Do you know what it’s like to not understand what is going on in your own head, or why you can't do things that other people can? I never really thought much about it until I was forced to. I never thought there was something "wrong" with me.

Every few years, toward the end of the school year, I would get "screened." Only a handful of my other classmates would go through this process because the school only did this with the kids in LR (Learning Resources), a program for students who required additional support. I didn't think too much about having to go through this process. Why would I? There wasn’t anything “wrong” with me. After I completed my testing in middle school, we got the results back and my LR counselor said all was well.

I couldn’t wait to leave middle school and finally become a high schooler. When I was a kid, I watched all the "High School Musical" movies, over and over, to the point where I could almost recite the dialogue and songs word-for-word. When I finally got to high school, I found myself living that fantasy, only with a lot less singing and dancing.

For the first few weeks, I was having the time of my life. My new teachers were assigning little to no homework, and the classes seemed easy. I had so many new friends, I couldn't even count them on my fingers. Life was perfect, too perfect. Then, I took a math test, one I had studied for and thought I would ace. It wasn't until I was in the middle of taking it that I realized: I was in way over my head. The beautiful butterflies that had fluttered around in my stomach during those first lofty weeks of high school immediately turned into termites that ate me from the inside out.

On the morning of the day I was to receive my math test results, I woke at 6:37 and so did the termites. They were back in full-force. They crawled around, ruthlessly attacking the sides of my stomach. They sought vengeance, and wouldn't stop their attacks until they were free, and they wouldn’t be free until they had destroyed me. I couldn't move; the pain immobilized my body like a straitjacket. I don’t know how long I stayed in my bed that morning, but those minutes lasted years. When I inhaled, I could feel the air creeping down into my lungs. They expanded to capacity and then collapsed, reversing the process, throwing the air out as if it were repulsive. 

When I finally arrived at school, the clicking sound of the doors locking behind me only agitated the termites. The pain grew with each step that I took up the steep, blue stairs, inching me closer to my inevitable fate. I stood in front of the classroom door, my hands clenched at my sides. My nails dug into my palms, making little crescent moons. With the sun shining into the classroom, there were no shadows to hide in. I saw the look on my teacher’s face when she handed me my test, and I knew. At the top was a note, "Let's look at this together. Please set up a time when we can meet." Right next to that was the grade: 46 out of 100. It was encased in a small dark circle that mocked me, highlighting my failure. Small teardrops started pooling up in my eyes, and I blinked quickly so no one would see my emotions. 

When I got home and showed my mom my test, never in my life had I seen her so disappointed. I had failed her. The next steps seemed preordained. One grade fell after another and I ended up in a place I had never imagined: academic probation. My first semester only went downhill from there. I had to meet with my teachers and my headmaster, who told me that if I didn't increase my grade point average, I would be expelled from my high school. 

I was drowning. I had run out of air. Every time I managed to claw my way to the surface, I was sucked back down into the dark depths of my overflowing schoolwork. Even when I managed to complete my assignments on time, I would forget to turn them in. My teachers' emails cluttered my mailbox, like an overflowing bin that the garbage truck had missed for weeks. 

As things got worse with school, so did my relationship with my mother. I would spend ages sitting at the dark dining room table, stressing over my homework. If I did not submit an assignment, my mom would receive an email from one of my teachers and all hell would break loose.

 "Why have you not gotten these assignments to your teachers, after working so hard on them?!" 

 Disappointment.

 "We're paying all this money to send you to a good school, and you don't even care, do you?"

 Lost cause.

 "Do you think that you can just slack off and not care? Well, I'll tell you what, if you keep this up, I am taking you out of that school and homeschooling you!" 

 Anger.

 "Do you not want to go to a good college?"

 Hopeless. 

 "We're going to have to send you to the junior college your father went to because no other college will accept grades like that."  

 Degenerate.

 Her threats stung. I was a failure. I would never get into a good college. My heart and body sank as if someone had tied the heaviest rock in the world to my feet and dropped me into the ocean. Most nights, I would fall asleep crying and wake up feeling no better. I was a disappointment, a failure, good for nothing, and stupid; the words my mother shouted at me. I couldn't handle any more fights with my mom. Her words had too much of an impact. I wanted to mute my life, to deal with my misery silently, but that was not an option.

By the time finals and winter break rolled around, I had a feeling that I couldn't shake. I knew that some part of me was missing, but I didn't know what. I knew I had to talk to my mom about this feeling. Something wasn't right. It couldn’t be my fault I was this forgetful and this easily distracted, and the problems were only getting worse, having disastrous effects on my grades. 

When I came home from the last day of my finals, I asked my mom if we could speak. My body was shaking uncontrollably, and my hands were clamming up, but I held them together in my lap as I waited. My mind was going a million miles an hour and I couldn't think straight. I was concocting ideas in my head about every single possibility of how this conversation could go; I was expecting my mom to yell at me and tell me everything was my fault, and I was just dumb, or not believe me, thinking I'm making excuses for doing poorly in school. I was so lost in my own head that I hadn't noticed my mom staring at me from across the kitchen counter. She had one of her elbows holding up her face, which she had resting in her palm. She leaned over the countertop displaying her readiness to discuss the matters I had yet to disclose to her.

"Mom, can we see a psychiatrist?"

My mother looked at me, shocked. I was already bracing myself for her disbelief. I was sorely mistaken.

"I was going to say the same thing. For a while, I was considering it, but I wasn't sure until I looked back at the testing you had done in middle school. I should have noticed it sooner, but the test results say you needed to follow-up with a professional. I'm so sorry."

In that moment, amongst the tears and empathy, I felt a little breath of hope.

When we met with the doctor, she asked how school was and I found myself confessing to the powerlessness I felt when finished assignments were somehow left unsubmitted and when I forgot about meetings with teachers. She had reviewed my middle school testing, had my teachers answer questionnaires about me, and had me take a test of her own. As we talked, I watched her watch me. Her eyes seemed to track my mannerisms, making me hyper aware of them myself. At the end of our meeting, she told me I had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 

With her diagnosis, my doctor had taken a feeling— a dark and frightening feeling — and put it into words. I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t alone. Finally, I could breathe. A weight that I had not realized existed was suddenly lifted. I knew what was “wrong” with me. Now that I knew what it was, I would be able to come to terms with it.

My doctor prescribed me Adderall, telling me what it does, how long it would last, and how it would make me feel. I followed her orders and after a while, the effects the doctor had promised kicked in. I felt beyond focused, and my thoughts weren't racing anymore. I sat down as usual that day: the same chair, at the same desk, in the same house. Yet, I was not the same. I was working, quickly and methodically. Things started to turn around in my life, at least academically. Adderall gave me the motivation and focus to complete my homework, but it was only half of the reason for my new-found success. I wanted to do better and not just for my family, friends, or teachers. I wanted to be the best version of myself, someone who I could be proud of, too. All the hard work and dedication I put in during my second semester of freshman year paid off. Not only had I become a better student, but I had become a hard-working and determined person; I was someone that I was proud of.

Yet there was still something amiss. Adderall helped bring back the person I was before high school; before I dreaded going to school each day; before I was failing classes; before I was afraid. That little blue pill helped wake up the girl I was before all of that. My grades were improving, and there was no doubt in my mind that my medication was helping me stay on task and get my work done. But school was my only focus. Adderall created a pressure within me and work was the only possible outlet. Adderall gave me back my ability to be a good student, at the expense of my ability to be a fun-loving friend.

I was like a baby bird who finally learned to flap its wings and leave the nest, only to have those wings clipped so I had to fly close to the nest, left to watch the black silhouettes of my friends flying far above me. I was robbed of the lightheartedness and flightiness that made me a bird.  I felt trapped in someone else's body and I wanted to get out. I sometimes spent the eight hours I was on the drug each day wishing I could just be normal. I didn’t want to have to take medication to do well in school or do tasks that come easy to other people, like my friends.

But, ironically, the confidence Adderall gave me has taught me how I can manage my daily life and schoolwork without the constant support of medication. I study other methods to do well in each class and I have relied less and less on the support of my medication. I’ve found a middle ground that lets me feel more like myself. I now see the medication as the force that helped me stand back up when I was at my lowest, and helped me learn what worked for me as a high school student. It brought me out of that hole, and as I have been able to adapt to the new changes in my work styles and organization, I am able to take less and less of those cursed magic blue pills.  

I’m now happy about going to school, just like the way I used to feel at the beginning of high school. It’s still not quite "High School Musical" — there’s a lot more work and a little less singing — but now I wake up excited for each day of school, and that’s enough.

It is an ongoing story, one that cannot end quite yet. It isn’t the story of Adderall or the story of school; it really is just the story of me, of falling down and getting back up as I try to become the person I hope to be eventually.