Feeling guilty about college accommodations.

[Husbandlover]

Found out less than a year ago I have ADHD. Started Grad School after 20÷ years being out of school. Asked for simple accommodations like quiet location for tests and note taking technology. I feel very exposed and like I'm not deserving of help. How do I accept my diagnosis and embrace it?

[BLC89]

Hello Husbandlover,You accept it slowly, reminding yourself everyday, possibly multiple times, that you deserve support. Those accommodations are modest and reasonable to level the playing field.

And can we just stop for a minute and congratulate 🎊 👏 💐 all the hard work you put in to get to grad school! Wow, nicely done.

Remember the toil of previous school experiences? It doesn't have to be that hard. You still have to do all the thinking and reading and writing and testing, no one is doing that for you. You are just asking for a quiet place to demonstrate your knowledge. And the note taking tools allow you to relax and really absorb the information knowing you won't miss anything. You deserve to not miss anything.

Have fun. And kudos again for everything you've already done. I hope you can be proud of yourself.

BLC89

[Husbandlover in reply to BLC89]

What a wonderful response. I'm screenshotting this reply, possibly printing it, as inspiration. You're the first person to put it all in perspective like that. Thank you very much!

[BLC89 in reply to Husbandlover]

Glad I can help!

[MatureCreativeL]

I asked for accomodations to be quiet without people around me during testing for a major Art History course. Instead of taking the test in an auditorium with lots of space they put me at a tiny desk with cardboard dividers super close to me(i am severely distractable,) and I ended up barely passing the entire class. Make totally sure that what they plan to do for you before you just go along with whatever the professors/Disability Dept. sets up and guesses that may not help you at all in the end

[Husbandlover in reply to MatureCreativeL]

Thank you for this advise. I hate confrontation so I would just go along with what each individual professor would suggest. I need to make sure the accommodation will actually help me, and stand up for myself if it won't.

[MatureCreativeL]

Assertiveness videos like I am watching might help.*I hope to get a Masters someday too.

[Husbandlover in reply to MatureCreativeL]

Assertiveness videos. I need to watch those. I'm 47 and getting my master's...if I can do this, so can you. I have major depression, generalized anxiety, and now ADHD which I've struggled with forever. I'm not going to let any of it get in the way of what I always for myself.

[Betsy74]

You could also look at how you would view a friend who had asked for and got those accommodations - and be as kind to yourself as I’m sure you would be to them about it 😍 And congrats on starting your masters, enjoy the learning.

[Husbandlover]

Why do I always forget that talking to a friend trick. Of course I would be encouraging to them!Thanks for the reminder and the well wishes.

[Babyjane1980]

Congrats on going back to school! I did the same myself in my 40s and became a therapist. I actually think my adhd was part of why it took me so long to figure out what I wanted to be "when I grew up." 🙃 But it also means that I had years to grow and mature emotionally enough to fully embrace my passion. Our timeline is different than neurotypical folks, but we can end up coming into ourselves just as fully. I would add that the western institutional model of education is kind of inhuman and brutal, and frankly not great for anyone. We just are sensitive enough to say, hey, this isn't right, can I play this game a bit differently?

[Husbandlover]

Thanks so much for your reply.Love to hear about another person succeeding in their profession after not knowing what to do their whole life. This is the first time I feel sure about my occupation. I belong in social work and have so much to offer.

[Amiwrong]

think of it this way, you, and others like you are paving the way for change and how schools have always taught everyone in the same way. One day, it will be common place to have more options in schools and your “special accommodations” will be the norm.

I feel I didn’t need to add anything here as these previos replies to your post are fantastic!

[Husbandlover]

Yep, I would love to think this becomes the norm for everyone who needs to be taught differently. Thanks for this perspective.

[STEM_Dad]

I think it can help to consider two things: • How you think about yourself

• How you think about people who need accomodations

~~~~~

We tend to have higher expectations of ourselves than we do of other people. Particularly for people diagnosed with ADHD in adulthood, I think we are so accustomed to living according to neurotypical standards.

What we need to do after receiving an ADHD diagnosis should include:

• Recognition [of our ADHD]

• Acceptance [of our diagnosis]

~~~~~

How about how you see other people who have struggles?

Whether it's an illness, injury, circumstance, disability, or disorder (which actually comes under the umbrella term of disability)...how do you view other people?

Do you think that others with disabilities ought to have accomodations?

There is a reason why our society has accomodations like ramps to public buildings, braille menus at restaurants, and subtitles for movies and TV shows...these are all examples of accommodations. These examples are accomodations for physical disabilities, but there are cognitive disabilities, too.

If a student has dyslexia, they might might need accomodations with written text, like a screen reader.

If a student has dysgraphia (which impairs handwriting), they might need an accommodation to use a laptop to take notes in class.

Students with either of those conditions might need the assistance of a note-taker (a person who takes notes for them in classes).

...

ADHD comes with it's own unique needs. ADHD is a spectrum disorder (just like how autism is now referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder, so too is ADHD). Different people with ADHD need different accommodations. For instance:

• Some might need a distraction free environment

• Some might need extra time on tests and/or assignments

• Some might need extra check-ins with an instructor while working on a project

~~~~~

If you're like many people with ADHD, you would likely be quick to advocate for anyone else who needs accomodations because of a disability or disorder. Many of us have a strong sense of justice, and would feel a strong urge to fight for a disadvantaged student, coworker, family member, or even a stranger you see in public who you can tell needs some sort of help.

It's hard to see yourself objectively enough to see that you, too, are disadvantaged because you have ADHD.

The education landscape isn't level for you. Like so many other areas in life, it a system that was largely made by neurotypical people for neurotypical people. (More specifically, higher education was made by neurotypical academics for neurotypical academics.)

So, don't just think about whatever accomodations are being offered by the school. Think about what accommodations you specifically need.

It sounds like you were in college before. What did you struggle with the most?

Also, consider other areas of life (work, family household, social groups and activities) where you seem to be impacted by ADHD. How might those same types of struggles show up in school? How might they be accommodated?

[Husbandlover in reply to STEM_Dad]

Excellent points! I plan to dive deeper into the questions you posed. Thank you for your insight.

[STEM_Dad]

To more directly answer your question about how to accept and embrace your ADHD diagnosis ...

Consider how you would accept and embrace other things.

If you discover a talent for painting, then you could consider yourself an artist.

My left-handed daughter broke her left arm a week before school started. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to write with her right hand. After the first few days of school, she was writing as well right-handed as she was left-handed. So, she's ambidextrous!

Maybe you find out about an additional nationality in your ancestry. Then you might be keen to research the culture and cuisine from that nation.

~~~~~

For me, getting diagnosed with ADHD at 45 made the struggles I'd had the previous 30 years finally make sense!

Since I'm an "information junkie" (aka nerd 🤓), I then fixated on learning all that I could about ADHD in general, and my own ADHD in particular.

Joining ADHD communities, like this one, has also helped me to embrace my ADHD.

[Tigger4me]

I have been a faculty member of a STEM science department at a major Division 1 and Research 1 institution for almost 40 years and I'm so glad to say that my institution does a very good job with providing accommodations to Undergrad students with a wide variety of needs. However, Grad schools can be a very different situation.

As a first step (if you haven't already done this), you might want to locate and visit the office at your school that handles accommodations for undergrad students. All undergrad students who seek various accommodations must provide official medical documentation outlining the student's current medical situation so you should have such documentation as well. If you haven't already done so, you might then ask what accommodations are appropriate for someone in your situation, if nothing else as if you were an undergrad student. Then check to see if your school has policies on providing accommodations for grad students.

You might then need to reach out to each your professors individually for seeking accommodations, if there are no over arching policies in place for grad students. If you know what the professors would need to do for undergrad students, you could use that as a starting point in your discussions. Try to talk to your professors as much as possible especially going by during regular office hours.

Also ask if there are councilors available for getting help/guidance with study habits and good study practices. My school would even provide specific assistance that varied by subject matter, science, math history, etc.

Wonderful that you are going back to school. Good luck to you. Hope this helps.

[Husbandlover in reply to Tigger4me]

This helps a lot! Great idea checking into what undergrads receive. Thanks for the advice!

[TroutTown]

In addition to thinking about how you would view these accommodations if they were being provided to a friend, consider the alternative of not having these accommodations and how this lack of support could hinder your success and hold you back from your academic and professional aspirations.

Working through your feelings of guilt means you are taking a brave and likely foreign step in a different direction vs. letting the initial guilt deter you from making necessary changes in support of YOU.

Imagine what could be on the other side of the guilt once you've processed it. Perhaps you'll have a new perspective of yourself and your strengths and capabilities and be able to grieve the ridiculous ways inflexible treatment of your ADHD kept you from making the contributions you were born to make.

Although I received my diagnosis in my early 30s and am now in my 40s I made the mistake of not advocating for myself in my 1st year of graduate studies. I am in an MSW program and thought that "this time would be different" for xyz reasons and that the struggles I experienced 20 years prior in my undergrad could be managed because I'm more "mature" now and have fewer social distractions so my ADHD related challenges would not impact me as much. I was wrong.

After completing year 1 and lots of conversations with advisors and professors, I am taking year 2 off to get realigned and quite frankly, heal from the burnout I experienced this summer from taking on too much and not advocating for my very real disability. Everyone acknowledged the caliber of the work but I missed my deadlines and without being upfront from the start about my diagnosis, I allowed people to draw their own conclusions about why. They are the same conclusions many of us with ADHD have unfairly suffered for most of our lives...that we do not care, are not committed, do not take our work and relationships seriously, or think the rules don't apply to us and just need stricter consequences to teach us a lesson.

I didn't do anyone a favor by mustering through. I would rather have felt the guilt and doubt about my accommodations and sought them out from the get go then the regret I now feel about not trusting I put my best efforts in 20 years ago. I can see now that I did and know that I did this past year as well.

I will rejoin my program next fall and will have my accommodations in place before the semester begins. I will be more open about my challenges and seek support instead of making everyone around me more stressed than they need to be (husband, kids, professors and most of all myself) because I want to insist that I can overcome deficits through sheer force of will (even if sometimes I can, the cost is too high).

I've had to take this assignment of a lifetime more seriously because my preschooler has ADHD and every day I fight for his strengths and talents to be seen and celebrated vs. Overshadowed by ADHD behaviors that are not a matter of moral feeling but different wiring.

We have so many voices from the NT world that are so ingrained in our psyche that we might think that they are our own. They are not. The people who know and have "been there" are your best support team and are rooting for you every step of the way!

[Husbandlover]

Wow! What a great perspective. You're absolutely right! Had I not asked for these accommodations I would have really struggled and possibly not succeeded at what is my dream. That wouldn't have been fair to me. I'm starting to see that all I've done is level the playing field. Thanks so much for sharing your story!

BTW...you have a wonderful plan in place for going back to school. Take this time to rest and then hit the ground running with accommodations in place. Best wishes

[Tigger4me]

Hi Husbandlover, over the weekend I had a chance to talk with some friends from Canada and Europe and I mentioned that I have ADHD. Both of these friends warned me about the stigma that may be attached to persons with ADHD in their countries. In particular, both said that it can be a big problem with students getting into grad school and even to their careers after getting a degree. Granted their warnings may only be about specific regions, schools and/or fields of study, but it was a cautionary tale.

first, I don’t want to alarm you but be aware that there may be these stigmas working where you live. I hope you are going to school in the US cause this is much less a problem in the US education system.

Frankly I was shocked when they mentioned this to me. I knew about countries in Scandinavia, but I had not expected to hear this about Canada. A father said that although his son had some accommodations in high school and there was nothing explicit in his son’s transcript, there were red flags that college admissions people recognize and as a result his son only got into one college. Shameful.

Hope I haven’t caused you to worry or be alarmed about our ADHD conditions. But awareness can be very important. Again hope getting accommodations is straight forward for you.

[Husbandlover]

Wow! It's really upsetting to hear this. Never thought Canada would be on the list.

Update: accommodations went well for me in Wisconsin, USA. Not only was my ADHD taken seriously by my advisor, accommodations were made easily with my grad school professors this semester. Get this...just opened in August...a neurodivergent space at the the university! Everything from study space to kitchen to relaxation room and a place to do yoga!!

My experience has been fabulous. I'm incredibly fortunate here!