Are you in the right environment?
Why environment is essential for managing ADHD without medication
I left school at sixteen with four GCSEs.
To the international reader that’s very, very bad.
I don’t remember ever doing my homework. Mum never encouraged it. It’s like she intuitively knew there was something different about me.
After leaving school I joined a music course at my local college. Lacking the academic results to enrol on the course, Mum lied on the application.
Thankfully, nobody ever checked.
I could play guitar, read music, and perform on stage – everything I needed to excel on a music course at a local college. It still baffles me why the academic system, even in the arts, is still hellbent on forcing kids to have a traditional education of Maths, English, and Science.
Within one hour of joining the class of other musicians I knew I was where I needed to be, around other kids just like me. Those who needed to move, hold a guitar, and express themselves in order to think. The kids branded dysfunctional in a traditional classroom setting, yet truly brilliant in an environment that suits their natural talents.
From age eleven to sixteen, in a traditional school, I sat in classrooms daydreaming about scoring another goal in the weekend’s football match. Or, until it was confiscated, listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with one earphone hidden under my hair so the teacher couldn’t see it.
I actively sought out risk.
Nothing brought me to life like a good bollocking from the teacher, delicately skirting the line between detention and being sent to the headmaster.
Safe to say I left school at sixteen feeling stupid. Like a failure. ‘If school is designed to prepare us for working life, then I’m fucked’ I thought.
What I didn’t know and wouldn’t find out for another eleven years was that I had ADHD.
Sadly, this is a story I hear too often.
The schooling system is built on compliance
Many of us with ADHD, particularly those diagnosed later in life, never fit into the rigid schooling system.
But why would we?
It’s built on compliance. Sit still, do as you’re told, and don’t question authority.
That’s a good strategy if you want to produce compliant cogs.
But I was never going to be that.
I had my own ideas about how things should be done. It’s just that they were trapped inside of me until I left school to pursue music.
Although music college was where I needed to be, I had a swift wake-up call within a few weeks of joining. One that changed my behaviour from then on.
I arrived at college one Wednesday morning and met a couple of mates at the door. They informed me that morning’s class was cancelled, and we’d been advised to head down to the library to study music theory. We ignored that advice (told you I wasn’t a compliant cog).
Instead, we went to the pub.
I was only 16.
Between 10am and 1pm I drank four pints of beer before stumbling back up the hill for that afternoon’s class.
I remember strolling into the building with a cockiness I would soon learn to regret. We went to the vending machine to grab a quick sandwich to soak up the booze, before heading to class. But as I unwrapped my tuna roll our teacher, Janet, came rushing down the corridor. She looked furious. Shit, we’d been rumbled. But by who?
Turns out another teacher had seen us through the window of the pub earlier that morning and reported our whereabouts. Thinking we’d get away with a reprimand, we pleaded our innocence. “We only drank coke”. Apparently, the stench of alcohol gave us away.
She sent us all home immediately. Excluding us for a week.
“What have I done?” I pronounced to my mother upon arriving home, expecting her to be relaxed as she had been throughout most of my school life. But on this occasion, I was put in my place. “You’ve been given a lifeline here. You don’t have the qualifications for the course, you know that. Yet, you go and do something like this. Don’t waste this opportunity”.
Why am I retelling this story?
Because this was really the moment everything changed for me. Almost like it was a shedding of the past beliefs that I was stupid, couldn’t do, and would always fail. From this moment onwards I disproved that.
And after getting four GCSEs, I passed music college with perfect distinction across the board. Blowing my family, my teachers, and most importantly, myself away with the turnaround.
Why is this relevant to ADHD?
Because it’s all about being in an environment that suits who I am.
ADHD is deeply affected by environment
Even though we’ve been diagnosed with ADHD, that doesn’t mean we’re all the same.
We’re unique individuals, with different interests, tastes, drives, and ambition.
I didn’t fit into the traditional schooling system.
Any attempt to make me fit in by teachers was like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. All you could ever expect was substandard results.
But put me in an environment that suits my unique abilities, like a music college, and I thrive.
It will be the same for you.
Medication helps to ram the square peg a little harder into the round hole. But take that square peg and fit it a square hole and the medication is no longer so essential.
This is about finding your natural place in this world. A place where your unique ability is an asset. Like mine was at music school.
One my biggest gripes with meds is that because they force us into a round hole, we don’t look out of the hole to find the one we really should be in. We just continue forward, fighting to cope with whatever we were told to do.
Are you in an environment that suits your unique talents?
I’d love to hear your story. Click the button below to leave a comment. 👇🏻
Thanks for reading,