WHEN POSITIVE ADHD ROLE MODELS MAKE THEMSELVES KNOWN

A day in the life of a young offenders employee with ADHD

I love helping people and I am passionate about people seeing the positives of ADHD and other co-occuring conditions. Personally, if there was a button I could press to get rid of it I would build a protective case around it. I would never press it. But my friends might at times. I would get rid of the bi-polar though. I don’t like that.

There is a young offender in my area. Street robbery, violence and many other things. He has been arrested over 50 times. He was in our custody suite. I said hello as I walked through as I recognised his face (looks like butter wouldn’t melt). I say “Are you alright?” His mum, sat there all savvy like, says “No you gonna get him an officer, we’ve been here two hours, he’s got ADHD and gonna kick off soon.” I looked at him and said “No he won’t.” He looked up at me very confused. I said “I have ADHD, it don’t make you kick off, it makes you easily bored and frustrated, but it is your choice if you kick off, not ADHD.” He looked gobsmacked. I said, “Do you have a phone?” He said, “Yes.” I said ,“Have you got games on that phone?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Why don’t you play on it until you get bored then play a different one and a different one. Listen to some music, do a dance. But there is no way kicking off will be happening and be related to ADHD.” I went and found an officer and the boy was fine. I think he is normally able to trick people. I sat with mum, who I believe also has ADHD and went through stuff, and listened to her for two hours. So it went over my shift. Oh dear. Still, I saw that kid a couple of weeks later with his mates. I said hello to him, he smiled and said hello back. Needless to say he doesn’t normally do polite to kids. So I knew my little seeds had been planted. I do hate people blaming that stuff on ADHD. We are never going to get real understanding and support if people go around thinking everyone with ADHD is violent. Grrrr. It is just coping mechanisms to help combat the frustration, lack of confidence, risk-taking that gets us there. If you lock us in a room with nothing we might kick off quicker due to needing to be active. But even the most patient kids/adults would kick off over time. It’s just that our fuse is smaller. Our confidence is non existent. So we expect to fail. So our barriers are higher than others. Its all common sense to me. Sorry, waffling again. I am a bloody pain.

I do hope our kids get more help and understanding then we did. So there’s less adults running about with anger or confidence issues or mental health issues that are there from all those years of self doubt. Makes me sad.

P.S. I ain’t saying folk with ADHD don’t kick off. I’ve seen it enough times. I just mean if we can give them coping mechanisms to stop it getting to that point, then there’s no need for them to feel upset.  But sometimes it’s inevitable. But it’s mainly from frustration.

Anonymous to protect all parties