Thinking of how poor self esteem and other uninvited enemies
hurt my youngest child in the past, I want to jump up and down and scream. I
might even shake my fists.
Poor self esteem is a huge issue for many children with ADHD, especially
girls. For one thing, we tend to overlook ADHD symptoms in girls. They don’t
cause enough trouble. For another, girls with ADHD often do not realize why
they don’t perform or behave like their peers. They express being confused.
Recently I discussed this issue with my own daughter, Anna,
who is a woman with ADHD. Now that she
is grown and successful in many areas, she gives me many wise perspectives on
what it is like to be ADHD, female, and to live with a low self esteem.
I’ll let her tell her it: “I
constantly felt like I was being teased. I mean most people can tell themselves
they are awesome in some fashion. I couldn’t.
“It was
always ‘You don’t do this right, Anna. You don’t do that.’”
She gave me an example from her 6th grade year in
middle school: “I was wearing my
sweatshirt inside out. That was the style that year. I overheard Andrea, who I
thought was my friend, telling another girl that she didn’t like what was on
her own shirt, and the other girl suggested she turn it inside out. Andrea replied that she thought it looked dumb
to turn it inside out. ‘Anna has her’s inside out,’ said the girl. Andrea said, ‘Anna is a huge dork.’ Of course it added to my hurt feeling and
poor self-image.
“I didn’t
know that in a few years she was going to be popular because she screwed every
guy who asked.”
Anna paused before she said: “I should have told her off right then, but it is difficult for a
person to do that because of being so sensitive.”
I knew she was saying that the girl with ADHD will not likely
hold up for herself due to her low self esteem and lack of confidence.
“Maybe I was super
sensitive. Or do other kids target ADHD classmates more?”
I reminded Anna that she was always an intelligent student who
did well with her grades. I know she worked at keeping her focus to the point
she totally wiped out emotionally by the end of the day.
“That’s just it. I was
not hard to be around. Sure I made silly comments in class, but I wasn’t sent
to the principal. Up to my freshman year I was shorter, and when I did gain
height, I didn’t want to be taller because I lacked the self-esteem for it.”
As her mother, I recall how often I intervened for Anna, and
when I think of those times, I still want to punish others in her defense. I can only hope some of those so-called
school classmates have matured a bit now they are 30 years old. I hope teachers
and a principal grew wiser, too.
In high school, Anna’s intellect caused teachers to respond
well to her. They asked me what I did to raise her to be such a quality person.
She had good relationships with them to the point she called them only by their
last names (Hi, Copeland), and they seemed to genuinely like her.
But high school teachers could do little to improve her social
acceptance. The pattern had been established long before in the kindergarten
class. I monitored the class setting many times because Mrs. McCarty did not
like little girls who wiggled and squirmed.
Anna tells me: “Persons
without ADHD have the wrong perception of people like me. And people like me
experience loads of actual teasing, and because they are sensitive, they are
genuinely hurt. In high school I jumped from groups of friends, never having a
steady group I called my own.”
I wonder if this is true for many persons with ADHD. I hear it
often from young adults and even older adults with ADHD. They often feel
friendless. Totally friendless.
“Comments came from a
certain set of other students. I should
have told them to f-off. I had the language; I just didn’t have the confidence.
“I didn’t
recognize that other high school kids were insecure. I didn’t know they didn’t
matter.”
Likely many of us didn’t realize that other high school
students didn’t matter, but our emotional intelligence helped us realize that
we would eventually move forward without for their acceptance.
I suggest that girls and women with ADHD have a difficult time
moving on, and the pains associated with low self esteem continue to eat away
at personal confidence
No comments:
Post a Comment