What I Didn’t Expect to Learn from Art School
Tags: Autism, Atypical, Neurodiversity, Self Diagnosis, Adhd

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Suitable Publication : Psychology Today

I took my A-level exams in the summer of 2018. A few years prior I was expected to get all A*s and As and then go on to study at Oxford. When I got my results before the turn of the season I was disappointed to find I had only managed to scrape 3 Cs. Fortunately, I had seen this coming. I had spent the last two years struggling through my studies in sixth form; so I decided to take a gap year and complete a foundation diploma in art and design. I used this both as an opportunity to explore a subject area I had been previously discouraged from as well as a respite to reconsider my options.

Toward the end of my time studying art in 2019 my tutor noticed I was struggling. By this point I was so used to struggle that I didn’t realise there was an issue. She called me into her little office in the corner of our home room and we had a chat. She then asked a question that has stuck with me to this day, because it just slotted so many odd things in my life into place; “Georgie, do you think you might have ADD?”

Why Did it Make Sense?

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ADD is now referred to as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and it was a condition I knew fairly well. My mother was what the 70s and 80s called a ‘problem child’ and although she has now mellowed out a lot more with the onset of other conditions, she passed that ‘problem’ energy on to my elder sister who received an official diagnosis for ADHD before she entered her teenage years. Hearing my tutor say she had suspicions that I had this condition were both confusing and reassuring.

During my time at school I had tried and failed to get a diagnosis for an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I felt my behaviours lined up with many that are related to Autism, but even after asking a member of SEN staff for help identifying my condition I got nowhere. I knew that ADHD and ASD are often linked, but my personal experiences of ADHD were just so far removed from what I felt I was experiencing I just wasn’t sure of what to think. Intensive research followed and I found out that many of my abnormalities in social settings and school could be explained by ADHD, too. My issues connecting ADHD with my experience fell to one main issue; I didn’t tend to be hyperactive.

While my sister and mother were bouncing off the walls throughout their childhoods, I sat quietly and behaved well. Despite my inability to self-regulate and my disastrous disorganisation, I slipped through school with excellent results and the label of a social outcast. This was fine, but as the pressure of school amped up it quickly became anything but fine. I had no real experience with revision and when I tried to revise I stopped to do other things soon after I started. This all made sense, it gave me a new term I felt I could confidently apply to myself. But I’m still not diagnosed with anything.

Why aren’t you Diagnosed?

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I would love a diagnosis for ADHD or Autism or for whatever it is that is affecting my daily life. But I probably won’t get one. ADHD and ASD are two different disorders that are both typically seen as ‘male-only’. Unless you’re the living, breathing stereotype of these conditions (i.e: white male from a Western country) it’s difficult to get a diagnosis at all. The amount of diagnoses given in both the UK and the US have increased; 6 times as much over 10 years in the UK, and almost three times as much for the same time period for the US (NICE, 2009), but ADHD is still more often diagnosed in males than females at a ratio of 4:1 (NHS, 2018) and ASD is even less equal in terms of gender; The condition is diagnosed in five times as many males as females (ibid, 2018).

I’ve tried getting diagnosed with Autism, but without the support of my family and different authorities who have watched over me, I found my attempts were fruitless. I struggle to do things independently and I didn’t realise I was getting treated dismissively until long after the opportunity to stand up for myself was gone. I know that things would go much the same way if I was to try and fight for an ADHD diagnosis.

Despite the unfortunate inevitability that I will likely never get an authenticated diagnosis for Autism or ADHD, I am content with the self-diagnosis I have obtained; those around me who care to listen to my self-diagnosis and respect my abnormal behaviours get better responses from me than those who do not listen. I don’t want to struggle, but knowing those terms and that I’m not as broken as I’d think I am without them is more than many like me get to experience.

Sources

NICE 2009 — https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng87/evidence/full-guideline-pdf-4783651311 | 2.1.1 The concept and its history — page 16

NHS 2018 — https://www.england.nhs.uk/north-west/wp-content/uploads/sites/48/2019/03/GM-wide-ADHD-guidance.pdf | 1.3 ADHD in Children and Young People — page 6

ibid 2018 —http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-2018-0034/LLN-2018-0034.pdf | Prevalence in the UK— page 1