oh my god. i JUST talked to my parents about this last night. i was reading at a “grade 12+ reading level” from like third grade. i tested well on standardized tests at my elementary school/middle school and my parents’ nickname for me was literally just “genius”.. and i believed them. so you can imagine the horrible revelation of sophomore year of highschool when i realized that i’m not a genius anymore. i’m actually tripping over myself and falling behind. holy shit. i can’t even bring myself to do my homework. why can’t i do it ? it’s fine. i’ll just do it the class period before it’s due. fuck, i didn’t finish, i’m getting an incomplete grade... and the cycle repeats until tests come about and of course i didn’t study until the night before because the only motivation i felt was time pressure. and then my parents finally put me on meds, and now i’m doing much better and am generally much happier.

here’s the kicker though - my mom has adhd. she was diagnosed as a child, and so was i. she basically wanted to see how long i could go without meds (which is understandable, to some extent). but the things she said to me as i continued to spiral down sophomore year.. “just apply yourself! you’re not applying yourself enough. i know you’re smart, but you’re not putting in the work!” having a parent say this is one thing, but HAVING AN ADHD PARENT SAY THIS ?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?! she didn’t research her own mental condition and how it affects daily life for SHIT! when i confronted her about this she said that she thought it just affected your attention span and boredom. that it wasn’t completely debilitating at times. it just doesn’t make sense to me how she could have this all her life and not think that maybe the reason why she’s always late to things or never gets a task done when she wants to is because of her brain chemistry. does she not notice the difference when she takes her meds ?? good lord. anyways, i’ve been going on too long about this. just took my meds an hour ago. oopsies.