[GranteedEV]

I can't pretend to understand your situation, but as someone who was late-diagnosed with ADHD at the ripe age of 30, I can say that I'm pretty familiar with life not going according to plan.

So here's my story:

I still remember my ECS teacher telling my parents in an P/T interview that I was so (hyper-)focused on playing with toys and learning, that I didn't socialize. I didn't even understand why she would say that, and it wasn't even something I had picked up on. Even six year old me resented that kind of criticism without being able to process her intent.

Going forward to sixth grade, I remember my teacher keeping me and me alone in detention for having a disorganized desk. And yet I was constantly writing the best book reports and short stories in class (until I started being so perfectionist that it led to procrastination and my first foray into missed assignments)

Junior High school, I remember the genuine concern my math teach had for me; she believed I was intelligent but couldn't understand why I skipped all the homework she assigned. So many long conversations but I didn't know myself why homework was such a challenge.

High school, things got better because...

1) My mom had gotten a job that started early, and she would drop me off at school over an hour before classes. And I would do homework in the library.
2) There were astoundingly fewer map-coloring assignments in social studies, which improved my grades profoundly as I never used to hand those in
3) The grades for post-secondary entrance were skewed by diploma exam scores
4) high school, like ur high school and elementary school, was still just... easy. That might sound like a brag but we'll revisit this.

So I got early admission into UofC engineering. How convenient, a school right here at home, no need to live in a dorm or learn how to adult.

First year comes. We'll get to the academics later.
It was 2006. The Toronto Raptors were a poorly coached, undertalented team that were two years removed from trading their franchise player. They had just added a new GM. They had just won the #1 overall draft pick. Flames fans on CP might remember the 2015 Flames season as a bit of a comparable. A year where you cheer for a bad team that, against all odds, is hanging onto a playoff spot and every game is just stupidly fun for reasons that make zero sense.

It was... raw like cocaine straight out Bolovia for the ADHD mind.

That was my first year of University and I was skipping Chem 251 to watch basketball and I was obsessed with tracking minutia like different role players' true shooting percentages (which, in 2006, wasn't considered a mainstream statistic. Think corsi pre-2014 Avs as a hockey comparable).

Midterms hit.

I... failed my first exam. Ever in my life. It was linear algebra and I got 41% I believe. I had thought I could just learn two months of course content in 20 hours on the weekend, because of course I did. Primary school taught me that every academic concept is easy and doesn't require practice, hard work, dedication. These were concepts that were foreign to me outside the contexts of video games or sports. Academics? It was all about getting a can of NOS energy drink and pulling an all-nighter to learn the course content, and then pulling ahead of people that bizarrely worked hard for some reason I couldn't fathom.


####, first year was bad. Bad enough I got RTW'd and had to re-calibrate my approach to post-secondary.

No, I didn't make an immediate improvement. Even knowing that my effort in first year wasn't enough, wasn't enough to suddenly change the way my mind works. 2007 was the year I was hyperfocused on hanging out with friends, because for the first time ever, that suddenly mattered. For every step forward, there would be a step sideways. Shifting career goals "I wanna be a lawyer because I like the Ace Attorney games. Actually I just wanna be an engineer again.". Constantly awful prioritization.

2009-10 was the Brent Sutter year for the Flames. Oh and Final Fantasy XIII had this really complex battle system that took a lot of micromanaging. Where was the ability to prioritize school?

Anyways, eventually I completed post-secondary, but I now encountered an even tougher challenge than passing classes...

getting interviews.

Which requires cover letters and resumes.

That's a mind-numbing task for the average person.

But we'll revisit that too. So I had gotten fired from my weekend part time job unjustly. Skyway Wines and Liquor (At the YYC airport. Go ahead, try sue me for libel, GM John Thompson, I would love nothing more than to counter-sue you for this one) fired me for opening their store late based on CCTV time stamps. These idiots did not understand their own CCTV time stamps were not adjusted for daylight savings. No warning was given about this. Quite frankly I know they knew it was just an excuse to out someone who wasn't part of the newly hired store manager's inner circle. The GM claimed to be willing to look into it yet ghosted me. Atrocious situation and I never took legal action because it wasn't even something I was aware of.

Now back to the resume. Imagine having to put the above on it, while being full of resentment and anger.

Try being undiagnosed with ADHD and not knowing why you, who knows extremely well how to make not just a good resume, but an excellent resume, can't push through that simple, everyday task.

No therapy to tell you that the firing was a triggering event, and no-self awarenes to recognize that ADHD is inherently not just an attention regulation disorder, but a dopamine deficiency disorder. And tasks that cause negative emotions - whether due to tediousness, or strong negative emotions, are set aside for a quick dopamine hit.

So yeah, it took me way, way, wayyy longer to get my career on track.

finally getting a diagnosis helped a little. medication, therapy, self-awareness, and overall maturity.

Even now I feel way "behind", even knowing self-imposed timelines are just that. I bought a month ago, shoutout to MillerTimeGFG on the mortgage, but truthfully I feel I should have bought this condo a decade ago when I was too busy cheering on the Cardiac Kids through every meaningless, amazing comeback instead of prioritizing real life.

I'm not pretending to have any answers for you - you have the answers for you, and therapy can help you find them - but I am saying that life doesn't go as planned. Don't be hard on yourself. Be transparent, be self-aware, practice self-compassion, and break life into the small things.

"I am studying for this oral exam to get into Pharmacy School".

That sentence alone should be something you should say with pride! You've got a goal, and you're pursuing it with integrity. Maybe you have a toxic environment, maybe you have personal challenges, but as long as you feel safe, you can work towards making your situation better. If you don't feel safe, find a way to get out of that situation.