As someone with ADHD, very much what you’re saying. The original name for ADHD was “minimal brain damage” and that’s what it’s always felt like to me. Mathematical concepts are something I manage well, but I’m laughably bad at mental arithmetic. I’ve more or less overcome my struggles with focus and attention, but I simply cannot do paired-word association, or directions. If I want to learn a new language, I need to be immersed in it, which is fun, but expensive and time consuming. Until GPS units, I couldn’t find my way out of a wet paper bag.
These things do not benefit me, or empower me. I feel a part of what I could have been is just out of reach, and that’s ADHD in a nutshell for me. If I’m being perfectly honest only two real positives exist as a result of ADHD for me:
First, I’ve always been able to utterly lose myself in a book, fiction or non-fiction. I’d be lying if I said that was always a good thing, but it can be useful. I tore my way through Gray’ Anatomy in a few days, while people I know took a month to do the same.
Second, I was lucky in having patient, yet firm parents who helped me learn what was socially acceptable at a young age. I don’t compulsively interrupt people, I can sit through a whole opera without blinking, and I have a strong verbal filter. The downside was that all of this was very hard-won, and at times painful for everyone involved.
All in all, I’d drop ADHD in a heartbeat if I could.
These things do not benefit me, or empower me. I feel a part of what I could have been is just out of reach, and that’s ADHD in a nutshell for me. If I’m being perfectly honest only two real positives exist as a result of ADHD for me:
First, I’ve always been able to utterly lose myself in a book, fiction or non-fiction. I’d be lying if I said that was always a good thing, but it can be useful. I tore my way through Gray’ Anatomy in a few days, while people I know took a month to do the same.
Second, I was lucky in having patient, yet firm parents who helped me learn what was socially acceptable at a young age. I don’t compulsively interrupt people, I can sit through a whole opera without blinking, and I have a strong verbal filter. The downside was that all of this was very hard-won, and at times painful for everyone involved.
All in all, I’d drop ADHD in a heartbeat if I could.