They Denied Her ADHD Because She Was Disciplined, Studious… and Indian

1 Comment: They Denied Her ADHD Because She Was Disciplined, Studious… and Indian

1. I sympathise with Eeshani’s bad experience. I had a similar one as a white middle class girl with severe dyspraxia/dyslexia and a plethara of other health problems, including neurological visual loss. I faced a lot of the same write-offs, probably due to the same sort of stereotyping: such as that my parents were just pushy and making excuses for the fact I wasn’t really as bright as they thought I ought to be; that if I paid attention to study skills, I would be fine; and that my poor accademic performance was natural or resulted from lack of effort. I still get judged in adult life, in the most negative and unpleasant ways, for my noise sensitivity problems, despite the fact that I have at least three medical diagnoses of which that’s a known feature!

   Stereotyping affects all sorts of surprising groups of people, I think, and it is really important to try to get people to recognise what assumptions look like, and how what they expect of “a person like the one in front of them” affects the way they interpret facts they would probably consider totally differently in the case of a person with a different background.

   It has worked to my advantage in one surprising way, though: no-one ever assumes I’m drunk, despite the fact that I have the sort of movement problems which make me expect people to suppose so on a pretty much daily basis!

   I now have a first class honours degree – it took me eight years of study – and am doing a masters, also extremely slowly. Would like to wish Eeshani and everyone else with a similar experience the same success and more! 🙂