acceptance and attitudes towards learning disabilities and conditions

[MysticMugBug]

This is mostly about myself, but i'd be very interested to hear your views and coping strategies.
First off, i'm not a mum, but i hope to be one day and if my child has some kind of disability i will support them all the way.
It wasn't like that for me, however.
I was formally diagnosed with ADHD age 5 and i remember the beginning stages of school being very traumatic for me. I never got all the help i needed or the acceptance from my family. I was always made to feel ashamed and am asked 'why are you doing that? behave!' to this day by my parents.
Education has always been difficult for me; my mum was often enraged and clearly upset by my academic progress, unable to visualise what it must be like.
Unfortunately, my condition was hardly ever talked about and was very much a taboo subject. I can't imagine that any of my mother's close friends know about my ADHD because she'd be to afraid of what they'd think.
It is influenced by the manner in which she was brought up, her brother has autism and profound learning disabilities and her father was forever dispairing and hateful towards him.
My parents can't comprehend that my somewhat hyperactive/limited attention span etc. is not my fault. I grew up self loathing and thinking it was.
Luckily, now it's alot different due to university and supportive networks, but events are embedded in my memory as you can imagine.
Don't get me wrong, i was not unhappy all the time and my parents gave me some wonderful opportunities, but they weren't the right ones most of the time.
Almost bizzarely, mum pities and can empathise well with parents that have disabled children, but i guess she wouldn't want it to be her child, i don't really know.
As well as useful support info and advice, i'd love to hear about how other people in a similar situation have coped