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Table 10 Troubled Childhood Experiences

From: Comparison of the burden of illness for adults with ADHD across seven countries: a qualitative study

 

Troubled Childhood Experiences

 

Approximately 55 participants reporting (51%)

Canada

My childhood was terrible and my teenage years were terrible, and now I’m feeling much, much better. I was walking on the sidewalk feeling terrible about myself, lost, and no self-esteem. […] I know I was in pain, I was suffering. It’s like another life, as if I was reborn. I remember very vaguely being just another person.

France

No I wouldn’t say that I felt isolated or alone but I had a problem with memory. For example, at school I would forget my book and would be told to bring it next day and I would lose things.

Germany

When I was kid I was extremely restless, one of these typical restless kids when I was 7 or 8 and then nothing much happened. Later on I became a more quiet person, slightly depressed sad kid and teenager.

Italy

I didn’t have any friend until the first year of the high school, when I started to take the drug. I had no friends. Before I took the drug, they pulled my legs because of my behaviors. My younger brother was always beaten because he was the weirdest.

The Netherlands

As a young child you of course are in the age in which you develop yourself and try out one another, you fight every once in a while, it’s all part of it. Kids just do that… but ADHD’ers keep on going and can’t stop with a joke for instance, which automatically puts you outside the group. It’s frustrating because you can’t calm yourself down, that’s very annoying.

United Kingdom

But I was depressed as a child, depressed, lonely, bullied, and teased and everything. My parents hated me, my sisters hated me. They were always tormenting me at school, you know? I didn’t have many friends.

United States

I remember having problems if there was any noise or movement especially if a teacher was talking to another student when we were supposed to be doing our work. I couldn’t concentrate or maintain focus. I would read the same paragraph over and over and over again and it would not sink in. […] As a kid, people would call me an adrenaline junky.