'Personally, I don’t consider my ADHD symptoms a disability! The way I see the world is pretty fun. Instead of a boring drive around town running errands, I see a world full of color, light, and motion.'
In my middle school classroom, I always reserved a bulletin board for holidays and special months. I referred to it every day and worked in connections between the season and the Social Studies content I was teaching. I went beyond the typical seasons and holidays rotation and included cultural celebrations like Black History Month. I made sure to add little known facts and funny things on it, which my students loved.
The truth is that I’ve encountered a fair share of adults with negative opinions about people living with ADHD. I’ve written about the mixed reactions I’ve seen when I chose to reveal my ADHD to co-workers and supervisors. Some didn’t change their opinion of me or my work at all. But, there were others who — consciously or unconsciously — changed the way they acted toward me after I revealed it to them.I thought I was imagining things.
In fact, I think of my ADHD symptoms almost like super powers! When I let my mind run free with an idea, it’s like switching on the turbo boost. I can think of 100 different creative ways to do or say something in two minutes! Like many people with ADHD, I can go intomode, too. The rest of the world fades into the background. A few minutes in a quiet room with some paper, pens, and pencils and I come out with a couple of solutions to any problem I’m facing.
That’s why I always say a person is “living with ADHD ” instead of “has ADHD.” The second one has a negative feeling to it that I don’t like. I think that saying you’re “living with ADHD” sends the message that you’re doing fine. Yes, you have a certain symptom set, but you’re not suffering. The key word for me is living!
Ultimately, I think that Disabilities Awareness Month is a great idea. I think we should go to “stage 2” awareness though. We do a good job educating people about the various types of disabilities people are living with. I think we need to let people know that living with a disability isn’t a bad thing. We might even be a little better at some things than a lot of people.
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