Girls have ADHD too

I received this mind-blowing email from a reader named MacKenzie last night and it confirmed to me that in fact, girls have ADHD too. Not only that but her ADHD sounds exactly like mine — causing the same life problems and frustrations. MacKenzie sounds like my twin!

With her permission, I am sharing her message in the hope that other teens, including girls, will realize this: you are not alone, you are not dumb, and together we can speak up about how we feel. We can educate our teachers, parents and friends.

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Here is MacKenzie’s message:

Hey Jeff, my name is Mackenzie.

I am 15 and I also have ADHD.

Tonight I had a huge breakdown ’cause of my anxiety.

Since I have ADHD, I get called stupid a lot. People don’t understand me.

Anyways my mom wants me to get a job and my answer is always, “I’m too stupid.”

I think I got too used to having people call me stupid or dumb.  I have started to feel dumb and believe people and start getting into this dark place. I hated school a prison and I had so much anxiety there cause I felt like everyone was judging me.

I would walk down the hall and if one person looked at me wrong I would freak.  So I just stopped going. Then I got put on medication to control myself a bit better and I went back and tried my hardest to step up to the plate.

Anyways my report card came back and I got 57% in almost every class which sucks and again makes me feel stupid.

I am also in classes that are for ADHD kids which isn’t great cause when people see me in the hall with that group of people I am automatically centered-out completely. Or in other classes that I took, the teacher would centre me out in front of everyone to say, “Do you need copied notes cause of your IEP?”  Then everyone looks cause you’re different and you write like a fifth-grader and you can’t catch up.

Anyways, today I blew up ’cause of all of this and then my mom showed me your blog.  I started to read it and I felt sooo happy that someone can relate to me and help me try to prove to everyone that I am smart and I will succeed.  Anyways I just wanna say thank you for being brave and giving us ADHD kids a voice. 🙂

Wow. That floored me. That’s exactly the difference I want to try and make for other kids like me.

So world, is there an ADHD girl in your life that maybe you have been a little bit hard on lately? Teachers, are you open to the idea of adjusting the way you get the information you need to give kids with ADHD a chance at better grades? Did you think only boys have ADHD?

Hey MacKenzie – thanks for writing. Know you are not alone, you will find your way in life. Hopefully knowing this, you will have the courage to speak up against anyone telling you anything other than how amazing you are.

~ Jeff