My Story Part I

I hated school for the longest time. In fact, it was not until grade seven and the outstanding efforts of my history teacher that I started to change my view of school and in a broader sense, education.

As a youngster in school I struggled both academically and socially. School work was a mystery to me, I was always playing catch-up, constantly falling behind my classmates. Parent teacher interviews were a cause for concern for my parents and as a result they began asking questions. At the time ADD did not exist as a clinical term. The term ADD was not coined until 1980, but that does not mean the condition was not present before than. More accurately, prior to 1980 ADD was given many different names and subsequently, it was treated in a myriad of ways.

In my case the search for answers to my academic difficulties was a long and arduous journey. At first educators and researchers told me I was a slow learner. They took care to inform me that this did not mean I was any less intelligent. Instead, I just needed more time to grasp concepts and ideas. As research into the brain progressed and more was discovered about how people learn, a new term was coined. For the most part Learning Disabled was initially a very broad term, and primarily indicated anyone outside the normal developmental parameters. I was such an individual. It is important to understand that for me this was a tremendous revelation. Although I did not fully understand what it meant to be learning disabled, having a diagnosis was very uplifting.

In a very real sense it was liberating to be able to put a label on my condition. Most importantly, I was not stupid. I knew I was not suddenly going to change, but at the same time there was hope. Hope is a very powerful concept, most of the worlds major religions are in one way or another built on the concept of hope. Without hope, we feel desperate and helpless, leading to despair and depression. Hope on the other hand, can change the world. Take the example of Barrack Obama. At a time when many people are experiencing very difficult economic hardships, the idea and reality of a black president is giving people a tremendous amount of hope. There are up to 2 million people expected in Washington for his inauguration, there has never been an assembly on that scale in Washington. The largest crowd ever, more than any other inauguration, more that any speech by a world leader, more than any protest. Amazing! That is the definition of hope.

ADD is not a death sentence. In fact history is full of people with ADD who have done great and momentous things. People like Einstein, members of Green Day, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Ty Pennington of ABC’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and inventor Alexander Graham Bell are a few.

For more famous people follow this link:

http://www.adhdrelief.com/famous.html

Until next time, I hope you can find inspiration from these people.