Unleashing the wild spirit

I was asked to come up with a training on ADHD for my school. But I wasn’t able to do it. I blocked. I recorded half an hour in, just to delete it all. It felt all wrong.
Nobody will ever understand what ADHD really is if nobody talks about how it feels like, how it really is. Not the usual things you read in text books or see from influencers on the internet who tell you about the cute forgetfulness or hyperactivity …
But there was so much I wish people would know. I couldn’t break things down.

So I was asked to write a speech. TedX-style. A few minutes. What would you wish people would know? You don’t have to publish it, you don’t have to hold the speech, just write it.

I took a week and thought and wrote … I showed my speech to a friend. I sat next to her while she was reading. I stared at the floor for her to finish and give me her verdict.
I was nervous about it because I valued her opinion. While I was staring I noticed that she was grabbing a tissue and I heard little sobs. I looked up and looked into a face that was covered in tears.
Seeing her cry, made me cry. Relief and astonishment. I asked her why are you crying?
She said .. thank you for writing this! I told her thank you for reading this!
We understood each other.

She told me that I should write a blog, so that all those thoughts of mine would see the light and people could understand, but I was reluctant. Who am I to write anything and why would anyone read it? I’m nobody. What if people think I’m completely crazy and messed up? But she insisted and so the blog came to life.

After a few months after having written this speech, I was asked to make a presentation for this speech. But it didn’t feel right.
Instead I made a video. I don’t know why. I just felt like it. I have never done videos before and the first time I saw it when I finished it … I cried.
My children were with me in the room and watched the video with me and saw me crying. They looked worried and asked “why are you crying, mummy? Don’t cry! It’s ok.
I love you.”

I told them you know, sometimes we can cry because we are sad. And other times we can cry because we are actually happy. And I am happy right now, because I’m proud of myself that I did this. It turned out beautiful. They wiped away my tears and laughed with me and said I’m proud of you, too, mummy.

So I would like to share both the speech and the video with you, that have changed so much in my life … and I hope it will have some effect on you, too.

The speech

Have you ever watched the movie “Spirit”? It’s an old cartoon movie by Dreamworks.
If you don’t know it … the movie plays in the wild west and is about a wild horse that lives his happy free life in the prairie. Until one day he gets captured by the cavalry that tried to tame him. He fought long and hard to not get broken. The methods got harder and harder to try to break him and they almost succeeded. 

 But then what happened was that the cavalry captured a young native who connected with the horse and they managed to break free together. 

The boy loved the horse’s spirit though and wanted to have him for himself. He tried to tame him, but with softer methods and with a lot of understanding of horses. 

He came to realize though that he would not be able to do so. And after all, even if you would succeed to tame him, you would not have the horse you fell in love with in the first place. His spirit, that you loved so much, would be broken. So instead he let the horse run free and they became the best of friends on a different level.

Now, what does that have to do with ADHD you will ask me.

My father once told me, when you were little you would always smile and laugh, jump around and be silly. But somewhere along the lines you lost it. While we were not able to nail it down to when exactly that happened, I believe it was around the time I started secondary school.

I have an Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder

Did you know that by the time a child with ADHD is 10 years old, she has heard on average 20.000 more negative comments than her peers? Let’s do the math, to keep it simple … because I seriously suck at math.
20.000 divided by 10 for 10 years even though well, I don’t know how much baby years count, but anyhow, for simplicity. That’s 2.000 negative comments per year. A year has 365 days so, divided by 365, that’s roughly about 5 / 6 negative comments per day. 

Now let’s imagine you are going to work and 6 times day the admin and coworkers come to you telling you bad stuff about yourself? I wonder for how long you will actually stay in that job?

You get comments like … stop moving your leg, stop fidgeting, stop doodling and listen, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so squirrely, why are you so calm, are you dreaming, hey, listen here!  why do you speak so low, why do you speak so loud, why do you speak so fast, how could you forget, why didn’t you do it this way, no I can’t give you full marks because you didn’t do it the way we saw it in the lesson, your thoughts are so all over the place, you are too creative you imagine things, you don’t speak normal … learn to organize your mind before you talk to people …  nobody can follow your conversation because you are always jumping, stop playing with your hair, look at your handwriting! why can’t you stick to one thing, why do you always get distracted, why can’t you focus why are you always tired, how did you forget  your homework, why are you late to school .. again!, where is your book, why did you lose your pencil .. again!  You have so much potential you just need to try harder … what you don’t know I was already trying so hard …And I could carry on …

Are you already bored listening to all these? Then imagine how it makes us feel hearing those over and over and over again.
We hear it from teachers, we hear it from parents, we hear it from grandparents, from friends, from neighbors …

Heck, even good things you do get commented on. I remember when I was still very little, maybe around 6 years old, my father would tell me that there is something wrong with me because I cared so much about other people. Because I was too helpful. Because I was standing with the kids that were bullied or cast out or new in the class and had no friends, those who looked different, those who others would not care about, I would. Like what is wrong with you, kid??

My adult “me” would tell you nothing is wrong with me, this is called empathy. And if I have too much of it, I like sharing that with the world because quite frankly we lost that along the lines somewhere and it’s something we can’t have enough of. The world would be a much better place.
But as a child I understood that there must be something wrong with me because “normal” people don’t do that. Or not to this degree.

And the worst of it all is, that for most people, you are not even doing it on purpose. You may even have the best of intentions. You just don’t know any better.

Because you want us to do well in this world, to be good and happy, have friends and fit in with our peers. 

You expect us to be like everyone else and behave like everyone else, but when you have a brain that works differently than other people’s brains, you have to let it work differently. 

I am a teacher. I know how challenging we can be. Every child with their own version of ADHD. Some have the hyperactive type, some the inattentive, some have a mixture of both. ADHD is a spectrum. Some have it very badly and some barely have symptoms. Some need medication, some don’t, they only need a few strategies to be put into place. All of us need exercise, sleep, water and good nutrition. 

No, ADHD is not just the kid that bounces off the walls. She might be the one you would never imagine she has it. And yet, we do. 

We are the ones who …

We are the kids that get easily distracted by new things, even if they are completely irrelevant. But we are also the kids who are curious by nature and always want to know how, what, where, when and why until we know the answer.

We are the ones who are impulsive; can’t sit still or have a conversation without interrupting them or trying to finish their sentences unless we are really interested. But we are also incredibly energetic.

We are the ones who forget what we wanted in the next room, where the key is; or the glasses even when we are wearing them. But we also have the memory of an elephant and remember details from years ago – when we cared.

We are the ones with so many ideas that none of them can be implemented properly. But, we are also the ones with the most awesome and out of the box ideas!

We are the ones who are Impatient and hate ambiguity. But we are also the ones who are decisive and can make important, complex decisions in a fraction of a second.

We are the ones who are stubborn and would rather fail in our own way than succeed with the advice of others. But we are also the ones who  are persistent, have great stamina and would “rather drop dead” than give up.

We are the ones that sometimes seem eccentric, even crazy, sometimes offend or irritate others through unconventional behaviour and arrogance but we are also the ones who are original, different from others, see ways and  solutions that others do not see.

We are the ones who have a hard time turning our head off, therefore we are at  higher risk of addiction. But we are also the ones whose mind is  working at lightning speed.

We are the ones who need novelty and danger . But we are also the ones who are willing to take risks nobody else would. And in times of crisis and danger we are particularly focused, calm and high-performing. 

We are the ones having  difficulty getting things done and work through details but we are also the ones that see the big picture sooner than others .

We are the ones who make too many concessions. At the same time we are the ones who are generous, big-hearted,  like to give and make others happy and don’t expect anything in return.

We are the ones who secretly feel lonely; and like no one really knows us and yet we are the ones who find contact with everyone.

We  are totally unable or unwilling to follow instructions, but we are also the most innovative.

We are the ones who are easily distracted;  and our thoughts fade away if we are not interested in the thing. At the same time we can be Extremely attentive and hyperfocused IF we are interested. We are the ones who don’t like working under an authority we want to be free to create our own ideas. We are good leaders. We are the ones who need to explore.

We are the ones who love deep meaningful discussions, we can’t do smalltalk, we have extraordinary intuition, we absolutely hate injustice and boredom and we are the most forgiving creatures you will ever meet. 

We are the ones who can absolutely get on your nerves. But we are also the ones who will make your life exciting.

For me personally and for so many other ADHDers, we do not have a disorder. We have a different way of thinking and doing and I would never want to switch my ADHD brain for anything else. Yes, it comes with a lot of challenges, but I like the way I am. Yes I may screw up, sometimes big time, but I have a good way of thinking, one that not many people have.

We were once wild, running free happy horses… but we learned that this is not how you want us to be. 

You see our behavior as one that is not normal and how it should not be in this world and you let us know. And we understand that we are not enough. Not good enough, not working hard enough, not smart enough, not this enough not that enough .. not fitting in enough. 

So we look at outside cues as opposed to within ourselves of how things should be done, how we should be, how we should feel, how we should act. 

We may end up molding in … more or less. Often poorly. Sometimes totally unsuccessfully. But it comes with a high price. We are losing who we are. 
We are not even a shadow of the wild, running free happy horse. We create people that are not our true selves, trying to fit in. And believe me, this is not a good place to be in..

The only people we feel we can show our real selves with are others like us, because we understand; We find each other, don’t worry, we recognize each other knowingly or unknowingly and when we do, often magic happens. 
Suddenly instead of talking slowly and controlled, I can just start talking way too fast and way too much, I don’t have to think about what I can or should say,  if the other one can follow my conversation or what they may say, how they may judge me. I can be free.

So, if we can find a teacher who understands all this, it can mean the world to us. Who are they? They are the teachers that believe in us, don’t label us negatively, those who support our strong points, accept us for who we are, they show us how great we already are, not what we could be if  only we weren’t so lazy, stupid or not interested, they don’t judge us, but they support.

In a room of 20 people you will find at least one with ADHD. Probably more. The dark number of undetected ADHD could be high.
In our school we had 6 ADHD cases in a classroom of 24 children last year. A number we have never seen before. And we have seen this phenomenon in many other classes and schools all over the world this year.

It’s time to raise awareness!