Table 17 Problems with Parents

Canada

My mom was a nurse and she took me to the doctor and they did a bunch of tests and it came out that I was ADHD. All I remember is the term hyperactive disorder. But my mom didn’t want me to go on the pills. She thought that she could just kind of parent it out of me, which didn’t have the greatest effect on my life.

France

“Helping” is not the first word that comes to mind when I think about my mother. She pushes me, she makes me be more organized. She says, “If you don’t decide where your books are going to go, then I decide now. Your books are going to go on that shelf.”

Germany

I also come from an ADHD household. […] My parents are […] incapable of leading a decent and normal life and I think they are very messy because they simply can’t cope with it. They are compulsive in not throwing away and I really started cleaning at home at the age of five […] and I must say that I became a compulsive cleaner but always with that great fear if I was only to give way a tiny little touch of that then everything would break out in this huge chaos.

Italy

The most serious consequence of the fact that I have had ADHD since I was born is that my mother perceives me as a different person and came even to hate me. Because, in her opinion, I was not normal.

The Netherlands

My dad then says that I act so strange, but I have been doing that for half my life now. A little out of scope everywhere, at one time too active, at the other not feeling like anything, then feeling like everything again. It just shows.

United Kingdom

My schooling, I got thrown out. […] because they said I was badly behaved and, no one knew what was wrong with me, and when my mum took me to the doctors they actually said do you want some tablets? […] and she was like no! […] When my brother was born she thought there was something wrong with him so she took him to the doctors and she was like I’m sure there’s something wrong with my son and […] it was actually me.

United States

[My mother] decided it would be better if I didn’t take the Dexedrine. It kind of crippled my relationship with her for a while.