Excuse Versus Explanation
By eighth grade, one teacher had decided ADHD was not real at all.
Trey Robinson
By the time I understood the word ADHD, it had already entered rooms before I did.
It arrived as a rumor about me. A shorthand. A way for adults to name the trouble without having to sit with it. Some used it as a warning. Some used it as a kindness they did not know how to finish. Almost no one used it as a question.
By eighth grade, one teacher had decided ADHD was not real at all. A made-up thing, he called it. A story lazy kids told so they would not have to try. He said it in a room full of people. He said it as if the saying were the proof.
That is when I learned the difference that would follow me for decades: an explanation offered to a person who has already decided you are making an excuse.
An excuse is a door you close. An explanation is a door you open. The culture around ADHD keeps slamming the first one and calling it accountability.
I did not need the diagnosis to be a shield. I needed it to be a map.