When the Trouble Began

and how math became my nemesis

Since being diagnosed with ADHD, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my childhood, and how this disorder showed up in my earlier years. ADHD develops in early childhood, meaning I have had this for my whole life. If you asked anyone who knew me as a child, they would tell you I was a smart, imaginative, creative, talkative, outgoing, motivated, and expressive kid. From the outside, you would not have known anything was wrong with me.

For the most part, I quite liked school. I even liked science. Biology was fascinating to me. I wanted to know how the human body worked, and about how the bodies of animals worked. I memorized the names of all the bones in the human body. I was especially fascinated by sea creatures, especially the mighty humpback whale. I saw the Little Mermaid when I was seven, and desperately wanted to be Ariel. Not human Ariel (as tempting as Prince Eric was) - I wanted to be mermaid Ariel who got to swim all day and be the star of the undersea show. I loved music and video games and painting and drawing.  All in all, a pretty normal kid who came of age in the late 80s/early 90s.

If I had to point to where the Troubles started, it would be in kindergarten. Kindergarten is a magical time in most kids’ lives. It is the end of babyhood, when you become a full fledged kid. There are also a lot of rules foisted upon you all at once, and you begin receiving report cards for the first time (at least that was the case back then in the 80s). There was one consistent place on my report card that was not up to snuff, and that was Conduct. If 5 was the best number you could get, and 1 was the worst, I was generally scoring a 2 or 3 in that area. I was dinged for talking out of turn and not paying attention. I was often referred to as a “Chatty Cathy”. Since the day I learned to speak, I spoke fast, loud, and often. I spoke when I wasn’t spoken to. I could talk anyone’s ear off for hours about something that interested me.

Let’s be real - there were plenty of little boys in my class who spoke out of turn or were loud or disruptive, but they didn’t get reprimanded nearly as harshly as I did. This is where I can first identify what I now know is masking. People with ADHD learn how to mask the signs of their disorder if their behavior or speech is unacceptable, because the consequences are often harsh. Especially for girls. I got reprimanded for talking and being loud so often that one day, I made a conscious and determined effort to not do that. There was a time when the teacher would announce it was “quiet time”, and we were supposed to return to our desks, remain silent, and fold our hands in our lap until we were told that this time was over. As you can imagine, this was absolute torture for me. You might as well have tied me down and tickled me and asked me not to laugh. The urge to talk was SO strong I could barely stand it, but yet, I sat obediently, lips pursed so tight I pretended I had glued them together. I straightened my posture and I folded my hands in my lap as daintily as I could (no one would ever call me “dainty”). My teacher noticed my heroic effort, and was so impressed with my newfound discipline that I was awarded Student of the Week. I got a certificate to take home and everything. I was so proud of myself. I managed to shut up! I sat quietly and acted ladylike! I was not rewarded for my intelligence, my smart answers in class, or the painting I had made. I was rewarded for my silence. I was rewarded for keeping my mask on. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time this was true.

I do not remember exactly when I started reading, but by kindergarten, I was a voracious reader. I read anything and everything I could get my grubby little hands on, including copies of Star Magazine that my mother bought in the checkout line at the grocery store. My mother claims I started reading when I was three. Maybe that is the exaggeration of a proud parent, but I remember climbing into bed with books very young. Early into my kindergarten career, my mother received a disturbing phone call from my teacher. They told my mother that I was lagging behind in my reading skills, and that they were actually uncertain if I could read at all. My mother was offended and upset. Of course she can read, she told them, she’s been reading! They insisted it was just memorization. Apparently, I refused to do the work they were giving me.

Reader, it turns out that I was very very very bored. They were handing me books that I thought were made for babies, and asking me to sound out words. D-OG. C-AT. TR-AIN. And when I was very very very bored at that age, I simply refused to participate. I went off into the corner and made my own fun rather than sound out baby words from baby books. The teachers finally agreed to send me in for a formal reading evaluation where they would give me sections of books starting at a kindergarten level and ask me what they were about. I got all the way up to an eighth grade level and they finally gave up. Not only could I read, I could comprehend pretty grown up themes and topics for a 5 year old. I was assigned a new reading specialist who took me aside when the other kids were reading Dr. Seuss and gave me more advanced material instead. It was then that I excelled. My affinity for reading and my love of language would take me very far in my studies.

First and second grade came and went. I did very well in all of my classes, and made more of an effort to keep my talking to a minimum, though I still did get comments about it on my report card. I learned that doodling on a piece of paper while listening to the instruction actually helped me pay attention better, and it also kept me from talking. I also learned that taking detailed notes helped me retain information better, and still does. This was also the time I began creative writing. Writing became my number one love, and the one hobby that actually stuck with me. It became the center of my life, and for that I am grateful. It is how I was able to process and understand a world that was so often a complete mystery to me - and still is.

Third grade was where shit got real. Suddenly, the classes felt just a little bit harder. I still did wonderfully in English, social studies, and science, but math quickly became a stumbling block for me.  I had a wonderful math teacher. Her name was Mrs. Williams. She was kind and warm, and to this day one of my favorite teachers. She gently but frequently criticized me for not checking my work and following through. One day, a big test was coming up, and this time I was determined to do my very best.  I had prepared all the previous evening, carefully doing all the practice questions and going through them one by one. I was so sure I was going to get that coveted “A”. I felt almost high in my confidence as I realized that I could manage the problems in front of me. I went through the whole test and went back and checked my work. I took all and any criticism to heart, and I was frequently confused when I would get something wrong, because I was certain I had checked it. I trotted up to Mrs. Williams’ desk, test in hand, so proud. She asked me if I wanted her to grade it then and there (I hated waiting for grades, or anything really) and I nodded. I was so excited. I knew I had aced it. And that meant I would definitely get ice cream.

Mrs. Williams looked up at me, and with an expression I can only describe as a mixture of pity and exasperation, she said “Oh, Kari” and took her red pen and circled an entire page.

I had missed an entire page of the test. Meaning I got no credit. Meaning my A+ I was so sure of was now going to be a C. I got all of the other questions right.

I was absolutely beside myself. My teacher gently but firmly admonished me for not checking my work, but I was absolutely positive I had. How on earth did I miss an entire page of a test? It made no sense. I walked out of school dejected and ashamed, and terrified to tell my parents. My mom picked me up from school and we drove to my grandmother’s. Hot tears rolled down my face as I told her what happened. To her credit, she was understanding, and did her best to comfort me. I was still crying when we got to my grandmother’s house, and I immediately ran to my favorite safe space - my grandmother’s bedroom - and sobbed my heart out. My grandmother and my mother mobilized to try to calm me down. There was no calming me down. I was in a full blown meltdown.

“It’s just one bad grade! Everyone gets a bad grade once in a while!” my mother said. But I never got bad grades. Ever. Anything lower than a B plus was an utter failure in my eyes. No one instilled this in me. My parents encouraged me to get good grades, but that strict pressure was put on me by myself. I was a rabid perfectionist, partially because I knew I was just as smart as everyone else, especially the boys, but for some reason I always felt just a step behind. I was working so hard, why wasn’t I getting the A pluses I knew I could get? Why wasn’t I testing high enough to get into the gifted program? I always scored worse on math than verbal, by a large margin. Concepts I absolutely knew and could master would completely go out of my head the second the proctor said we could begin. The numbers and concepts would jumble in my head and make a giant mess. I would freeze. For years, I simply thought I was bad at math. I thought I was missing a crucial piece of intelligence. It confused my teachers too, as I performed well in class with instruction, but when asked to recall the concepts on a test, I struggled.

My mother and my grandmother tried to calm me down, to reassure me that it was okay to make mistakes, but I was so completely mystified by what had happened. There was no calming me down. The shame had wrapped its tentacles around me, sucking me down into the abyss. I just remember laying there in my grandmother’s bed and asking myself, “What is wrong with me?”.

It is a question that would go unanswered for more than thirty years. Mistakes like this would plague me throughout my adult life. I never knew why or how they would happen. Like that one time I booked my husband and I an expensive and much needed vacation to Mexico, only to have him point out to me less than a week before leaving that I had only booked for one adult instead of two at the resort. Fortunately, most of these mistakes could be fixed, but I have lived in fear of mistakes, mostly because they were unpredictable. Every mistake I’ve made - especially stupid careless ones - were a reminder that the next inexplicable mistake could be one that could ruin my life. 

With medication and a better understanding of how my brain works, that fear is beginning to lessen. But one thing remains true - I still hate math.