I dunno. I mean, as a person with ADHD, I’ve come to accept that fact that making bad choices isn’t mutually exclusive to having ADHD. Like, being neurodivergent doesn’t give you a forever pass and excuse for everything; it’s an explanation for why certain things are more challenging. So I think both Walky and Linda are right. He started failing because he was worse at math than he thought and his ADHD makes studying very challenging. But he also CHOSE to then stop going to class (he didn’t forget about the class, which would have been fairly excused by ADHD) and he CHOSE to fuck around during the one on one tutoring sessions with Jason. Though in fairness to Walky for that one, we know canonically that Jason is a shit tutor, and Walky didn’t fuck around in his studying with amazigirl. But yeah, Linda is a garbage parent, and she should friggen listen to Walky when he’s trying to be honest and open with her, but also, Walky does need to take ownership of the bad choices he did actively make.
Decidedly Orthogonal
That’s very generous of you. Linda has only seen two choices Walky made. Dating Amber qnd Lucy. I get the feeling Linda is talking about Lucy. Certainly Linda is nasty enough to be focussed on dredging stuff up during fun-time activities. And the beer in her hand…
I’d ask if she’s a mean drunk, but she’s not nice – ever – so how could we tell?
EA West
Yeah, that’s fair. Linda is only accidentally correct, because you’re right: She isn’t actually aware that Walky actively stopped attending class or screwed around during his tutoring sessions. So probably whatever she is calling out as bad choices is her being a terrible person, because *gestures vaguely at Linda’s track record.*
Matthew Davis
That was my take. I’m wondering how long until she decides Lucy is the reason he failed, as well.
Mark
Walky also chose to believe that he was lacking intelligence, not effort. That his failure was inevitable, not correctable. Since then he’s seen evidence that the other choice was more likely, and I hope that that lesson went home.
Linda is right in that Walky has a lot going for him when he uses it well.
Trying to literally run away from his bad grades could be called a bad decision. Sure, it should be exactly what Linda wanted him to do in that situation, because why else did she teach him to be terrified of failing?, but I imagine she disapproves anyway.
Rose Tilly
I mean, usually when someone believes their failure is a problem of lacking skill/intelligence/ability and not effort, it’s because their experience thus far is of people praising those things rather than the effort made, creating an association of intelligence = do well, therefore is not do well, intelligence too low.
And I can very easily believe that Linda and Charles are the type of parents who would do that (Not out of malice, just not knowing any better). So, while it’s still his choice to think that, it’s probably not a choice being made freely and without heav influence.
thejeff
The problem with that in kids like Walky when it comes to school is that he was getting the good grades without effort. Praising the effort wouldn’t have worked, since he wasn’t actually putting in any effort.
Kamino Neko
Yep. Been there, done that.
Especially fun when putting in effort, thus finishing quickly, was actually functionally punished.
‘OK, Mx Brain. Spend the next 50 minutes sitting quietly at your desk. But don’t take out a book to read. Completely denying you mental stimulation will certainly not have bad results on your psyche and behaviour.’
They tried that on me, when I was a kid, that “No reading even though you did all your work and it’s clearly all correct” bullshit. Then I started throwing things (tantrums, pencils, textbooks) and they learned to just let me read because it wasn’t disruptive and had less chance of somebody getting hurt. Not that I could do much damage in the first place, it was just too much of a hassle to calm me back down from my spergouts.
Autogatos
Stuff like that is where it was super convenient that I love to draw. I basically never had to worry about being bored in class. Kept my hands busy too which also helped me focus when I needed to listen to the teacher. And made it kind of ironic when a teacher would tell me to “stop doodling and pay attention.” They were basically ensuring I could NOT pay attention.
I also sometimes kept a tiny piece of modeling clay in my pocket. It was a great “fidget” (long before actual “fidget toys” existed) because it was so easy to hide and kept my hands busy without requiring me to actually look at it. I’d just keep my hands under my desk and try to shape it into simple things (a sphere, a cube, a velociraptor claw like the one Alan Grant was always fiddling with in Jurassic Park, etc).
She also may be projecting. I’m getting vibes from her and her husband that they’ve peaked prospect-wise some time ago and this could be partially existential dread-related…
All the world has to do is just bend to her every whim, and she’ll be happy. What’s so difficult about that? Is it really so much to ask, when she’s right anyway?
he’s never rly brought it up from what i can remember, but who knows, maybe the reason walky did ‘well’ in school (by public school standards lol) and was smart “Did you think i was stupid?” “you threw a toy at my head”, was that he had a consistent schedule and either extra tutoring or the mom making sure he actually studied/at least finished homework or he was one of those kids that ‘coasted by’ as long as he did well on tests but i’d imagine at this point lucy would step in and say that they study properly together instead of doing datey/lovey dovey stuff
I definitely think he was able to coast by, especially since he was in public school. It’s funny, the older I get the more I realize I do share a lot with Walky. I’m sure the reason he went undiagnosed for his ADHD is the same reason I was, which was that we were in public school and were able to pay enough attention/do well enough to get good grades. Public school doesn’t have high standards honestly, they seem to be the bare minimum when it comes to schooling, and at least during the time I was in school, being curious about a student being neurotypical or not was only when they had bad grades. I didn’t have as hard an adjustment as Walky did, but there WAS a big adjustment to go from never needing to study to actually needing to study college material.
Daibhid C
Yeah, I had similar experiences at a UK state school (“public school” means something different and completely non-intuitive here…) which recognised “Daibhid has issues interacting with other kids in the playground” was a problem, but solved this problem by keeping me indoors during breaks, rather than asking why I had issues. When my grades were up, they didn’t care beyond that; when they weren’t, I was just being lazy because I’d shown I could get good grades. Then they washed my hands of me and suggested I’d be better off at a special school.
This was better, but it was run by hippies who “didn’t believe in labels”, so I still didn’t actually get diagnosed with anything.
Daibhid C
No disrespect to hippies or they hippie-adjacent intended. Or even to the school, which was mostly fine and did its best.
Mark
I would suggest that both schools were doing what they’re actually paid to do. All over our societies, we ought to take a hard look at what we are actually paying people to do.
milu
hm i’m curious what you mean by that
Puppeteer Nessus
“Babysitting” rather than “Educating” is what comes to mind
Mark
I was going to launch into a long analysis for you, but after a bit of thought I decided that Puppeteer Nessus’ explanation is about the same and much more succinct.
Being able to coast through high school getting good grades without much effort then having problems in college as you get to harder material isn’t really a huge stretch. I lost some points by not liking the busy work assigned us, especially in middle school, but mostly you can do the assigned homework, listen in class and still not really study.
Honestly, it didn’t really hit me in college until late in the program and even them only really in my major, but that derailed me pretty badly.
I don’t really know what public school could have done better, unless you go to the level of lots of individualized one on one work with each student.
Ugh. As someone who wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until her mid-thirties, I both understand and HATE this message: “You’re great at anything you put your mind to…”
With the unspoken completion…
“…so if you’re not being great, you aren’t really trying.”
So I spent most of my life “trying myself to death’s door,” because the expectation around me seemed to be – If you aren’t successful OR haven’t worked yourself into the hospital yet, you haven’t really tried hard enough.”
Yup. This. Exactly this. Up to and including the multiple chronic illnesses, literal hospital visits, and being wheeled out of work on an ambulance stretcher because I was fucking terrified of not going and proving I couldn’t work.
I mean, not to belittle or question your specific experience, but not putting his mind to it, or not working hard enough does actually apply to Walky’s situation. He basically tried to just coast through things like he always had, which to be fair has to be on some level on his parents to a degree.
But I wonder if you might be conflating “trying” with “being successful.”
We actually see MULTIPLE times Walky TRIED to study.
He’d sit there, with the book. He TRIED.
But he did NOT know how to study SUCCESSFULLY.
Probably because with his ADHD, whatever methods other people found successful didn’t really WORK for him. And if he’s never worked with someone who knows what WORKS for someone with ADHD, he’s probably going to get the sense that NOTHING works for him.
So if your experience is that whether you try or not, you either fail or succeed…but your success seems to have zero relationship to your effort…the “logical” conclusion is that continuing to try is a “waste of time.”
I can’t tell you how many students I worked with who had just completely given up at school, because they’d TRY studying for HOURS…then fail the test (because the study methods they’d been taught didn’t work for them), and when their outcome wasn’t success, the teacher would say “I can tell you didn’t even try. You didn’t even study.”
Why on earth would you keep putting yourself out there, making the effort, then being told you hadn’t? If you’re going to lose anyway, why lose at the cost of a lot of time/effort?
I started working with these ADHD kids, teaching them the methods that had WORKED for me (taught to me by my undiagnosed ADHD parents)…and suddenly, their grades started rising! They started passing tests! And…they were EXCITED! They started using those methods themselves, they started TRYING again, because finally trying was linked to success!
But if your trying doesn’t lead to success…yeah, at some point you quit trying and just coast or give up.
Sarah Lea
Oh yeah…realizing all my learning/studying methods worked gangbusters for my ADHD students? A major part of eventually getting diagnosed with ADHD myself.
Psychie
If you don’t mind sharing further, I would be very interested to learn what these study methods are that work for ADHD kids, because I have ADHD and never got much of anything out of studying. I’m really good at retaining info from lectures, and when I can make myself read a textbook I’m great at retaining that too, but textbooks are so dry that they can’t hold my attention for any length of time unless I’m really invested in the specific material being covered, which isn’t often. I certainly can’t make myself focus on things like homework, especially when it’s repetitive busy work covering material I understood when the teacher explained it, like math. Also writing papers is a huge struggle for me, or at least starting them, usually once I start writing I get a flow going and can bang it out relatively quickly, but starting that flow is harder than starting my old lawnmower was.
Bogeywoman
How To ADHD on YouTube has a very comprehensive and effective collection of strategies for working with having an ADHD brain as well as explaining why some things work better than others.
To summarise what works for me is taking into consideration that ADHD brains have an interest-based nervous system whereas non ADHD people have an importance-based nervous system. We are more motivated by novelty, competition, interest and urgency.
Specific examples: Lean into material that you’re invested in and focus on what is interesting. I weave my special interests into assignments, and get the best grades on those. I will also substitute readings for writers that I vibe with better. Once I managed to integrate live action roleplay of the apocalypse into a presentation, and another time I used zines.
Switch up how you study or where. Oddly, I find it easier to read boring material if I’m in a bar or music venue. I also enjoy studying in dog parks. Industrial music is also great for me to read to, since it’s musically interesting but has limited vocals. Using alternating highlighters is also helpful for breaking up info.
Having a body double can help a lot with focusing on dull info, and if it’s someone who understands what you’re learning you can use the Pomodoro method to study and discuss what you just read with them during rest periods. I also involve art in my study, like
Give yourself an earlier due date, or have someone (a friend or tutor) set a date for you to submit a draft by. Helps build urgency.
Starting is always the hardest part. I have a ridiculous, borderline compulsive way to do assignments, but find free writing what you know is a good way to get the juices flowing, and always start with the intro and conclusion.
I’ve got like a billion tips and strategies I could talk about. I’ve been at uni for a decade.
pope suburban
I want to reinforce this point. Even neurotypical kids will run into this if they haven’t had to TRY to study before. A lot of kids hit that point in college. Or they were very managed all their lives and don’t do well with the lack of structure, and have to TRY to set aside the time for study. I can’t speak as to Walky’s reasons as I am, to the best of my knowledge, neurotypical and I’ve always been pretty good at retaining school information, but I think it’s important to know that, yeah, studying is a skill and not everyone has it, or has it by a certain age, or past a certain point.
Mark
And that some people just pick up that skill by exposure, but others of us have to be taught.
Big Z
You rang? I’m just glad it only took me 2-3 years of barely passing college after straight-As in high school to learn how to actually study.
Amara
I got lucky and figured it out in high school but my mom is a huge believer in alternative medicines, so I had tried a ton of different things through out high school before giving up on getting medicine. In college a few years in, I finally was able to get the amphetamines I needed, after the first two medicines didn’t work. All it cost was nearly failing out and wasting numerous semesters redoing classes.
Jo_cubstar
…wish I knew you when I was in university. Maybe I wouldn’t have dropped out. I did finish community College, but I always mourn the loss of my astrophysics degree ?
Decidedly Orthogonal
Please, would you share or reference methods that you used?
Warcodered
I think maybe for Walky it ended up being a bit of both. Up until college he’d been able just coast on his innate ability but runs into the wall in college. His initial bad habits got him behind and when he tried to study to try and catch up ran into the exact kind of problems you’re talking about, with little experience dealing with them.
So while I can see how it could be seen as being unfair because of the difficulty studying, I can’t help but feel it applies far more to the fact that he didn’t take the class seriously at all until he couldn’t push off the looming realization that he was going to fail it.
Just about everybody I knew who did as well as I did in school pretty much realized the first time they flunk a class that “Hey, you’re in the big leagues now, I guess you’re gonna have to do that studying thing that everybody else does.“
Right but the thing is. (NOTE: WHAT FOLLOWS IS ONLY MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH ADHD)
… That’s how ADHD *works*. It’s–it’s very badly misnamed. It should, honestly, be called “Executive Function Disorder”, because the part of my brain that unconciously ranks tasks and starts tasks *doesn’t work right*. Everything gets set to “Task priority 1”: Ranking them takes actual mental effort.
This includes tasks like “eating.”
Also, we don’t get a dopamine hit for completing a task. Apparently people without ADHD do?
I’m also very fortunate: I was (CORRECTLY) diagnosed as a child. That *did* lead to my mom getting diagnosed once she started reading “You mean I’m not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?”, and the slow revelation that not only do I, my younger brother, and mother have it, but so does *every single member of my mother’s immediate family.*
(And I’m one of the people that Strattera seems to work well for. I was even part of the drug study, actually.)
Mark
Yes, there is pleasure in completing a task, but I have to ask myself for it. When I’ve finished yard work for the day, after I clean up the mess and put the tools away, I make myself go back and survey what I’ve done. The work is no fun for me, but seeing the modest result is mildly rewarding.
Dunno if that would work for you, but it works for me.
Liclairian
Wait. *Thats* why neurotypical people can just… do things? They get that dopamine fix of anticipation and reward for things that *they* assign rather than interests that are assigned *to* them?? MAN I wish I could do that. That feels like a superpower!
zee
That is also why NDRIs like Wellbutrin are used off lable for ADHD as an alternative to stimulants
An auDHDer who has also suffered from that “not trying hard enough” bullshit, I think society would be that much better if people realized that seeing success is privilege.
We ALL work hard, but very few actually get to see that hard work succeed.
THIS! I was one of the lucky ones who was mostly able to coast through college too (grad school is where the ouch hit) and I saw tons of very smart friends in college trying harder than me without getting the grades I got.
Then, in grad school, when I suddenly COULDN’T write the papers the night, or even the week, before they were due, then I had to work harder than my classmates trying to figure out how to learn new study habits and project timelines and how to make my adhd (undiagnosed of course) activate hyperfocus mode earlier and for longer. I managed to do okay through my masters, but the PhD went downhill FAST. The abusive faculty then made that 10000000000 times worse, but that’s a different problem.
Sarah Lea
This was me.
My parents helped me learn enough ADHD-friendly study techniques, I could commit concepts to memory pretty well (it was still a lot of work, but at least I’d learned things that actually WORKED for me).
But I was diagnosed during grad school, when suddenly I couldn’t just cram two final papers in the same night. It was miserable.
Thankfully, I had an incredibly gracious program director/professor who also had undiagnosed ADHD (he was just old enough by the time he realized it, he was all-but retired, so he didn’t seek out an official diagnosis). He helped me get through the program and supported me as I started the diagnosis process myself.
I haven’t started a doctorate, and I’m really worried I would NOT make it. I only barely started completing papers in less than 2-3 contiguous days by my last course. Even mid-program, I was still cranking out 40-60 pages of final exam paper in 3 days. But it made me so miserable, it almost torpedoed my marriage.
Bogeywoman
I’m AuDHD and only found out five years ago. I’ve been at uni for a decade and never finished a degree. I went from psych/criminology double and had a breakdown, switched to arts and finally found social work, which combines my interest in people and society, and is incredibly values based and social justicey. Because it’s social work and the teachers are used to working with people from shitty backgrounds they were especially kind to me.
Ive wanted to quit so many times because I couldn’t see how I could “succeed”. I struggled with finding balance between perfectionism and burn out and there were never any good examples of practitioners with my kind of brain. I eventually found small groups and advocates online and began intentionally focusing on neurodivergent affirming practice, and now I’m a representative with the disability collective and I write/talk about the structural issues in education and solutions to improve access for disabled social workers.
I expect to graduate next year, but Ive had to take breaks every other semester because of how badly my mental health and general wellbeing gets. I expend SO much effort studying, starting a month before classes start just to fall behind by mid-sem.
Thirties ouch I was sort of lucky I found out in my twenties while my parents figured I was but the US public school system isn’t good at identifying ADHD or autism in students or at least my school wasn’t like Walky I was a good student, so I couldn’t possibly have learning disability. And my meltdowns were just me being disruptive.
There’s also a layer of “You’re great at everything you’ve put your mind to *so far*.” If you never struggle for the first thirteen years of your education, then you don’t know how to react when you’re *not* instantly good at something.
Even though I don’t have ADHD or something similar, I can totally relate. I grew up for lack of a better term “over trying” at everything. Destroying myself mentally whenever I failed because “I just wasn’t trying hard enough”. It wasn’t until now around my late thirties that I finally realized I was in a very literal way that was affecting my physical health, trying myself to death. It wasn’t until my personal trainer told me “why are you overworking yourself like this? Just who are you trying to impress? Who do you need to prove yourself to and will they appreciate it?” that I realized what I was doing.
It wasn’t worth it. My family was great at criticizing every single aspect of my life and making sure I remembered each and every failure. Every single “You just didn’t put enough effort into it.” But when I got ill they weren’t at the doctors with me. I was at the gym (doctor’s orders) by myself and they still criticized me for not having results immediately. I took my trainer’s advice. Fuck them. I’m not out to impress anyone at anything. I’m sorry it took this long to realize it, and it’s actually done wonders for my health, and even overall attitude. I’m out to impress myself now.
As for the comic itself, I feel like everyone has a moment where you somehow have to make a realization or choice that somehow defines your character and serves as a transition into adulthood or a first “adult choice”. I think Walky’s gonna have one of those VERY soon.
Another AuDHDer here. I’m about 20 years ahead of you, and none of this neurodivergent stuff was a thing in my childhood, so I’m sorting it out for myself literally this year, rounding out the many painful lessons I’ve had to learn throughout my life.
I agree that the whole “if you tried hard enough” doesn’t even take into account how much *harder* ND brains have to work to accomplish things, and the feelings of failure when one can’t magically get your brain to do what you want them to. As a teen and young adult, I was pretty good at the things I was good at – lol- and limping along or outright failing at things that did not interest me. Even things I was “good at” and desperately wanted to do were often beyond me for reasons I did not understand, NOT for lack of trying. Jay-sus. I’ve eventually managed to accomplish many things in life, but not because of “trying hard enough.” *old lady sputtering*
329 thoughts on “Sportsball”
Ana Chronistic
“some”
Thag Simmons
I suspect Linda’s idea of Walky’s bad choices is not one I would agree with.
EA West
I dunno. I mean, as a person with ADHD, I’ve come to accept that fact that making bad choices isn’t mutually exclusive to having ADHD. Like, being neurodivergent doesn’t give you a forever pass and excuse for everything; it’s an explanation for why certain things are more challenging. So I think both Walky and Linda are right. He started failing because he was worse at math than he thought and his ADHD makes studying very challenging. But he also CHOSE to then stop going to class (he didn’t forget about the class, which would have been fairly excused by ADHD) and he CHOSE to fuck around during the one on one tutoring sessions with Jason. Though in fairness to Walky for that one, we know canonically that Jason is a shit tutor, and Walky didn’t fuck around in his studying with amazigirl. But yeah, Linda is a garbage parent, and she should friggen listen to Walky when he’s trying to be honest and open with her, but also, Walky does need to take ownership of the bad choices he did actively make.
Decidedly Orthogonal
That’s very generous of you. Linda has only seen two choices Walky made. Dating Amber qnd Lucy. I get the feeling Linda is talking about Lucy. Certainly Linda is nasty enough to be focussed on dredging stuff up during fun-time activities. And the beer in her hand…
I’d ask if she’s a mean drunk, but she’s not nice – ever – so how could we tell?
EA West
Yeah, that’s fair. Linda is only accidentally correct, because you’re right: She isn’t actually aware that Walky actively stopped attending class or screwed around during his tutoring sessions. So probably whatever she is calling out as bad choices is her being a terrible person, because *gestures vaguely at Linda’s track record.*
Matthew Davis
That was my take. I’m wondering how long until she decides Lucy is the reason he failed, as well.
Mark
Walky also chose to believe that he was lacking intelligence, not effort. That his failure was inevitable, not correctable. Since then he’s seen evidence that the other choice was more likely, and I hope that that lesson went home.
Linda is right in that Walky has a lot going for him when he uses it well.
Amelie Wikström
Trying to literally run away from his bad grades could be called a bad decision. Sure, it should be exactly what Linda wanted him to do in that situation, because why else did she teach him to be terrified of failing?, but I imagine she disapproves anyway.
Rose Tilly
I mean, usually when someone believes their failure is a problem of lacking skill/intelligence/ability and not effort, it’s because their experience thus far is of people praising those things rather than the effort made, creating an association of intelligence = do well, therefore is not do well, intelligence too low.
And I can very easily believe that Linda and Charles are the type of parents who would do that (Not out of malice, just not knowing any better). So, while it’s still his choice to think that, it’s probably not a choice being made freely and without heav influence.
thejeff
The problem with that in kids like Walky when it comes to school is that he was getting the good grades without effort. Praising the effort wouldn’t have worked, since he wasn’t actually putting in any effort.
Kamino Neko
Yep. Been there, done that.
Especially fun when putting in effort, thus finishing quickly, was actually functionally punished.
‘OK, Mx Brain. Spend the next 50 minutes sitting quietly at your desk. But don’t take out a book to read. Completely denying you mental stimulation will certainly not have bad results on your psyche and behaviour.’
Taffy
They tried that on me, when I was a kid, that “No reading even though you did all your work and it’s clearly all correct” bullshit. Then I started throwing things (tantrums, pencils, textbooks) and they learned to just let me read because it wasn’t disruptive and had less chance of somebody getting hurt. Not that I could do much damage in the first place, it was just too much of a hassle to calm me back down from my spergouts.
Autogatos
Stuff like that is where it was super convenient that I love to draw. I basically never had to worry about being bored in class. Kept my hands busy too which also helped me focus when I needed to listen to the teacher. And made it kind of ironic when a teacher would tell me to “stop doodling and pay attention.” They were basically ensuring I could NOT pay attention.
I also sometimes kept a tiny piece of modeling clay in my pocket. It was a great “fidget” (long before actual “fidget toys” existed) because it was so easy to hide and kept my hands busy without requiring me to actually look at it. I’d just keep my hands under my desk and try to shape it into simple things (a sphere, a cube, a velociraptor claw like the one Alan Grant was always fiddling with in Jurassic Park, etc).
Mr. Random
I feel like I’d agree but for completely different reasons.
DudeMyDadOwnsADealership
She also may be projecting. I’m getting vibes from her and her husband that they’ve peaked prospect-wise some time ago and this could be partially existential dread-related…
Ana Chronistic
now remembering a questionable Wayfarer submission
NGPZ
Awe great, now I need a drink ?
Angel
get two, one yummy one to enjoy yourself ,and another full of paint to splash on her clothes lol
Amós Batista
me, after reading any pages where Linda is tagged
Animedingo
Bruh
Or rather
Muh
Thag Simmons
Now, does she mean dating or does she mean in his major
Doopyboop
I’m thinking she means the everything about Walky that Linda doesn’t have a hand in. Dating, his major, his personality…
Coatl
Dude, we’re talking about Linda, she’s honestly never happy with anything.
Needfuldoer
All the world has to do is just bend to her every whim, and she’ll be happy. What’s so difficult about that? Is it really so much to ask, when she’s right anyway?
/s
Bryy
She’s getting piss-drunk because her children dared be nice to her.
She has fucking issues.
milu
well, she was happy about Danny for a minute
UrsulaDavina
Yes
Angel
he’s never rly brought it up from what i can remember, but who knows, maybe the reason walky did ‘well’ in school (by public school standards lol) and was smart “Did you think i was stupid?” “you threw a toy at my head”, was that he had a consistent schedule and either extra tutoring or the mom making sure he actually studied/at least finished homework or he was one of those kids that ‘coasted by’ as long as he did well on tests but i’d imagine at this point lucy would step in and say that they study properly together instead of doing datey/lovey dovey stuff
Doopyboop
I definitely think he was able to coast by, especially since he was in public school. It’s funny, the older I get the more I realize I do share a lot with Walky. I’m sure the reason he went undiagnosed for his ADHD is the same reason I was, which was that we were in public school and were able to pay enough attention/do well enough to get good grades. Public school doesn’t have high standards honestly, they seem to be the bare minimum when it comes to schooling, and at least during the time I was in school, being curious about a student being neurotypical or not was only when they had bad grades. I didn’t have as hard an adjustment as Walky did, but there WAS a big adjustment to go from never needing to study to actually needing to study college material.
Daibhid C
Yeah, I had similar experiences at a UK state school (“public school” means something different and completely non-intuitive here…) which recognised “Daibhid has issues interacting with other kids in the playground” was a problem, but solved this problem by keeping me indoors during breaks, rather than asking why I had issues. When my grades were up, they didn’t care beyond that; when they weren’t, I was just being lazy because I’d shown I could get good grades. Then they washed my hands of me and suggested I’d be better off at a special school.
This was better, but it was run by hippies who “didn’t believe in labels”, so I still didn’t actually get diagnosed with anything.
Daibhid C
No disrespect to hippies or they hippie-adjacent intended. Or even to the school, which was mostly fine and did its best.
Mark
I would suggest that both schools were doing what they’re actually paid to do. All over our societies, we ought to take a hard look at what we are actually paying people to do.
milu
hm i’m curious what you mean by that
Puppeteer Nessus
“Babysitting” rather than “Educating” is what comes to mind
Mark
I was going to launch into a long analysis for you, but after a bit of thought I decided that Puppeteer Nessus’ explanation is about the same and much more succinct.
thejeff
Being able to coast through high school getting good grades without much effort then having problems in college as you get to harder material isn’t really a huge stretch. I lost some points by not liking the busy work assigned us, especially in middle school, but mostly you can do the assigned homework, listen in class and still not really study.
Honestly, it didn’t really hit me in college until late in the program and even them only really in my major, but that derailed me pretty badly.
I don’t really know what public school could have done better, unless you go to the level of lots of individualized one on one work with each student.
Felgraf
Yes.
Mark
Tune in tomorrow for the answers to this and other questions.
CardinalFan
Yes.
Yumi
“Turns out I’m not great at putting my mind to things.”
cain
adhd mood
milu
“except for comedy”
Sarah Lea
Ugh. As someone who wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until her mid-thirties, I both understand and HATE this message: “You’re great at anything you put your mind to…”
With the unspoken completion…
“…so if you’re not being great, you aren’t really trying.”
So I spent most of my life “trying myself to death’s door,” because the expectation around me seemed to be – If you aren’t successful OR haven’t worked yourself into the hospital yet, you haven’t really tried hard enough.”
It nearly ruined me.
Ugh.
I repeat, Linda. Ugh.
not someone else
Yup. This. Exactly this. Up to and including the multiple chronic illnesses, literal hospital visits, and being wheeled out of work on an ambulance stretcher because I was fucking terrified of not going and proving I couldn’t work.
True Survivor
Oh no. I am so sorry.
Sarah Lea
Are you me? I literally lost my job last June after being ambulanced to the ER when I started vomiting then passed out at work.
Leadership was super nice about it all……..at first.
Three months later, I was let go.
“Not a good culture fit.”
Apparently I was “trying too hard.”
…
Warcodered
I mean, not to belittle or question your specific experience, but not putting his mind to it, or not working hard enough does actually apply to Walky’s situation. He basically tried to just coast through things like he always had, which to be fair has to be on some level on his parents to a degree.
Sarah Lea
I think I understand your intent.
But I wonder if you might be conflating “trying” with “being successful.”
We actually see MULTIPLE times Walky TRIED to study.
He’d sit there, with the book. He TRIED.
But he did NOT know how to study SUCCESSFULLY.
Probably because with his ADHD, whatever methods other people found successful didn’t really WORK for him. And if he’s never worked with someone who knows what WORKS for someone with ADHD, he’s probably going to get the sense that NOTHING works for him.
So if your experience is that whether you try or not, you either fail or succeed…but your success seems to have zero relationship to your effort…the “logical” conclusion is that continuing to try is a “waste of time.”
I can’t tell you how many students I worked with who had just completely given up at school, because they’d TRY studying for HOURS…then fail the test (because the study methods they’d been taught didn’t work for them), and when their outcome wasn’t success, the teacher would say “I can tell you didn’t even try. You didn’t even study.”
Why on earth would you keep putting yourself out there, making the effort, then being told you hadn’t? If you’re going to lose anyway, why lose at the cost of a lot of time/effort?
I started working with these ADHD kids, teaching them the methods that had WORKED for me (taught to me by my undiagnosed ADHD parents)…and suddenly, their grades started rising! They started passing tests! And…they were EXCITED! They started using those methods themselves, they started TRYING again, because finally trying was linked to success!
But if your trying doesn’t lead to success…yeah, at some point you quit trying and just coast or give up.
Sarah Lea
Oh yeah…realizing all my learning/studying methods worked gangbusters for my ADHD students? A major part of eventually getting diagnosed with ADHD myself.
Psychie
If you don’t mind sharing further, I would be very interested to learn what these study methods are that work for ADHD kids, because I have ADHD and never got much of anything out of studying. I’m really good at retaining info from lectures, and when I can make myself read a textbook I’m great at retaining that too, but textbooks are so dry that they can’t hold my attention for any length of time unless I’m really invested in the specific material being covered, which isn’t often. I certainly can’t make myself focus on things like homework, especially when it’s repetitive busy work covering material I understood when the teacher explained it, like math. Also writing papers is a huge struggle for me, or at least starting them, usually once I start writing I get a flow going and can bang it out relatively quickly, but starting that flow is harder than starting my old lawnmower was.
Bogeywoman
How To ADHD on YouTube has a very comprehensive and effective collection of strategies for working with having an ADHD brain as well as explaining why some things work better than others.
To summarise what works for me is taking into consideration that ADHD brains have an interest-based nervous system whereas non ADHD people have an importance-based nervous system. We are more motivated by novelty, competition, interest and urgency.
Specific examples: Lean into material that you’re invested in and focus on what is interesting. I weave my special interests into assignments, and get the best grades on those. I will also substitute readings for writers that I vibe with better. Once I managed to integrate live action roleplay of the apocalypse into a presentation, and another time I used zines.
Switch up how you study or where. Oddly, I find it easier to read boring material if I’m in a bar or music venue. I also enjoy studying in dog parks. Industrial music is also great for me to read to, since it’s musically interesting but has limited vocals. Using alternating highlighters is also helpful for breaking up info.
Having a body double can help a lot with focusing on dull info, and if it’s someone who understands what you’re learning you can use the Pomodoro method to study and discuss what you just read with them during rest periods. I also involve art in my study, like
Give yourself an earlier due date, or have someone (a friend or tutor) set a date for you to submit a draft by. Helps build urgency.
Starting is always the hardest part. I have a ridiculous, borderline compulsive way to do assignments, but find free writing what you know is a good way to get the juices flowing, and always start with the intro and conclusion.
I’ve got like a billion tips and strategies I could talk about. I’ve been at uni for a decade.
pope suburban
I want to reinforce this point. Even neurotypical kids will run into this if they haven’t had to TRY to study before. A lot of kids hit that point in college. Or they were very managed all their lives and don’t do well with the lack of structure, and have to TRY to set aside the time for study. I can’t speak as to Walky’s reasons as I am, to the best of my knowledge, neurotypical and I’ve always been pretty good at retaining school information, but I think it’s important to know that, yeah, studying is a skill and not everyone has it, or has it by a certain age, or past a certain point.
Mark
And that some people just pick up that skill by exposure, but others of us have to be taught.
Big Z
You rang? I’m just glad it only took me 2-3 years of barely passing college after straight-As in high school to learn how to actually study.
Amara
I got lucky and figured it out in high school but my mom is a huge believer in alternative medicines, so I had tried a ton of different things through out high school before giving up on getting medicine. In college a few years in, I finally was able to get the amphetamines I needed, after the first two medicines didn’t work. All it cost was nearly failing out and wasting numerous semesters redoing classes.
Jo_cubstar
…wish I knew you when I was in university. Maybe I wouldn’t have dropped out. I did finish community College, but I always mourn the loss of my astrophysics degree ?
Decidedly Orthogonal
Please, would you share or reference methods that you used?
Warcodered
I think maybe for Walky it ended up being a bit of both. Up until college he’d been able just coast on his innate ability but runs into the wall in college. His initial bad habits got him behind and when he tried to study to try and catch up ran into the exact kind of problems you’re talking about, with little experience dealing with them.
So while I can see how it could be seen as being unfair because of the difficulty studying, I can’t help but feel it applies far more to the fact that he didn’t take the class seriously at all until he couldn’t push off the looming realization that he was going to fail it.
All-Purpose Guru
Pretty much anybody who excels in high school.
Just about everybody I knew who did as well as I did in school pretty much realized the first time they flunk a class that “Hey, you’re in the big leagues now, I guess you’re gonna have to do that studying thing that everybody else does.“
Kind of like getting a baseball bat to the head.
Felgraf
Right but the thing is. (NOTE: WHAT FOLLOWS IS ONLY MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH ADHD)
… That’s how ADHD *works*. It’s–it’s very badly misnamed. It should, honestly, be called “Executive Function Disorder”, because the part of my brain that unconciously ranks tasks and starts tasks *doesn’t work right*. Everything gets set to “Task priority 1”: Ranking them takes actual mental effort.
This includes tasks like “eating.”
Also, we don’t get a dopamine hit for completing a task. Apparently people without ADHD do?
I’m also very fortunate: I was (CORRECTLY) diagnosed as a child. That *did* lead to my mom getting diagnosed once she started reading “You mean I’m not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?”, and the slow revelation that not only do I, my younger brother, and mother have it, but so does *every single member of my mother’s immediate family.*
(And I’m one of the people that Strattera seems to work well for. I was even part of the drug study, actually.)
Mark
Yes, there is pleasure in completing a task, but I have to ask myself for it. When I’ve finished yard work for the day, after I clean up the mess and put the tools away, I make myself go back and survey what I’ve done. The work is no fun for me, but seeing the modest result is mildly rewarding.
Dunno if that would work for you, but it works for me.
Liclairian
Wait. *Thats* why neurotypical people can just… do things? They get that dopamine fix of anticipation and reward for things that *they* assign rather than interests that are assigned *to* them?? MAN I wish I could do that. That feels like a superpower!
zee
That is also why NDRIs like Wellbutrin are used off lable for ADHD as an alternative to stimulants
NGPZ
An auDHDer who has also suffered from that “not trying hard enough” bullshit, I think society would be that much better if people realized that seeing success is privilege.
We ALL work hard, but very few actually get to see that hard work succeed.
Laura
So true, NG!
Dinajoyce
THIS! I was one of the lucky ones who was mostly able to coast through college too (grad school is where the ouch hit) and I saw tons of very smart friends in college trying harder than me without getting the grades I got.
Then, in grad school, when I suddenly COULDN’T write the papers the night, or even the week, before they were due, then I had to work harder than my classmates trying to figure out how to learn new study habits and project timelines and how to make my adhd (undiagnosed of course) activate hyperfocus mode earlier and for longer. I managed to do okay through my masters, but the PhD went downhill FAST. The abusive faculty then made that 10000000000 times worse, but that’s a different problem.
Sarah Lea
This was me.
My parents helped me learn enough ADHD-friendly study techniques, I could commit concepts to memory pretty well (it was still a lot of work, but at least I’d learned things that actually WORKED for me).
But I was diagnosed during grad school, when suddenly I couldn’t just cram two final papers in the same night. It was miserable.
Thankfully, I had an incredibly gracious program director/professor who also had undiagnosed ADHD (he was just old enough by the time he realized it, he was all-but retired, so he didn’t seek out an official diagnosis). He helped me get through the program and supported me as I started the diagnosis process myself.
I haven’t started a doctorate, and I’m really worried I would NOT make it. I only barely started completing papers in less than 2-3 contiguous days by my last course. Even mid-program, I was still cranking out 40-60 pages of final exam paper in 3 days. But it made me so miserable, it almost torpedoed my marriage.
Bogeywoman
I’m AuDHD and only found out five years ago. I’ve been at uni for a decade and never finished a degree. I went from psych/criminology double and had a breakdown, switched to arts and finally found social work, which combines my interest in people and society, and is incredibly values based and social justicey. Because it’s social work and the teachers are used to working with people from shitty backgrounds they were especially kind to me.
Ive wanted to quit so many times because I couldn’t see how I could “succeed”. I struggled with finding balance between perfectionism and burn out and there were never any good examples of practitioners with my kind of brain. I eventually found small groups and advocates online and began intentionally focusing on neurodivergent affirming practice, and now I’m a representative with the disability collective and I write/talk about the structural issues in education and solutions to improve access for disabled social workers.
I expect to graduate next year, but Ive had to take breaks every other semester because of how badly my mental health and general wellbeing gets. I expend SO much effort studying, starting a month before classes start just to fall behind by mid-sem.
UrsulaDavina
Thirties ouch I was sort of lucky I found out in my twenties while my parents figured I was but the US public school system isn’t good at identifying ADHD or autism in students or at least my school wasn’t like Walky I was a good student, so I couldn’t possibly have learning disability. And my meltdowns were just me being disruptive.
BadRoad
There’s also a layer of “You’re great at everything you’ve put your mind to *so far*.” If you never struggle for the first thirteen years of your education, then you don’t know how to react when you’re *not* instantly good at something.
Bleuryder
Even though I don’t have ADHD or something similar, I can totally relate. I grew up for lack of a better term “over trying” at everything. Destroying myself mentally whenever I failed because “I just wasn’t trying hard enough”. It wasn’t until now around my late thirties that I finally realized I was in a very literal way that was affecting my physical health, trying myself to death. It wasn’t until my personal trainer told me “why are you overworking yourself like this? Just who are you trying to impress? Who do you need to prove yourself to and will they appreciate it?” that I realized what I was doing.
It wasn’t worth it. My family was great at criticizing every single aspect of my life and making sure I remembered each and every failure. Every single “You just didn’t put enough effort into it.” But when I got ill they weren’t at the doctors with me. I was at the gym (doctor’s orders) by myself and they still criticized me for not having results immediately. I took my trainer’s advice. Fuck them. I’m not out to impress anyone at anything. I’m sorry it took this long to realize it, and it’s actually done wonders for my health, and even overall attitude. I’m out to impress myself now.
As for the comic itself, I feel like everyone has a moment where you somehow have to make a realization or choice that somehow defines your character and serves as a transition into adulthood or a first “adult choice”. I think Walky’s gonna have one of those VERY soon.
Sarah Lea
I just want to say: Go you!
I hope to one day get to the same mental place are you are – out to impress myself.
Still working on it.
So glad for you that you’re achieving it! You’re awesome!
PlainMarie
Another AuDHDer here. I’m about 20 years ahead of you, and none of this neurodivergent stuff was a thing in my childhood, so I’m sorting it out for myself literally this year, rounding out the many painful lessons I’ve had to learn throughout my life.
I agree that the whole “if you tried hard enough” doesn’t even take into account how much *harder* ND brains have to work to accomplish things, and the feelings of failure when one can’t magically get your brain to do what you want them to. As a teen and young adult, I was pretty good at the things I was good at – lol- and limping along or outright failing at things that did not interest me. Even things I was “good at” and desperately wanted to do were often beyond me for reasons I did not understand, NOT for lack of trying. Jay-sus. I’ve eventually managed to accomplish many things in life, but not because of “trying hard enough.” *old lady sputtering*
TLDR: Walky doesn’t needs this hostile bullshit.
Needfuldoer
I’m in this comment and I don’t like it.
Telling someone with ADHD they “just have to try harder” is like telling a short person they can reach something if they “just get taller”.