Personal Narrative: How ADHD Changed My Life

When I started my 9th grade year, I had a best friend. Not even a quarter of the way into my school year, they had betrayed me. They lied to me and they lied about me. In one confrontation where I asked for my phone back because they had been using it, they told me that I was useless and that I should kill myself. That was when my parents and I decided that I needed to switch schools.

I have changed from 8th grade to high school. When I was in 8th grade I was so shy, quiet and not so much mature. Now that I’m in high school I have meet a lot of new friends, and transformed into a better person by not being shy and matured.

Ever since I was a kid I didn’t think that I was good at anything. My pastor said that everyone had a calling, a gift, something that nobody else can do better than that person. It was so hard watching people around me find their gift, like my sister. My little sister is good at about anything art related. She can draw, play the flute, and if she ever did theatre she would probably be good at that too. It was really discouraging watching her find her gifts at age twelve and I was fifteen and wasn’t good at anything. I tried a lot of different classes to see what I was good at. I tried chorus in middle school, theatre, and volleyball. Until I finally found my gift.

I am still not fully recovered and I most likely won’t ever be, there will always be that little voice inside my head. I started my journey with addiction and recovery the summer before freshman year.

In the novel, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls faces many challenges that seemed impossible to overcome much like I have during my middle school years. Jeannette in her younger years had to deal with poverty and bullying that I have to imagine caused much distress and pain in her life. While my story and Jeannette’s aren’t that similar, they both are about pain and challenges that we had to overcome. In my case, my hardships began around the beginning of seventh grade. I had to deal with horrible surgery recovery and things going wrong in my body. One other thing I share in common with Jeannette from her story would be dealing with bullying and fitting in. While Jeannette was made fun of for her lifestyle and money situations, I was bullied for having seizures in class and horrible scarring on my

I have been faced with many challenges with ADHD. It affects every aspect of my life including my behavior, my mood and most of all my cognitive and organizational skills. My late diagnosis made it difficult to accept and understand what was happening. First I was diagnosed with defiant child syndrome because I was not respecting my teachers at school, fighting and just being disrespectful. I had to be told things over again, my room stayed junky and back talked my mom. In school I was distracted, forgot to turn homework in, lying about doing my work, unable to put my thoughts from my head to paper, suspensions, and losing things. I would say or blurt out things that were inappropriate, I just didn’t care. By eighth grade things got worse, grades were low and I wasn’t

I’m laying on the ground my ears are ringing as I slowly get to my feet I notice a sharp pain in my left arm.  This whole idea was put in my head about a month before.

A few years ago I was living with my mother in Yuma. I lived with her for almost my whole life with joint custody shared between the two of my parents. I went to the school district that was in the boundaries of my mom's residence because more of the time shared between joint custody was with my mother. I always did okay in school up until two years ago. My mom has alway been a single parent ever since her and my dad split up. She was always way too nice and dated the wrong type of guys. She ended up dating this guy two years ago, she was too blind to see he was an addict. One day when we were at my dad's house over the weekend, the cops were called to her house because there was an incident of a gunshot. My mom had called the cops because her ex boyfriend had shot himself by accident. They ended up putting a search warrant on her home and found drugs

I was rounding the base, running to third I could hear my mom and mina (grandma) yelling “run maddison, run”. In that moment I knew my love for softball would take off. I was about 4 or 5 years old, on a T-ball team named after the major league baseball team the Red Sox. I had games every Saturday that my mom, sister (Cassidy) and Mina would some to while my dad worked most of the time. I continued to play T-ball throughout the years than eventually moved to the level of softball. I learned to absolutely love the sport and learned how to play well with others and work as a team and in a quick moving and fast pace environment.

I am Esteban Rogelio Reyes, and I’m in the ninth grade. About a few weeks ago you came and visited Rancho Mirage High School and gave us copies of your book, Autodidactic. That book really changed what I think about education, learning and taking responsibility into my own hands. After reading your book, I thought about who I am, my struggles and my accomplishments. I think one of the very few accomplishments I’ve made in my life include getting a perfect score of 600 on the California State Test in English or Math (I can’t remember) in fifth grade. Another accomplishment would be in band, when me and my fellow colleagues in the Wind Ensemble at James Workman Middle School performed at the SCSBOA (California School Band & Orchestration Association)

I was born in Chicago and at the age of 3 my family moved to Alabama. I felt like an outsider my whole life not understanding the southern heritage life style. My parents seperated when I was 5 and I found myself living with my Dad and two brothers. I was not a girly-girl to say the least. As I got older and then was court ordered to move in with my mom, things changed. I know had a little half-brother who would grow up to be my best friend. Throughout high school I would turn to my family in support with bullies and petty girl drama. They were my rock. My Junior and Senior year were the toughest emotionally. I found myself in love with a guy who a "southern girl" should not date. His ex made it her life mission to break me down and break

She understood me and always helped me when I needed it. Well when I was about 8 she died, she was raped and murdered, the judge let them live, only putting them in prison for 5 years. They were now out and living their stupid lives.

So it all started it out when I was born. My birth mom was doing drugs when she was pregnant. She gave birth to a little boy who was born with a drug addiction. Thankfully and sadly my mom could not keep me. She could not keep me because they did not want me to be affected by the drugs she was doing even more. I don't even know what my own birth mother looks like. I don't even know anything bout my birth dad. No one ever talks about him. My sister that i live with now isn't even my full sister. She has the same dad but different moms. In all i have six or seven siblings. I don't even know all of them. I know at least three of em. I only see one of them. The one that lives with me. Later down the road, around when i was six, Me, my sister that

Andrew, my older brother, in middle of the road he was tired to keep ride the ox for 1 month. He asked me to replace him, so he can get some sleep. But then I do not have any experience of riding ox, that cause our wagon go wrong trail. The sky was dark like almost rain, I was panic. Everyone was in poor health because digest least food. It will take the several days to get back the trail, I scare that we can’t get back in time.

When I first discovered that I had ADHD I absolutely hated it because I realized I was different from everyone else. I saw it as a weakness that was holding me back from achieving my dreams. Since I have come to learn to accept it, I now know how to make use of it and use it to my advantage. As I’ve grown up I know see I have the strength within myself to overcome this.