ADHD: A sibling's Perspective

Omg, not another ADHD story! Well I wanted to take you all on a short journey of how I became passionate about ADHD. In this generation, we hear that everyone has ADHD. It is so normalized and possibly over diagnosed or misdiagnosed that as a society and as clinicians are losing sight of what ADHD truly is. One thing that I do know is I grew up with a sister that has ADHD. Her story would definitely be a testament to the category of being underdiagnosed, which is common for biological females. I would honestly say that I did not know much about ADHD until probably my senior year in college. This is when I noticed how off task and extremely distracted my roommate was and oh yea everyone took Adderall during exam weeks. As I think back, I can recall her talking excessively, being super restless, easily distracted, and having difficulties with social skills just to name a few. She was an amazing person that definitely struggled in college without her medication. 

ADHD is so normalized and possibly over diagnosed or misdiagnosed that as a society and as clincians we are losing sight of what ADHD truly is.

My second year of graduate school is when I first noticed my sister’s behavior and a light switched went off, “She has ADHD.” We were driving in the car and I asked her if she thought she may have ADHD and she responded, “Yea, I thought about it once.” At this point she was in in sophomore year of college and she was struggling with her grades. When she shared that she was struggling, I was filled with sadness because I could recall when she shared this with me when I was in college. I went to school a few hours from my parents house and when I would come home I often found my sister crying because she could not complete her homework in time, she was up until 2 or 3am doing work or studying, she would forgot to turn her work in, just to name a few. My response was, “Just try harder.” A response that was ignorant and lacked empathy. My sister was classified as gifted and was placed in the IB (International Baccalaureate) program, a rigorous academic track at her high school. It was confusing from the outside because she was “gifted,” which in my head at the time meant smart. So why can’t smart person do their work quickly, complete their work, understand what they read, or organize/plan for things. In her experience, it seemed like the work was overbearing, she would often forget when assignments were due, struggled with reading comprehension, organizing writing assignments, and completing tasks in a timely manner. This continued in college for the first 2 years and at this point she had had enough! She went to see the school academic center and was tested for ADHD. 

Just try harder, a response that was ignorant and lacked empathy. One that I would regret later.

We are in 2017 now, I have graduated with my masters and probably diagnosed and administered about 100 psychological evaluations in the school system and/or in office under a psychologist. I received a call from the testing psychologist and she was verbally giving me the well-known BASC-2 rating form for family members. I knew it all so well! It was strange because this is what I do on a daily basis and now someone is asking me referencing someone I know, at that, a family member. My sister called me later that week and said she was diagnosed with ADHD (she was 20 old) and identified the treatment plan that the psychologist prescribed. At that moment, all I could think of is how different her school experience could have been if she would have had an IEP or 504 plan in school for ADHD or how she would not have cried so much because it took her so long to complete work or in college when she was telling me her grades were very low and she did not know what to do. I provided her with the knowledge that I had at that time regarding medication and some treatments. Before I go into where we are today, let me first explain that there are many families that are unaware of symptoms of ADHD. Most people automatically think of hyperactivity but my sister is the exact opposite, Inattentive Type. What made it so difficult to identify is that she is very cognitively gifted and beyond capable of doing whatever she puts her mind to, literally. My thought for her was always try a little harder. The ineffective bootstrap method. Oh boy, I will never forget telling her that when I came home from college a few times. 

Well, here we are today. My sister graduated with TWO degrees in 2019 with honors. Following graduation, she was accepted into a rigorous condensed software engineering program and is now a software engineer. She has written several articles on coding and Artificial Intelligence for Medium.com. All in all, her ADHD does not define or limit her. She is not ADHD! She is an amazing student, sister, friend, daughter, and professional! 

Her ADHD does not define or limit her.

With that being said, I have since become an expert in the area of ADHD. A portion of my work includes working with clients ages 3-14 to provide efficient and effective services that will allow them to FlOURISH not only in their personal life but within the school system. I fight for kids in the school system so they do not feel like my sister did while they are in school and to help them learn how to cope with their ADHD while they are young. I teach parents to better understand ADHD and the best approaches of communication to help their kiddos. I also enjoy working with adults to help them learn better strategies to cope with and manage their ADHD. A major passion of mine is educating organizations and communities about Neurodiversity!