Until the early 90's, and even stretching past Y2K, ADD was a darkly lit, undiscovered path that few understood. Up to that point, a kid with ADD was just restrained, told to calm down, misunderstood. Being born in '93, I'm one of those children that grew up in this changing world of mental renaissance. The first five grades of my life ('96-'01) consisted of me being asked to leave my elementary school, because the school did not have special help for “mentally insecure children”. Even at the private school I then decided to go to, I was unique. So many stories keep rising, stories I would deign to keep hidden. But I remember being told by my teacher that I see patterns nobody else does.
“The first time he heard of me was in fifth grade, when he and I left Shreiner Academy (a black mark upon schools, I would recommend quarantining the place) to Mt. Pisgah Christian School, where they looked upon me with disdain. They looked at me and said “yeah, we haven't dealt with this before, can we have the trial version?” In response, my family attempted to change me. Social skills groups, medications, beatings, punishments, the whole laundry list. Queue 1600's Catholic church school images. I was that kid on the rack.
“Taking it into account, the kid did pretty well. I still got him nailed. He was asked to leave before the first semester even ended! Best part about it is, his friends still remind him of the stuff he did! This was my heyday, that kid had no idea. I was getting away with murder. Oh, there was this time I threw his binder across the room. Then I threw a chair, he was so pissed! Best part was, my parents tried to treat him! They were still blind to me, they were going after the wrong guy! I made sure none of it stuck, though. The only downside were those medications the kid was taking. Eventually, they overpowered me. I’d catch him at the end of the day, though.”
Then we went to Mill Springs Academy, and I learned that I had to both take responsibility for my ADD. The ADD needed to be both embraced and controlled. If you watched any X-Men movie, it follows the same principle. MSA was the best two-and-a-half years of my life.
“So, the kid went to MSA, and from there on life sucked for me. The medications got on the right amounts (finally), and he was slowly normalizing. Don't worry, though; I still managed to mess his life up on multiple occasions. Oh, and the best part? He barely remembers any of it. Moving on from this dark moment...
“After two and a half years, we returned to Pisgah. He accepted me, and took a happy view of the world. I no longer threw things (as often) or did inane and foolish things (actually, that one didn't change). He stopped taking the medications because I was repressed to the point where he was no different with or without them. I still get out, but I’ve been leashed.”
By the way, another telling thing about me? I have used the word “I” most in this post, double any other word.
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