Growing Up With ADHD Research Paper

When I was younger, my mother would always tell me, “Do not worry, your children are going to wind up just like you, just wait.” My behavior as a child was mouthy and disrespectful. At the young age of six years old, I remember sitting on the floor in my three-story house in Smithtown, New York. I recall curling my long legs into my body, sobbing; my mother yelling at me for something that is not crystal clear to my older self. My grandmother opened my door, throwing a roll of paper towels at me to wipe my tears. I wiped my salty tears up, lifted my head, and sat on my bed. Fighting with myself to be strong, I thought that I was incapable of being sad, almost not allowed. With this moment, I could not just sit on my bed and ignore my pain.

Re-visiting this moment in my life, I would want to feel the pain instead of numbing and suppressing it in my younger self. Humans need to grieve and experience emotions to grow. Growing up, I noticed that I was not like all of the other kids that were in my class at school. At any time, I would be moving in my seat, tapping a pencil on a surface, and even getting up when I was forbidden to do so. I was diagnosed with severe ADHD, which made my life, and the lives of others difficult. With that came my extreme anxiety. Fortunately, as I aged, my ADHD left me; my good friend anxiety lingered. Anxiety is my best friend that I have known for twelve years of my life. When I went to middle school, I sat in the middle row of my Catholic school classroom. All of the sudden, the intercom blares that there is a threat of a shooter invading. Locking the doors,

I will never, and can never forget this moment. My father, a compulsive gambler, gambled our house and money away. Consequently, my family of four moved to South Florida to live with my mother’s family. My mother and father sat my sister and I down at our dining room table, which had a pineapple shaped bottom that I adored. My father announced that we would be moving to South Florida to live with my nanny and grandpa. Why? My sister and I constantly nagged my parents into telling us why we were moving, but to no avail. The day before we headed to South Florida, we were told that we had airplane tickets. Excited, our faces were glowing, our eyes filled with joy. The next morning, we wake up at five o’clock am and get in the car to go to the airport. My mother said, “Turn around, I forgot something.” As my father turned the wheel, my sister and I were nervous that we would miss our flight, but curious as to what my mother “forgot” considering that our whole house was packed in our car. My mother came back into the car. My father sternly announced, “We missed our flight, we have to drive.” Nine years later, my mother admitted that we could not afford airplane tickets, so we had no other choice but to drive. To this day, I still wish that we never moved to South Florida; away from my friends and environment, away from my