As an adult I have been diagnosed with inattentive / combined ADHD - I always knew something was ‘different’ about me, but of course I just didn’t have enough of a hyperfocus to investigate until I had children! I suspect I’m also autistic, but there isn’t medication for that so I haven’t sought a diagnosis.
I have no memories of my childhood before I’m 7yrs old, and recently found some old school reports from early primary where I had two years with around 50 days absent! FIFTY! wtf. I do not know the reason for this, I don’t have anyone around who would remember now.
I wonder if I was burnt out. I also suffered from vomiting a lot as a kid, and I always presumed it was just me being greedy and eating too much but I realised that around 7 - 10yrs I had really bad migraines, and I read that migraines in children can actually begin as episodes of vomiting.
My migraines were also made worse by playing Spyro 😅 (loved that game!)
Thankfully I don’t get migraines anymore, mostly tension headaches on one side.
Anyway - I have an impact memory from around 8yrs old where I remember there was another day in class where I felt really low. I used to sit facing the windows, with my back to the teacher and I would daydream about random things whilst staring outside. This obviously meant that I missed the instructions, so to compensate for this I would try to copy the children next to me which was hit and miss.
I think this was a day where I couldn’t copy for whatever reason and whilst I waited for everyone else to finish I flipped through my workbook and I wrote something like “I’m so stupid and I’m no good at anything at all” at the bottom of one of the pages in tiny writing with my pencil.
I told myself to remember to rub it out, but (in classic ADHD style) I forgot!
The next time I saw that teacher she handed out everyone’s workbooks but kept mine. She called me up to her desk, opened my workbook and pointed to what I had written.
She shouted at me in front of the whole class
“THE REASON YOU FEEL THIS WAY IS BECAUSE YOU DON’T LISTEN!!!!!!!”
Closed the workbook, shoved it into my hands and told me to go sit down. When I went to my seat I spent the rest of the lesson crying silently with tears dripping down onto the cover of my workbook.
This memory makes me feel so sad. It makes me cry now that I understand myself a bit more.
If I was a teacher and saw that a child had written that in their workbook I would give them a hug and find ways to help… maybe it was just different times then?
My parents used to always tell me she was a cow though.
I don’t know why I wrote all this, I’ll blame my over sharing. But even if no one replies, it helps just to write it down.
If you also have mean teacher, migraine, or lack of memory stories you want to share, feel free!