Part 1: whole wheat bread and happiness

Sitting in our tree house with my bare feet dangling in a mellow Arizona breeze, the aroma of whole wheat bread reached my six-year-old nose and I scampered down with hopes of Mom sparing me the end of a loaf, spread with butter and drizzled with honey. My childhood was filled with the carefree peacefulness of mud pies and swimming at the neighborhood pool. Mom took us camping for weeks at a time and read us enough classics that my mind can still get lost in a cave with Tom Sawyer or wander the Swiss Alps with Heidi and a herd of goats. My parents had their difficulties but they didn’t share them with us and I don’t have even one memory of them raising their voices. I know, It sounds too good to be true, but my love of life, thriving self-esteem, and deep-down peacefulness stand as proof to the joy of my childhood.

What could make a six-year-old happier than a rainbow leisure suit and new bike?

During those happy years, however, small and subtle red flags appeared that were never noticed by my parents, teachers, or even myself. “Kim can do her work but has trouble organizing it” was written on more than one report card, but seemed like a normal challenge for a child my age.

Upon starting my first job, I learned teachers are willing to overlook issues that employers are not.

Captain Ed gripped the wheel of the eighty-foot tour boat and stared into the open waters of the Gulf of Alaska. All the other crew ate lunch with him in the wheelhouse but my presence seemed to needle him.

“I heard you got the passenger count wrong.” His beanpole-body towered over my 17-year-old self as he turned toward me and finally made eye contact over his hooked nose.

“I’m sorry.” I looked down, wishing myself invisible, a red flush creeping up my neck. I longed to defend myself but the gap between feeling like a competent, intelligent person and the reality of making simple, obvious mistakes was a mystery to me.

His hands gripped the wheel tighter, and he turned the boat into the mounting swells that crashed over the bow. “You know it’s dishonest to misrepresent yourself in an interview.”

Pressing my hands to my face, I sought for a response, tried to articulate my way through a maze of murky thoughts. Although I knew I hadn’t lied, I felt as if he were somehow right. Yes, I was great at interviewing because I was a happy, confident person. But when asked to learn a task, like catching a rope and using it to secure a boat to a dock, it took me longer to learn than other people. Captain Ed wasn’t interested in giving me extra time or patience.

Being a tour guide in the Gulf of Alaska proved an adventure in more ways than I ever imagined.

The head pathologist at the lab I worked for during college was kinder. The sympathy in his eyes as we sat down in his office made what was coming worse. I didn’t want someone to feel sorry for me. I wanted to be successful and respected. He stared down at his desk and took a deep breath before he asked me why I made so many mistakes. “Are you going through something difficult that might distract you?” He asked gently.

I had my successes though.If people were willing to endure my longer learning curve or let me look over materials at my own pace, I was often a top performer. I took several jobs as a salesperson during college and always rose to the top, even getting promoted to teach and manage others.

Due to the good example of my parents, I had grown up observing happy relationships and learning to stay out of debt and take care of my health. Excellent grades at the community college were easy to come by as I could study information at my own pace.

But when I transferred to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah from my community college, all of my success came crashing down around me.

Part 2: College Woes

Hiking in the Wasatch Mountains

Choosing Microbiology as a major made sense to me because I had loved biology at the community college. But science was taught on a different, exponentially higher level at BYU. Having no science background besides the community college and competing with married, pre-med students made things difficult. These die-hard scholars were just one reason BYU earned The Princeton Review’s “Stone Cold Sober” award for the last sixteen years.

The disappointment that I could barely keep up stung, but more pressing was the realization that something else was wrong. Some cognitive bottleneck I couldn’t put my finger on was controlling my life, so I went to a counselor to nail it down.

“You’re taking chemistry, microbiology, and physics at university with students who graduated from high school with an average GPA of 3.8. There is nothing wrong with you. It’s just hard.” The counselor shook his head and leaned back in his chair as if declaring the matter finished. And I believed him because it made sense.

So I buckled down. For two more years, I accepted college was “just hard.” Studying 60 hours a week, losing weight and friends, I managed to pass my classes, even if my grades were mostly C’s.

And I learned a new kind of shame.

Shame was the raised eyebrows and confused expression on the face of my study partner who poured over the same information I did and got an “A.”

Shame was walking into my favorite professor’s office and seeing his head bent over papers on his desk, fingers pressed into his temples, and feeling my chest tighten as I realized he was pouring over my exam. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re missing,” he said when he finally met my eyes.

There is something worse than the shame of ADHD. Having ADHD and not knowing. Just wondering what is wrong with you. At the end of two years I knew with absolute certainty that college was not “just hard.”

Part 3: An End and a Beginning

Letting my body sag against my bed and allowing tears to flow was a relief. Confronting the truth I had been in denial about for so long somehow helped alleviate the bitterness of failure.The real problem was that even though I knew I would be graduating, I also knew I did not have the level of understanding I yearned for. Even though my knees ached on the hardwood floor, I lost all sense of time, and waited, body heavy against my quilt, for a direction, idea, or escape.
Finally, I took a pen and a 3×5 card and wrote the following prayer:

I don’t need to get straight A’s. I’m not asking to be at the top of the class. But I can feel that deep down, I don’t really understand what I’m studying. I have tried to fix this and I have not been able to, so if I find a solution, I will know it’s from you, Heavenly Father. I know miracles still exist and I will give you credit for this one.

I folded the card in half and put it the back pocket of my jeans. The card stayed in my pocket for two weeks until I walked by a white flier stapled to a bulletin board in the middle of the quad. It was an advertisement to get tested at the counseling center for learning disorders. My backpack slid to the ground as I stood in the blustery sunshine knowing exactly what to do.
“Are you ready for your test results?” A balding man in his early 30’s sat across from me, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The softness in his voice that hadn’t been there during several hours of testing made me nervous. He was working on a Ph.D. in counseling and had eyes as kind as my father. Too kind. My chest tightened and I took a sip of water to try and dissolve the lump in my throat. Was this was just another Tuesday or a major turning point in my life?

He looked down at the paper in his hands and back up at me several times before explaining I had the classic test results of someone with ADHD. A strong indicator that I had a learning disorder was my IQ being significantly high than my performance. This explained how I felt intelligent but also frustrated accessing that intelligence. Even 20 years later I can see the mixture of respect and disbelief in his eyes. “So you’re a microbiology major? That must have been hard.”

Relief dissipated into a breath I felt I had been holding for several years. Years of wondering if I was lazy or just a little dumb. Feeling so much relief was a surprise. Shouldn’t I be devastated at the diagnosis of an incurable learning disorder?

No. I was not devastated. The fact was, I had known this enemy was there but hadn’t trusted the gut feeling that something was wrong. ADHD had hovered above me like an amorphous cloud, sometimes subtle enough to be a few wispy strands in a bright blue sky. So elusive I could pretend it didn’t exist until it turned into a thunderstorm of shame.

But now my obstacle was not imaginary. Pretending a weakness doesn’t exist is exhausting and in that moment I felt the lightness of a burden lifted, a light shined in the corner of a dark room where shame would lurk no more.

The very same afternoon, I went to the library and found a book encompassing diagnosis and treatment of ADHD entitled “Out of the Fog.” Reading the book in less than a few days, the puzzle pieces of my life came together to form a picture of this exact disorder. Indeed, the fog was lifting.

Then I promptly lost the library book.

With the diagnosis came an army of tangible help in the form of study tips, medication, and general information. As a student who had been desperately hungry for real understanding and help, I gobbled up these resources and felt immediate relief.

It was spring semester and I had biochemistry taught by a tall, lanky man named Stephen Wood who actually knew my name. He wore a green polyester suit when we studied chlorophyll and made chocolate chip cookies in class to explain emulsifiers. On this particular day, he had a 3D representation of an enzyme called catalase on the computer’s overhead projector. My thoughts slowed down in a way I had never experienced. The elegance with which it turned and bound settled on my mind, and I sat in awesome wonder as if it were the grand canyon. I finally understood. I wiped tears and mascara off my face and said a prayer of thanks.The room was full of people but the only ones witnessing this miracle were me and God.

Even though life got dramatically better for me after my diagnosis, all of my problems were not solved. You can ask my family about how many times I lose my phone and keys. Simple tasks like making dinner are daunting even now. Recently I went through an entire day with mascara on just one eye.
My favorite snack is still whole wheat bread spread with butter and drizzled with honey. I give it to my children as I look into their wide, innocent eyes and wonder if I’m missing any small and subtle red flags. But there is something I don’t wonder. Something I know for sure. Unconditional love from my husband and I now will empower them later. When they do come face to face with their weakness, when others see those weaknesses and treat them with disrespect, they might remember our unconditional love, and instead of giving up on themselves, seek for a miracle.