Hannah Dolan lives in Jefferson City and was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult.
She spoke about the importance of talking about and normalizing neurodivergent experiences.
For the month of December, we’re focusing on the health of those living in Jefferson City.
Hannah Dolan: So, neurodivergence is a new word that's come about, basically, to describe folks that may fall on the autistic or ADHD spectrum, and, if you're online a lot — especially on TikTok a lot — you kind of might be more familiar with this.
I was thinking for a long time, as someone who has always struggled with maybe anxiety or depression, that I had something bigger, there was a bigger leap or bigger step into understanding myself and something was missing.
And so, I recently learned at 23 that I was diagnosed with ADHD, and that was kind of a big moment for me because I had gone to previous providers or gone to previous people, gone to my parents and kind of been shrugged off, kind of been told, you know, “There's nothing wrong with you.”
So, to learn at 23 — which I would be like a late diagnosed ADHD woman — that I kind of fell through the cracks was kind of disappointing. I'm so glad to have learned it now, though, when I can finally take those next steps.
But it's not even so much about medication or an actual diagnosis as much as it is for, again, learning that dialog into understanding yourself. Learning that, “Oh, no, I didn't do anything wrong.”
“It's not that I said the wrong thing in that friend group. It's just that I'm different and my brain works differently,” and maybe this is why, you know, in the past, you know, all those situations or all those memories I attributed to, “Oh, you can't do this right” — like the self-loathing narrative, the quote unquote “sh**ty committee,” as I lovingly, as one of my professors lovingly called it, that I could attribute you know, clinically, what I was going through.
It's important to remember when we're having discussions about neurodivergent people that there's nothing wrong with having ADHD or any kind of disorder, for a matter of fact, it's just different, right?
But that these are real learning disabilities. It's not that there's anything wrong with us, but the world around us wasn't created with us in mind.
And there are different barriers that people have to — whether that be chronic lateness or chronic forgetfulness, whether they decide to pursue medication or not — they are constantly battling themselves, and constantly battling their brains in a world that can be very difficult for them.
You know, obviously, we've come so far in a couple of decades, just with, you know, the online space, but we don't have to live with the stigma.
We don't have to live in the stigma that you know, “Something's wrong with you” or “Your child is somehow less than” or, you know — these are disabilities, don't get me wrong, but there are difficulties and challenges to face, but these conversations are worth having, and they're going to bring people so much closer together in understanding.
