Post-secondary or grade school.
How dumb it all is. Seriously. The highly regimented structure of curricula and examination is a shitty way to learn. It’s optimised for making teaching and grading easier. And also teaching young people to be obedient facile production line workers.
But intellectually and academically, it always seemed obviously bad and boring to me. And I’ve since gotten to understand a number of academic topics relatively well to know how true this is. Proper understanding, intellectually, and skill in application, are things that are far more organic and purpose driven than the shitty curricula that pencil pushing educators spit out as though the human mind were an excel spread sheet.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but in hindsight, not getting diagnosed with ADHD was the hardest part for me. I guess at the time, there were still a lot of misconceptions about it, so my parents and teachers never recognized it for what it was. Because I was placed in a “gifted and talented” program when I was young, my slipping grades were just attributed to laziness instead of a disorder. That spiraled into many other problems in school; failing classes, getting into trouble, and several lifelong anxieties that still follow me many years later.
Honestly, my whole life would probably have gone in a much different direction if I had actually gotten the help I needed as a kid. I don’t blame anybody for not recognizing it, but it does suck having slipped through the cracks like that.
Indeed. It got worse as a got older and the rails were peeled away, peaking post college. It got easier as my wife and I divided tasks based on strengths. Got diagnosed 2 years ago when she mentioned she thought I might have adhd, brought on by my distractability around our toddler. It really makes the rest of my life understandable
How was the process of getting diagnosed for you? I tried seeking a diagnosis a while back, but was told that it would be difficult to do without any kind of prior assessments from childhood. With mental health being so poorly covered by insurance, I’ve been hesitant to go through a lengthy evaluation process.
It went fine? It involved filling out several forms including by parents or someone that knew me during childhood and I think a current one too which could be my wife. It was 3 sessions, an intro, the actual testing, and then going over the results. It was all remote for me. I believe I had to bring this up with my pcp first to get an order for testing. I got diagnosed at behavioral health clinic. Insurance covered it mostly, but my wife’s insurance is pretty good because she works for an Amazon subsidiary, so ymmv.
Now therapy and medication on the other side has been harder for me. First therapist didn’t seem to know anything about adhd (I went with a new place since the diagnosers didn’t have prescribing ability). I’ve been since then looking for something else but have been having trouble finding a place that prescribes/accepts my insurance/I just lose focus and stop looking for a few months, gee. I found two a few months ago, but one said prescribing appointments are a year out and the other said a provider would contact me but I don’t think had yet, and yeah since then I have not made an effort to contact, I really should
Sorry for the rambling and inexact details, memory issues 😜
Edit: I think the testing session was 2 hours? Also it was interesting to see some memory games during testing that I thought I was good at, and as it progressed I just completely disintegrated in my ability to do it
No, no. Blame them. It’s ok to realize that it’s not your fault. As children, we’re placed in the safe and lovkng hands of those that raise us.
And when those hands are not only unsafe, but also incompetent, it’s perfectly natural to feel cheated at life.knowing that YOU are not the problem. Society picking those people to raise you is the problem.
It’s the reason I don’t have kids. I don’t feel like I’d raise kids the right way. I don’t want to ruin my kids life.
I’m still salty about the GT program in the 80’s and 90’s. I got great grades, actively asked questions, and felt like learning came easily to me. But every day, a teacher would come into the class and take the GT kids to do whatever it was they did, leaving us schmucks to toil in the mines. I mean, how demoralizing and unfair is that? I acted out and ended up in detention or the principal’s office.
So then in high school, I always assumed I was one of the dumb kids. Took the easiest classes and they bored the shit out of me, but I assumed that’s just the way it was. My senior year, I signed up for a GT physics class even though I wasn’t one of “those people”. It turned out to be the most amazing class I ever took, and while difficult at times I excelled and learned so much.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like had I been one of the Chosen Ones. That whole program is bullshit from both sides of the equation.
Hey there, kid who was diagnosed back in 1993 here…
Depending on when you were in school might not have helped at least being diagnosed. Accommodations were basically non-existent for all of my schooling career and meds, while situationally useful, were diminishing returns. The system just wasn’t designed for us in mind and from what I have seen from my friends kids current accommodation is at times lackluster and spottily applied.
Schooling is kind of designed for adults to teach rather than kids to effectively learn since even neurotypical kids have cycling attention spans that aren’t all synced up. So while it sucks we didn’t get good help you also may not have missed out as much as you would think.
Getting up on time
Gym class. Why that exists in class format absolutely stumps me.
I thought so too, until i got to know someone who never had any decent physical education. It’s scary to see the lack of coordination and balance some adults can have.
Was it because of the lack of coordination or was that because of the lack of physical education? I know people like me who had that but never got anything out of it.
At the start of my freshman year, they hadn’t finished building the “new” gym, which was to be used for the gym classes, so the cheerleaders could practice in the old, big gym.
So the cheerleaders practice on one side of the old gym, and a bunch of horny teen idiots on the other. Dear God the shit they would say, unapologetic and just the worst; “i can see your pu$$y! Bitch just did the splits and left a hickey on the floor!”
Beyond “Hur dur”, this was straight up verbal assault. A few days after the worst of these comments, we were told to go to a portable classroom where we learned health crap out of a book, then i went up four flights of stairs to the actual health class.
No idea where the hell i was going with that, other than it seemed to be a way to tire us out, until the comments landed us in class, then it seemed just a way to keep us occupied until the gym teacher could follow her true, Lesbian Passion ®, girls volleyball coach.
That would happen to me just by waiting for the bus.
Was bullied constantly by other people in high school. Caused a lot of trauma I’m still trying to solve…
Undiagnosed ADHD until I was almost 30.
Something similar, I’ve had sleep issues since I was young, wasn’t until I was 40 that I was diagnosed with insomnia disorder. Middle school is when it really took over, and I didn’t make it any further than grade 10. I got my GED at 25 and was admited to University as a mature student. These days I’m on a disability pension.
Not getting to have “schooling”. I was “homeschooled”, in that my parents kept all 8 of us kids at home and didn’t bother to provide much in the way of education beyond reading and basic math. The lack of real education I was able to overcome, but the gross lack of any socialization has left me struggling with poor social competency to this day.
Math. I sucked at math since 3rd grade and that shit was a struggle all the way through college. I’m lucky i can even count, I swear to God. Had to pass THREE remedial math courses just to be allowed to take the course that counted for actual credit towards my degree. Lately I’ve been contemplating going back to college for a second degree, but I realized I’d have to take shit like pre-calculus for the degrees I’m looking at and I just don’t think I could do it. My brain is such a letdown.
Personally, I really liked school. Even high school. It would have been easier if I’d had more mental health resources, but I learned a ton and had a lot of freedom in terms of electives. I was taking college-level history courses as a senior in high school and absolutely ate it up.
The only nuisance was that I am a good singer and my parents forced me to skip a writing course and advanced biology my senior year because someone the chamber choir had selected instead of me decided to quit, and I wasn’t assertive enough at the time to tell my parents no when the choir director called my mom and convinced her to make me do it, so my last semester I performed with the chamber choir and absolutely fucking hated every second of it. (Though I did put my foot down on weekend travel competitions, so at least I didn’t have to give up weekends for that shit.)
My only other regret is of the time-travel variety. A former schoolmate was high up in the RNC when Trump was elected, and I wish I could go back in time and intervene somehow.
Going without motivation.
I graduated college the first time with straight C’s and major that didn’t have much headroom. It was a struggle and I was a terrible student. Always late, always bargaining with professors for extra time, always “faking it”. I couldn’t find work fitting a degree, went on to do landscaping work, field surveying work, security, all minimum wage.
Then I got into firefighting, then wildland firefighting, then saw how computer science and geospatial data played in, and the motivation clicked.
I saved my money from a pair of very very busy fire seasons (lots of OT and hazard pay), Went back to school for CS and GIS with straight A’s, found the whole experience easy and enjoyable. (Not that I wasn’t challenged and had late nights). If you’ve dug ditches for money and don’t want to do that any more, the asks and challenges of college are comparatively trivial. Even in upper division classes the teachers are crystal clear about the expectations, the schedule, the tests, all of it. If you approach classwork like a job, it all falls into place in ways it never did when I had competing interests and really just wanted to fuck off, drink beer, and go skiing.
Everyone else wants to go do whatever during office hours ? Nah Im there. Every time. Etc etc
Motivation made all the difference, even when content was hard for me (linear algebra after 5 years of no academic math? Fuuuck that was some late nights for my dumb ass. )
If you don’t know what you most enjoy after H.S., finding your motivation is a really great idea for many kids. if you give it a quarter and still aren’t inspired, outside work could help with that. College is expensive; but it’s worth it and -much- easier once you know why you’re there! You’re story is a perfect example, thanks for sharing.
I’d add this (from my experience): if you start out doing well, but your grades start slipping in the second year? Take a quarter (or a year) off to figure out why that’s happening. Maybe that major isn’t for you after all. Maybe things in your personal life need getting past so that you can can get your focus back. The college will still be there when you’re ready … unless what you need is … another college !!
Yep. No point worrying about redoing life. It happened, everything is ok.
I wish I had going the fire crew right after highschool, did that for several years, then started taking a few classes at a time between seasons.
Then dive into a full degree
I hated school as a kid and went back as an adult. The experience is a whole other level and actually really nice.
Having undiagnosed autism and parents not believing in it. I fucking hated school
I was diagnosed a few months after school ended. Same year as well. Parent still refused to believe it.
I was diagnosed a decade after I graduated and was married. My wife suggested for me to go since she saw the signs.
Sounds like you have a caring wife, I’m happy to read this.
Yes indeed : 3
I got diagnosed at age 30. Literally nobody (except for the other autistics I know) believes it.
I grew up in a time when autism was diagnosable, but only if you were in the extreme end of the spectrum. I don’t even know if Asperger’s was a thing.
Many, many days of my adult life I’ve wondered if I’m on the (lighter) end of the spectrum. There’s still at least a two year waiting period to find out. So many “clues” I can point to from my childhood, but they could also just be coincidences.
It was diagnosable… But my parents didn’t bother to get me diagnosed… my brother is 100x worse than me and they still deny it.
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Two people in my immediate family tried nursing school. One basically finished it, then didn’t want to take the cert exam. The other one has dropped out twice. I’ve heard the stories of how brutal it can be.
I found school incredibly inefficient. There were subjects in which I did so well that the standard curriculum left me feeling uninspired and bored because I wasn’t being challenged enough. In other subjects, the class moved too fast and I got left behind.
Also, physical education was often neglected in secondary and post-secondary in favor of more academic subjects. Given the cardiovascular disease epidemic, I think that was a mistake. How can you have a healthy mind without a healthy body?
Not being able to take a “mental health” day off, in both high school and college. In high school my parents wouldn’t let me (though I don’t fault them for that), and in college it was hard to keep up if I even missed one lecture. As an adult with a job , if I need a day to decompress, I can decide to take off tomorrow and nobody can tell me no. In school it was hard to keep on going with the tank on empty.
