For years, I thought I was broken. The real problem was a system that couldn’t see my Neurodivergent mind. I wasn’t a bad student. I was a Neurodivergent one.

School Crushed Me

When I left high school, more than 20 years ago, I had no idea what I was capable of. In fact, the thing I was told over and over again would “prepare me for life” (school) had been more disempowering than empowering, leaving me less confident in my own worth and abilities than when I went into it.

Something that is true about my personal Neurodivergent (Autistic and ADHD) experience is that  I have a very spiky skills and abilities profile. Which, for me, means I’m often either very good at something or exceptionally bad at it. This means I have uncommon weaknesses, sometimes struggling with things others find simple, but I also possess uncommon strengths.

The things I’m good at, I sometimes take longer to learn (because of the level of detail I need to absorb), but when I do master them, I can reach an expert level of skill, depending on the activity… but I didn’t know this for most of my life.

School Made Me Think I Was Bad at Learning

In adulthood, I have learned that I can be an excellent self-paced learner (when I’m learning about a topic I’m passionate about). However, it is almost impossible for me to force my brain to absorb information it doesn’t find relevant or interesting.

Sometimes I can force myself to learn about less interesting topics if I can find a way to understand why the information is relevant or how it relates to something I’m already passionate about or knowledgeable in.

However, school often didn’t take this extra step, helping me understand the importance of what they wanted us to learn (or offering compassion when I struggled to focus on information and sit still and quiet in class)… plus, a lot of what they wanted us to learn in school was boring and felt completely irrelevant to me.

I’m not a well-rounded person. I have a very specialized brain.

To me, Autism means I am not a generalist. Schools favor well-rounded students who adapt quickly, while I struggle with changes. Failing one subject meant failing the entire grade, even if I excelled in the others.

Also, sometimes, depending on the teacher or subject matter, it is easier for me to study and learn on my own than to have someone else lead my instruction, but because I had teachers who didn’t know how to reach me, and because I struggled to learn in a classroom enviornment, I left school at age 18 without even considering higher education, feeling as if I were a failure and unable to learn.

Only as an adult, through self-paced learning fueled by curiosity, did I realize I was capable of learning despite my earlier struggles.

Not Knowing About Neurodiversity Hinders All of Us

Unfortunately, growing up and throughout my early adult years, I did not know I was Neurodivergent, or understand why I struggled to keep up with my peers sometimes.

Due to my lack of understanding, I pushed myself mercilessly to repress, hide, or overcome Neurodivergent traits that were not things I could ever truly leave behind (because that’s what my teachers had done to me in school) until I couldn’t do it anymore.

Had my teachers been able to see me as a struggling kid in need of support, instead of a problem child that needed to be bent into compliance, it would have made success possible for me (and their lives much easier, because my ‘behaviors’ in class would have been much less ‘disruptive’ if my basic needs had actually been met).

Looking back now, it’s clear how frustrating these misunderstandings and assumptions were for all parties involved (me, my teachers and school administrators, my parents, and probably even the other students).

I had teachers who saw that I was competent, gifted even, in some areas, but failed to perform in others, and assumed, when I struggled, it was because I wasn’t applying myself... because being gifted at reading, writing, and vocabulary was supposed to somehow mean I would also be gifted at math, science, and history.

My reading, writing, and vocabulary skills were also supposed to mean I “could be still and quiet for the whole school day” (something I still can’t do even now in adulthood, not in the way it was expected of me as a child, but as a six or seven year old kid, I was somehow “refusing” to do so).

Other students, who had better impulse control and were more regulated, and were less overwhelmed by the classroom’s sensory environment than I was (because their senses weren’t being overstimulated by the ligts, sounds, cold, or smells), were probably confused by the fact that I couldn’t be still and quiet, like they did, possibly thinking I was trying to be disruptive and intentionally causing trouble for the teacher.

Meanwhile, I wanted to behave but didn’t know how to do what was expected of me in my highly dysregulated body. Everything about the classroom environment, especially in elementary school, was dysregulating—from the lessons about topics I had no interest in, that felt irrelevant to my life, to the bright fluorescent lights, bitterly cold AC, and the sounds, smells, and constant movement that become inevitable when you pack 20-30 small children in one classroom like sardines.

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