photograph taken with permission from: http://life.nbii.gov/error.php

By:  Shannon Colbath

My name is Rose. I like how my name affects my life because I am still growing into a beautiful strong woman.  I can’t say I’ve always been this way.

As a child, I was so curious that I kept getting into trouble. I was so curious that I had never paid attention to anything or anyone. So when I entered Kindergarten, the teachers noticed my vocabulary was not perfect and I kept drifting off. Soon enough, I was tested in vocabulary and speech. The teachers decided that I had to have an aid to help me with paying attention and put me back into pre-school.

For the next six years I met weekly with a speech therapist.  At this age, I was unsure of what was “wrong” with me. When I reached the third grade, all of my friends abandoned me and I did not know the reason why. I was lonely, sad and angry. I tried making new friends but others told them that I was a freak. I was called a freak, fat, ugly, stupid, and many other insulting words. By the time I reached the fourth grade I went through puberty in less than a year. I grew taller, got a real bra and began to perspire.

In fifth grade things continued to get worse. I begged my mom to let me stay home from school, but she made me go anyway. Lonely thoughts rushed into my head as I walk by those bullies who had made fun of me for the past year. I’d already started getting mean emails from people I didn’t even know. The school year went by quickly, but not quickly enough. I was called a word I didn’t even know. (Let’s just say it was the “B” word.) And then one day, I had enough of life and ran out of science class, into the bathroom and wrote my feelings on the bathroom wall. At the time, it made me feel a lot better; however, a week later I was caught. I was suspended for a week. When I was let out my mother asked me, “Why did you do it?” I told her, “Because nobody loved me.”

Two weeks after the fifth grade, under a doctor’s care I started taking some medicine to help manage my ADHD. It worked because I felt so awake and happy. I became more active, outgoing and started forming my own personality. That same day, new neighbors moved into the neighborhood. We shared a lot of the same interests and we became friends. By the end of the summer, I shared my ADHD story with them.

As soon as sixth grade began, I was out of the special needs group and into the harder level. I told my teacher that this year was going to be my year to grow up. That year I made two new friends. They made me laugh, smile and cheer so much so that I had forgotten what I had become the year before. I wasn’t going to turn back into that lonely dweller that was sitting in the corner of the alley with no friends and no hope. I now hope this story shares a lot about why getting help with my ADHD changed my life, because I don’t want anyone to fall like I had.