Why Ritalin Girl Gave Up Being A Nice Girl

With undiagnosed ADHD in the mix, Ritalin Girl grew up craving validation and approval. She was too messy, too clumsy, too forgetful and too scattered. She just wanted to feel good enough. And at a young age, she didn’t have access to the life-changing pills. ADHD in girls wasn’t a thing. Yet.

So she fell into the trap of people pleasing. She never questioned authority and never advocated for herself or her needs. After all, she was the one that wasn’t good enough. At school she was shy, timid and had to over-work in order to meet the same standards academically as everybody else. It was also a challenge just trying to remain still in class.

And then she reached adulthood and things started to shift. She’s not sure if it’s to do with the bipolar mania coming into action at ages 18 and 25 giving her an exaggerated sense of confidence and self-belief. Or whether it was simply a natural maturation into adulthood and developing more confidence. Like cheese, people get better with age.

The world around her and its overall message didn’t change: the overall theme was still that she was not good enough and she was “bad” in some way. Bad could mean being impulsive, too emotional, confrontational, too talkative or unprofessional. It could be too much of anything really. Just too hot to handle..

But she had simply reached a point where her self-love and self-compassion exceeded all of life’s bumps and pitfalls and the opinions of those around her. This week, for example, the agency representing her for a teaching assistant role was peeved she hadn’t disclosed her history of chronic fatigue. But she didn’t apologise. Not once. After all, the onus was on her whether or not to disclose a health condition. And it was nobody else’s business. She didn’t have to apologise for her choices or her deficits.