I started remembering what life had been like for me when I was a child. For the first three years of elementary school my desk was always separate from the rest of the class. There were twenty-five students and the teacher, and I was by myself off to the left. I thought this was normal. I wasn’t hyperactive or difficult; I think I was just extremely aware of everything going on around me and it was difficult for me to choose which thing to concentrate on the most. I told my mother of my diagnosis. She seemed surprised and didn’t remember the many times she had come in to school on Parents’ Day and wondered why I was seated separate from the class. But mothers remember what they want. A few days later when I was on the phone with my sister Carol, she told me she’d had a conversation with our mom about my ADD. Then she said to me, “Don’t you think you were seated separate from the rest of the class because you were always trying to be the center of attention?” This made me feel like my brain was splitting open.
