Perfectly Fine Neurodivergent

By Savannah Wallis

“You’re just quirky."

I was told this multiple times - and in many different ways - growing up and even now as an adult. “She’s an old soul.' I got told this often as a child because I could confidently talk to an adult, seemed wise beyond my years and frankly, a little odd. But now that I am an adult, I feel quite the opposite. I feel like everyone went to this class on adulting that I probably lost the invite too.

  When I was younger, I was always different from other kids. But I liked it; I liked being different. It was my cool thing. I was ‘special.' I was and am lucky to have parents who instilled me with confidence. They claimed I always was confident but they kept those positive affirmations flowing. Mum said “even other adults would come up to us and say she’s going to do great things that kid." Don’t get me wrong, my parents still brought me back down to earth when I got a little too big for my boots but it was always with an ‘I love you’ and lots of hugs.

  I loved school. I love learning. I did pretty well at school without trying too hard and loved meeting everyone in every one of my classes. I love people. Apart from the fact I talked too much and even talked back sometimes, I was a more or less good student. My reports all said the same thing: very vocal, distracts others, pleasure to have. A little contradictory at times but nothing that set off any alarms. I had a group of friends who loved me for my quirkiness “that’s just Sav." I was still different but I decided it was because I was an extrovert and a lot of my friend group were introverts so that must be it!

It was sometime during high school, I got my first pair of Sennheiser headphones (and I’ve gone through a few pairs since). Often during lunch time, I would ditch my friends to go walk around the school and listen to music. I would be able to use them in class sometimes which I’m sure the teachers enjoyed because it would shut me up. I must have realised then that I used this magical device, I could really zone into what I was working on.

  Man, I thought I loved school. Uni was way better - as I say to my kids now, “Uni is like school but without all the bad bits about school… well except assignments." I met heaps of cool intellectual people and learned truckloads of awesome theories. I got a bit restless in those two hour lectures and I kinda missed the closeness of the teacher student connection at school but it was all good. 

  I graduated in 2020, i.e., the worst year of my life. Not simply because of COVID and the pandemic ruining my travelling plans but I had also just moved out of home and I didn’t know what I was going to do. Everything was up in the air. 

  I decided I may as well do a teaching diploma because I’m going to be here for at least a year anyway. I thought I like kids, I like talking, I like learning… why not?

And on a complete whim, I enrolled in a Graduate Diploma in Teaching.I fell in love. From the minute I set foot in my first school on practicum, I was buzzing with excitement. That excitement turned into joy. I was grateful that the dark cloud that was COVID-19 led me to the rainbow that is teaching. 

  During the course of my diploma, we had a lecture on ADHD, Anxiety and Mood Disorders. I was always fascinated by various conditions of the brain and psychological happenings so I was excited to learn something about it. Honestly, I am excited to learn anything new, no matter how seemingly irrelevant.

As I sat in the lecture, listening carefully or more honestly, trying to listen carefully without getting distracted.

The psychologist started to list the symptoms of ADHD, I started thinking to myself “I do that… I do that too… that happens to me." Now, I was focused and I couldn’t pull away. I turned to my friend who’s known me through my studies and gestured to her, pointing at the presentation then at myself. Silently mouthing “that’s me." She slowly nodded back at me like she knew all along and she was waiting for me to finally clue in.

I felt tense for the rest of the lecture. I told my friends after “that was a bit too real." 

The friend and I discussed our mid-lecture exchange, “I thought you already knew,” said my friend. I definitely did not.

  What followed was almost a year of research then finally mustering up the courage to get a referral and then almost nine months of research waiting for the appointment with a psychiatrist. And that was going private but access to healthcare in this country is a whole other issue. During that time, I started to talk to more and more people in my life about it. Most of them weren’t really surprised and some brushed it off. “You’re just quirky." There it is again!

But it  just felt more and more meant to be.

Finally, an answer to the question I didn’t ever think to ask. 

  Along the rabbit hole of neurological conditions, I also learned about the overlap of ADHD and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). But I thought “nah, just a coincidence. I couldn’t be autistic. I can talk to people. Yeah my eye contact isn’t the best but nah…not me!" But then coincidence after coincidence, it got too real. Too relatable to ignore. This mystifying combination of the two conditions explained everything. 

  All the things I used to do (and still do) that everyone could see and all the things I felt that everyone could not see. 

The things I blamed on being ‘quirky.' The things I blamed on being an ‘extrovert’. The things I blamed on being ‘sensitive.'

The things I struggled to do as I moved into adulthood and blamed on not being ‘adult enough’ or that I was still learning to ‘adult.'

All the things that made me like I was lazy, rude, a bad friend, stupid, silly and useless. 

I wasn’t a broken normal person but actually, a perfectly fine neurodivergent person.

  I was recently - and finally - diagnosed with ADHD and traits of ASD.

And I have recently realised how little we really know about either of the two.

Before the diagnosis, it was “you’re just quirky."

After the diagnosis, it’s “oh but you’re so normal."

I don’t align with most peoples limited understanding of what having ADHD and being autistic is. Which tends to be the image of either an socially awkward nerdy adult or destructive small child high in sugar. Both of which are usually male. 

“You must be high functioning."

  Which made me think about all the neurodivergent kids out there, who also haven’t been picked up. I now experience the other side of the teacher student connection and I see the daily impact adults have on young people - be that positive or negative. This makes me think about all the neurodivergent kids out there, who also haven’t been picked up. I don’t want them to grow up feeling different, not knowing why and then blaming themselves. So many parents are worried about their kids having a label but trust me, it’ll be better than the labels that they have given themselves. 

I have felt misunderstood my whole life. And I’m one of the lucky ones, lucky enough to have a collection of low support need type traits that still allowed me to (somewhat) successfully navigate the world around me. That does not mean it was easy or without struggle. 

  I’ve learned that as a  society, we need to learn more about neurodiversity and those who are neurodivergent to create a world where we grow up understanding and accepting who we are. And others, as they are.

  So no, I’m not ‘just quirky,' I’m neurodivergent and I love it.