Who should you believe?

One of the down sides of AD/HD is lower self-esteem. My guess is that this comes from never really fitting in. But the reason why is a whole different tangent than what the purpose of this entry is supposed to convey.

When I was in high school and then in college, I thought that I was a good writer. I always felt confident in writing. Then I started a job. My writing was critiqued. It wasn't good enough; I forgot my "small words" and sometimes the endings (i.e. "ed", "s", "ing"). I was told I was not good. At that time, my desire to be someone else's best was very strong. So I believed them. I believed that I was not a good writer. I choose to buy into the opinion of a few people that really didn't like me in the first place. Time past, a lot of time, about eight years to be exact…

Then someone told me that he always thought I was good at writing. I was astonished and humbled. I was grateful for not only the complement but also for the reminder that I spend a lot of time writing as a teenager and a young adult. I started having more confidence in my writing. And then I would get angry. Sometimes about nothing in particular. That's where I was last week. I was being angry. I can't tell you what about, but I can tell you that emotion got in my own way…

So back to writing, my "About Me" section spurred my mom (side note ~ I love you and am very thankful that you are my mom) to dig through my school records to see if there were signs of my AD/HD. And there were no reports from the teachers that there were ever any problems (I will discuss why nothing was showing up in school later, it's a good reason why it wasn't noticeable). The one item that my mom said she found that still sticks out in my mind was my admittance test to community college. I was 16 when I took the test and 16 when I started college. So here is the result…

I tested into Honors English. Really!!! I have no idea why I didn't take Honors English or why I didn't explore this creative path. I don't even know why I didn't remember this little tidbit and hold on to it when I entered the business world. But I know this –

I chose to not believe in me. I chose to believe in those that did not have my best interests at heart. These were bad choices, we all make them.

Now I choose to believe that I can do whatever I set my mind to, it's what I'm teaching my kids, I need to believe it to. I choose to write. Now I know that my desire is to be my best. You'll like it, you won't. I've now grown up enough to know that I'm comfortable with my own writing, my own words.

My wish is that I could prevent someone else having to go through almost an entire decade to learn this lesson.

Why is it so much easier for people to believe the bad than the good??