I confuse people.... no, I dont have ADHD, and I'm not stupid.
I know my behavior confuses people. Drives people crazy, I'm sure. People who don't know what's really going on, who don't know that thy are really sometimes talking to a 5 year old or a 12 year old or a 17 year old, or to me. I tend to ask the same questions over and over to be sure of information, or several people will ask the same question because they haven't heard the answer yet. But on the outside, it just looks like "Pilgrim is so forgetful. Pilgrim has a bad memory. Pilgrim wasn't listening the 1st 4 times I told her about_____."
I'm sure thats aggravating and exhausting. How I wish I could tell people that I AM paying attention...that I am listening. That I don't have attention deficit disorder... I'm not just an airhead or flighty or childish. But sometimes people who think they're talking to me really are talking to a 5 year old, and by the time they finish a sentence they may be talking to a 12 year old, or may have said something to trigger someone younger to come out.
(I'm actually a very intelligent person, though its hard to tell these days. I used to score very high on state tests and entrance exams, was getting ready to go off to prep school at one time so I could go to college early. I was always the smartest in all my classes, got the highest grades. I played classical music on the piano and read books that were 4 inches thick.
I miss those days. Now I sit and sound out "The Cat in the Hat" when the 5 year old is working on learning to read. She sounds out street signs. The other day she asked me how to tell time and I told her about what the hands on the clock mean.)
I wish that I didn't have to hide the way I am. Wish it didn't have to be such a big secret. So many peopled don't believe, or have their minds made up that DID doesn't exist, or have negative connotations of it... the only safe thing to do right now for me is to hide. I dont know which is worse. To be thought of as crazy, dangerous, and weird, or as having no attention span, flighty, and childish.
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
