Hi. My name is Maude and I am currently 15 years old. When I was 8 I was diagnosed with a severe ADHD, borderline to being a public danger. It has always been a bother to me ever since I learned that. I felt alienated. Not only was my brain working differently in a negative way, but I felt labelled. My parents almost never took it seriously and just brushed it off as me being stubborn. And they always forgot I had ADHD. I was yelled for not cleaning my room and even hit because of this, though yes I had started cleaning my room, but there was always something catching my attention and I totally forgot what I was supposed to do. I was being punished for not being able to take medication, because I have not been able to swallow pills until recently and I still struggle with this. I have tried to see something positive about this, in the way that I was unique and that my brain was different, that I had some connections between my neurons that could make me extremely concentrated when I listened to music, or the fact that my memory was different and required a color system to remember important things at school, or even that my willpower was way higher than anyone else, as long as I was interested in what I was doing. I have always been an artistic and fairly intelligent person. I write, I draw, I sing, I play music, I make sculptures, I act and I can even sew and knit. My ADHD helped me get into these things and become almost a professional in a way too short amount of time. But, despite all of this, there's always been the bad side. My ADHD has always made me socially awkward and over forgiving or over tolerant towards a lot of people. I have always been an emotional wreck because of my ADHD, and always blamed myself for everything because I had this. And now that I'm closer and closer to being an adult, to being part of today's society, everything seems more narrow and frightening than ever. I have learned that I could not practice a lot of professions, since they require 100% of your concentration and attention, so I had to say goodbye to my childhood dream of being a surgeon and police officer. I have also learned that I have way more restrictions that I should have, since not only do I have ADHD, but without my medication, I could kill someone without even noticing. I even almost killed my younger brother multiple times because I was not paying attention to what I was doing. So, because of that, I will not be able to drive alone safely at night, I will not be able to have any job that has a night shift, I will not be able to have a job where there are meetings because my attention span is too short, I will not be able to work in a kitchen without supervision, I have way lower chances of getting a degree, despite my intellectual potential, I will not be allowed to have a child if I am single and most of all, needing music to function correctly. The more I grow up, the worse it gets. I recall being able to focus on my class in Sec. 2, and this year I could barely focus on anything, and I failed three classes, on of which I had to go to summer school to pass. The thought of having all those restrictions and inabilities is scary and disturbing. It almost feels like a handicap and I don't know what to do anymore, I'm turning 16 this Fall and I will not even be allowed to take classes for my driving licence until my medication is changed, and I'm really sensitive to side effects, so it's far from being a good thing. The future for me looks threatening, frightening and unpleasant, and even if I already have a clear idea of what I want to be in a few years, which is an indie game developer, it's worrying and unfair that some of the only jobs I will be able to have are independent jobs and that my chances of making a living out of it are extremely low. I feel like my future is compromised, just because I'm born with a brain that works in a special way. It's so unfair.
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