I savoured every opportunity I could have to sit down and have a conversation with one of the AP (Alternative Pathways) teachers, Ms. Christina Kanni (she joins my Y9 Maths class to support some of my learners this academic year) to get a better understanding of what sort of daily struggles these AP learners have, and how their minds work against the sensory assault to try and keep up with the rest of their friends at school. It is quite a huge responsibility that she has on her back to be ready to support the AP learners while documenting their daily behavioral patterns in order to spot a gap, tackle the emerging matter, and help ease the learners to get themselves integrated as one of the class members.
After a while of talking to her about the symptoms and behavioral patterns of specific learners who were diagnosed with learning difficulties, I started to have flashbacks about the struggles I had when I was at school. The more I think about it, the more I started to rule out 'the hormonal teenagers' reactions to things and I started collecting some insights about the similarities between how I felt at that time with the behavioural patterns of a person with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
She gave me an idea to get my symptoms tested online via ADDitude:
I was skeptical at first as I know that a face-to-face diagnosis will yield a better and more accurate result but no harm in exploring and learning something about yourself, right?
The result: I have been categorised as a person with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and some indicators are also pointing out that I may also possess some of the characteristics and mannerisms of ADHD.
I started reading more about PSD symptoms for children and further extended it for adults and there is no better word to describe how I have experienced most of it and still am, coping to survive living like a normal person. This piece of realisation stabbed my heart to the core. Nobody in the last 20 years has addressed this matter to me. I was perceived as a troublemaker at school and instead of helping me, most of my teachers judged me harshly and never allowed me space to explain myself or what I was doing at one point in time.
Some of the 'weird things' I did when I was in my teenage life at school include:
I preferred to stay in one corner of the library alone so that I could have some peaceful time. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to study because I can't get much done during prep time as I got distracted easily by everybody around me (I was at a boarding school throughout my secondary education stage). As a result, I woke up late, getting behind with all the schedules set, and of course, it was my fault because if others could adhere to the rules and regulations, why can't I, right?
I have a short attention span. Until today, hehe. I could be fidgety in a meeting and will start to tap my feet on the floor repetitively. 10 minutes is all it takes. I had many unfinished homework when I was in secondary school and being punished standing outside of the class due to it is actually a sweet relief for me because I can be on my own and self-regulate myself better when the things in the classroom was super tense and overwhelming. When my teachers thought that shame would make me repent, they didn't realise that I could mute my surroundings and be contented with just myself. Win-win, I would say :)
I hate PE. Why? Because I don't like to sweat as it makes me feel uncomfortable and I could easily get irritated by it. The same goes for swimming either at the beach or river, the sands that got stuck on my skin set me off and I could get super clammy and anxious right after. It is not easy to verbalise all these to any adult around me when I was at school because I will not be taken seriously. #sadlife
When I read the article about Signs of SPD in Adults, I spotted some other traits that I have but I convinced myself that it is just me and my unique self as everyone has their own kryptonite too so I accepted them as a norm and nothing more:
I still can't deal with anything bitter in taste. Spoiler alert, I don't drink coffee. I know, I know, I am missing out a lot but now I understand that due to my hypersensitivity to this particular branch of taste, I feel my tongue assaulted whenever I allowed myself even a sip of coffee.
Loud noises spook me. I once drove to Melaka to meet my best friend and we went out with her 1-year-old daughter and her 4-year-old boy. At one point her daughter started screaming and crying inside my car, I got super frazzled I started to lose focus a lot when I was driving. I felt super stunned that it took me a while to grab my bearings back to their rightful place.
No tight-fitting clothes for me please, thank you. I feel trapped and started getting anxious very very quickly.
I cannot cope with bright and strong fluorescent lights. This could be the reason why I rather cope with being in the dark when I am in my house with the minimal amount of yellow lights around me. Enough for me to get by. Enough for me not to hit the furniture and the walls around me.
I am super sensitive with strong odors. I could smell something that at times people around me could tolerate and get on with their lives while I struggled to carry on with whatever I was doing at that time. Before the Covid-19 era, whenever I am in a crowded place, I will put on a face mask. Face mask is not a foreign companion for me.
Now that I look back at my list above, it makes me wonder of how much I have to endure just for the sake of blending in, to be accepted and the train of thoughts that I have is I am generally weaker in many normal areas that most people could easily thrived in. I self-blamed myself a lot too. When I was in secondary school, I sometimes cried in the toilet whenever things get super overwhelmed in the classroom and I always thought that the whole world is against me.
Why am I so weak?
Why can't I be as organised and smart as other people?
When I self-blamed, my coping mechanism would be to accept it and stay miserable whereby I could have just talked it out to my teachers around me when I was in secondary school - hang on, nobody wants to take a step back and accept me as who I am. So that literally left me with no choice but to just suck it up and float along in the hope that I too could be a student that my teacher could spend their time talking to without any acute judgment about all the things that I was lacking of at that time.
This is why I promised myself that I will never treat any students of mine with the same treatment. If anything, I reserved a soft spot for them all. The amount of agony that one could carry at such a tender age, the pressure to prove yourself, the heavy weight of comparison that you have to endure every single day, it was tough being a teenager who barely knew themselves and at the same time, keeping up another persona at school as a student.
Whether my list coincided perfectly with the signs of PSD or not, I may entertain the idea to get myself properly diagnosed one day. I have arrived to one realisation though:
The amount of struggle one can have is unimaginable and my heart goes to those learners who have ADHD or any type of learning disabilities. I dare not categorised myself as one of them as I have never been diagnosed properly for it, but the pain and anxiety that I carried over the years is not something that I could simply dump in a box and throw it away for good. Definitely the same if not more, goes to my learners.
Lots to learn and reflect upon!
Hi Ms. Siti😀, I am so glad that you took the time to read and gain knowledge from that site. Amazing write-up and reflection and I loved it!