wouldn’t have the crippling imposter syndrome I continue to suffer from to this day. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone through life feeling not good enough, feeling ever the failure even when I was succeeding.