"Pug, you're an incredibly smart kid, but you're lazy."
Me, unable to remember homework, but acing every test and going above-and-beyond on any project with freeform requirements, leading to solid Bs and Cs despite half my assignments being a flat 0 for not being turned in: "Yeah."
... kind of wish someone looked a little deeper into the issue at the time.
I was told that I was under the influence of demons! Which, to a child raised in a deeply religious household, will absolutely destroy any sense self-worth you have. Especially when the goal is to make you act like the complete opposite of who / what you simply are at your core.
Too bad for my parents, because now I both don't like people and have a burning hatred for religious establishments!
I was forced to adapt for survival but that doesn't mean it wasn't a struggle. Also I didn't do "fine" in school, though that's the front I put up. In reality I barely graduated high school and scraped by with like a 1.8 GPA, couldn't get into college, and got kicked out of community college. And I hurt a lot of people I cared deeply about along the way too.
One asshole at Hopkins, leo kanner, sat on neuridiversity info all through most boomer childhoods.
Their parents got blamed for it by their own depression-era parents.
There was only one way to be, only certain foods, everything else was either a sin or a personal failure. Those kids could not answer questions honestly, just repeat back the same approved cultural pablum that maga wants to go back to.
Simple has several meanings.
The only light was Dr. Spock, but too subtle for many readers, he had to couch things carefully in his time and the culture was deafening.
Only after Lorna Wing released her work in the 70s did it start to normalise for some Gen Xers.
It seems to me that mental health issues, including, but not limited to, ADHD, are being taken more seriously.
Previously, the lazy, slacker, troublemaker kids were just beaten until they did what they were told.
Yeah, I'd say the threat of violence is a pretty good motivator to overcome the symptoms of mental conditions, and at least mask so hard that people can't tell that you're a complete fucking mess, right up until the day that your mental health degrades so much that you off yourself.
So what you're saying is, physical violence against kids works to prevent symptoms of ADHD&autism from being too debilitating? Cause I'm not sure that's the message you wanna put out there.
When half my concentration in a given conversation goes to behaving "properly" (trying not to fidget, maintaining a hopefully appropriate amount of relaxed eye contact without staring, appearing attentive but relaxed), half goes to figuring out whether, how, when and what to contribute and I also have to listen and process the words because I occasionally struggle with understanding spoken language... yeah, sure, I may seem normal, but something somewhere is gonna drop off the radar.
Whether I say something appropriate or hit the right timing to chime in without either interrupting or being too late becomes (even more of) a gamble, which stresses me out and causes anxiety, further taking away focus and composure. Alternatively, I become quiet and feel more like an observer on the sidelines than a part of the conversation, isolated by my own struggles. Or I blunder and say something wrong and retreat to that isolation in shame. Or I don't really hear what you're saying, lose track of the conversation, am caught off-guard by the odd question cast my way, or simply retreat from trying to contribute because I don't even know what we're talking about, back into the same isolation.
I'm a chatty person. But I'm scared to chat with most people. Doing so leaves me either mentally or emotionally drained and upset. I hide away, retreat to the internet where I can better regulate my participation, make excuses not to attend company events, let social contacts slip away because maintaining them is too much stress, struggle to make doctor's appointments or call for a med refill...
If you think I seem normal - thanks for the compliment, I worked really hard on that facade. I'm glad it's working.
I started getting treated for ADHD at age 45. I confronted my mom about how she and my dad treated me when I was young, constantly berating and punishing me for "not living up to my potential", "not caring enough about school", "not applying myself", and explained that my behavior was almost certainly undiagnosed ADHD.