Looking Through The Lens Of A Teenage Girl With ADHD

Photo by Monica Real

I was doing just fine. I was goal-driven, motivated and determined to get straight A’s throughout high school. However, something got in the way. I couldn’t pin-point what was wrong with me. I limited all distractions by deleting TikTok and Instagram, meditated and set up a neat space to study. Everytime I did that, random thoughts would appear and I’d spend time researching random things. I would also get distracted by the things in my room, suddenly five hours flew by and I still didn’t get anything done.

By bedtime, a million thoughts came to me at once. I couldn’t make out the worthless chatter in my head and I spent those restless nights tossing and turning, trying to get those chaotic contemplations silent. These thoughts didn’t stop when I would try to focus in class. I was thinking everything but nothing at once. I could only describe it as a mental block.

I would look online on Reddit forums or Google why I had constant chatter filling my brain nonstop; the results always mentioned ADHD. Therefore, I decided to get diagnosed.

The diagnosis was a long process for me. I filled out a form and my teachers had to fill out questionnaires regarding my performance. Scheduling the appointment itself was the hardest part because it kept getting rescheduled. On the day of the appointment, it turned out that I had hyperactive-inattentive ADHD. This is the combined type and the most common. The doctors assigned me a therapist and requested a 504 plan for me.

After being diagnosed, I realized that I had to do things differently from what I usually did. I had to have a different approach to discipline, undo habits that were hurting me, build micro-goals and so on.

Three weeks into seeing my therapist, I always got the same vague advice other adults had given me, such as “just make a list” or “just get a tutor.” I mean, did you think I would be here if I hadn’t already tried that? I’ve done everything I could and still got recommended solutions I’ve already tried. Thankfully, a woman on Reddit gave me her 61 page doc of notes on how to set goals and achieve them with ADHD.

What I learned from that was the way I’m motivated is different. Rather than the typical extrinsic motivation, where people's end goal is the reward, some people with ADHD feel as though the task itself is the reward. This comes from intrinsic motivation. A brain like mine cannot build motivation extrinsically, I can’t build what isn’t there. My brain won’t learn that doing hard thingswill lead to good outcomes because there’s no point in doing them. I know I will have to experience it all over again in this constant loop of agony.

I also learned that people with ADHD are motivated by urgency, novelty, challenge and interest. We can’t be motivated by what’s important because that has the opposite effect. Instead, we’re motivated by short-term, immediate awards and stimulation.

Women and girls are also more likely to have a later diagnosis than boys are. This is because boys have prominent hyperactive symptoms making them three times more likely to get diagnosed in childhood. It is more common in women to have inattentive symptoms which often goes unnoticed.

This motivated me to get diagnosed because of how understudied women are. I didn’t want to find out later in life that I had this disorder and feel as though I had already lost my potential.

The fact that I got diagnosed my junior year made me feel like a failure because I could have had a higher GPA if I had gotten diagnosed sooner. While my late diagnosis made me feel as though my entire world was crumbling, I felt relieved that I learned something about myself. Knowing about my disability helped me puzzle the pieces together about my past experiences and taught me what does and doesn’t work for me. I don’t process things like neurotypical people and that’s okay. I also felt like a lot of people wouldn’t expect something like this from me, and it’s true that a few people didn’t.

Whether it’s watching Youtube on 2x speed, fidgeting and needing extra time on tests is what helps me regulate through things that are “supposed to be easy but somehow aren’t.”

I chose to spread awareness to this topic to show people that they are not alone. Having a disability doesn’t make them any less intelligent or worthy, and that ADHD doesn’t have a “look.” The straight A, “gifted” student in your class could have ADHD. The quiet kid you sit next to could have it. The friend that constantly interrupts you while you’re speaking could have it- you get the point.

It’s not just a quirky, “I get distracted easily” disorder, and it doesn’t always feel like a superpower. It’s a complex disorder that’s often misunderstood, especially in girls, that needs awareness and understanding.