The Top 5 Things I Was Ashamed Of As An AuDHD Child...

Growing up as an undiagnosed and unaccommodated AuDHD person was rough. I experienced a lot of shame around the aspects of myself that were clearly different from others. As someone who always wants to know why something is happening, I spent my entire life trying to figure out why my brain seemed to work differently than others or why people could just sit still without fidgeting or order sandwiches at the counter without anxiety. I thought it meant I was broken.

All of these experiences made me feel different from everyone I knew and not in a good way (at least, that is how I perceived it at the time). I went to great lengths to hide my hyperactivity, the unusual way my brain perceives and processes information, the way I felt about anything (because it was/is always extreme compared to others), my internal meltdowns that would probably look like a mental breakdown or some type of crisis if someone were to peek into my head…

Learning I was AuDHD liberated me from a lot of this shame. I was able to connect with other people who had pretty much the same style of brain as me and the same wild types of thought patterns, special interest deep dives, and never ending cycles of analysis. I was able to finally have answers as to what this all meant, that the feelings and experiences I had were tied to something that made sense and was shared with others like me. AuDHD makes sense, our traits and experiences are part of a larger picture of dots that all connect and make up what I think is a pretty spectacular brain.

We are not the majority, though. Our experiences are not reflected in most TV shows, books, or most of the people we meet. As a child, it was really hard to navigate the complexity of being AuDHD without knowing what was going on without any guidance or examples that I could relate to. Thankfully, the world is changing and we are seeing more and more representation and hopefully, we will have future generations of children who won’t experience these traits as shameful but as shared experiences that they have with their fellow AuDHD neurokin.