The Mental Barrier

Jan.27, 2021

THE Students who are neurodivergent have been forced to navigate school with a “mental barrier”MENTAL BARRIER

Imagine you’re sitting at a desk in your room, working on homework. You are typing on your computer, working on your English assignment when you have the impulsive thought to slam the computer closed and destroy your fingers in the process. But you have that small voice of reason in your head, almost like a barrier, to not horribly break your fingers. Even if you want to do it, there’s a mental barrier preventing you from doing it and it’s almost impossible to override.

That’s what it feels like to be neurodivergent in school, with an invisible mental barrier preventing you from doing schoolwork or basic tasks, no matter how hard you want to do them.

Neurodivergence is a collection of neuro disorders such as dyslexia, Tourette’s Syndrome, ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder (OCD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), autism and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). All of these disorders can affect your daily ability to do tasks, no matter how big or small. The two disorders most talked about in the school setting are ADHD and ADD.

Sophomore Madisyn Wells is a student with ADHD. She’s noticed that a lot of teachers have trouble dealing with students who are neurodivergent.

It's almost like they aren't really taught about what neuro problems are unless they have it themselves.

Sophomore Madisyn Wells

“It’s almost like they aren’t really taught about what neuro problems are unless they have it themselves,” Wells said. “Most teachers [assume that] ADHD is just distractions. They don’t teach you that in women, it’s harder to diagnose because the symptoms are almost completely different from males. Women are more emotional, while men are more physical.”

The question is, how do teachers approach dealing with the mental barrier that neurodivergent students face?

For some students, school is hard enough without adding the online aspect to it. Many students can struggle with overstimulation, dissociation and attention issues in the school setting. Online school has made those issues a lot harder to overcome.

Neurodivergent students wanting to be left alone is often an effect of overstimulation, which is when someone experiences an overwhelming amount of stimulation towards one of their senses, such as hearing or touch. Sophomore Lilly Harris often experiences it with touch. She is an artist, but her artistic passion is disrupted when + by Veronica Meiss some textures like clay can cause overstimulation.

“[Clay] feels like it’s cementing my hands together and I’ll never get it off,” Harris said. “That’s why I’ve avoided taking an art class, because of the clay unit. The feeling of paper also makes my arm feel like it has ants crawling over it. Like there’s a spider on me and I can’t get it off. I sometimes have to touch things with both of my hands to [even out the sensation].”

Literary education professor Dr. Rachael Gabriel proposes that some ways to help neurodivergent students are creating peer groups to work on assignments, using a variety of different colors and fonts in online assignments and breaking down bigger assignments into smaller parts.

“You can’t take a specific disability label and match it with a list of accommodations,” Gabriel said. “It needs to be up to the kid whether they feel like that is a useful accommodation for this task at this time.”

Some professors, like Gabriel, suggest having a checklist at the beginning of class for some students. That checklist can include creating a wellness check through a Google Form, answering questions about the previous night’s homework and going over the schedule for the day. Those small things could help students who are neurodivergent on a daily basis.

“You can’t treat them like a baby,” Wells said. “You have to be a friend to them. If they don’t talk, then they may just need to be alone for a while. Don’t push them to a point that they don’t want to go.”

Even if you are neurotypical and do not have disorders such as ADHD, learning about how to approach those who do have it is still important. Learning why these things happen and why people struggle with public school is crucial to understanding the mental barrier.

MY SWISS CHEESE BRAIN

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more than meets the eye

I’ve always known that there was something wrong, but I didn’t expect this.

My doctor held up a plastic replica of a brain and told me that mine was sort of like this… with an exception.

“Your brain’s kinda like Swiss cheese,” she said. Erin Albers

The medicine she would prescribe would plug up the Design Editor holes and make it easier for me to focus.

Although I was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) less than a month ago, I’ve known something was wrong for a while. I always wonder why school is so easy for others.

“Oh, they are probably just smart,” I thought.

It turns out that I am smart too, but my wires are a little out of place. My brain has holes that make me forget the simplest things, make the smallest sounds distract me, make my feet wiggle and make the easiest tasks difficult. I always feel like I’m playing catch up.

And I didn’t feel like anyone was paying attention anyway.

My older sister had mental health issues so she was the focus of my parents when we were growing up. My ADHD and I slipped through the cracks. A part of me just wanted to ignore it, because it wasn’t ever “that bad,” but it does leave me wondering: if I had been diagnosed earlier, what would high school have been like? Would I be a straight-A student? I guess I’ll never know.

ADHD isn’t just forgetting things and having weird bursts of energy. Of course, it’s all of that but It also comes with more challenges. It’s caused me to have extreme highs and extreme lows, sometimes at random. I’m really sensitive to sound. I can’t watch TV in one room if the TV in the room next door is playing something loud. My mind doesn’t let me focus on one sound at a time. I hear everything at the same time and it’s basically information overload. I get really stressed out and sometimes it pushes me over the edge.

I also forget things a lot. I’ll be sitting downstairs on the couch thinking ‘oh, I need to go up and grab my computer.’ So I walk up the stairs with one goal in mind: grab my computer. But when I walk into my room and see a pile of laundry, I think to myself, “Oh, that needs to be taken downstairs.” So I walk down the stairs and put my laundry away. I go sit back on the couch and a couple minutes pass. Crap, I forgot to get my computer. I walk back up and then feel thirsty. I grab my water and go back downstairs… “Did I really just do it again?”

It takes me three tries to do one simple task. It’s exhausting.

I’ve heard it all before:

“Just try harder.” “Just do your work.” “The assignment isn’t even that hard.” “Why can’t you just remember?”

People with ADHD aren’t lazy. More than likely they want to complete the assignment. The holes in their brains don’t let them. They just simply forget.

Of course, it takes effort to do things and everyone should be able to

“work harder.” But people with ADHD sometimes just can’t. You wouldn’t tell a person with glasses to just see better, would you? In a lot of aspects, ADHD is the same way. I’ll have an essay to write. An easy, straightforward essay, but every time I sit down to write it, my brain goes in another direction. A thousand thoughts will race through my head. Did I switch the laundry? What’s my grade in math? Did I ever text my boyfriend back? Then I’ll get up and start the next thing and completely forget about the essay.

It sucks at times, but I really do love my ADHD. It’s a part of who I am. I don’t think I would be the crazy kid who can always make people laugh without it.

You can never tell who is struggling with ADHD, so here’s my advice. Teachers, if you have that talkative energetic kid in class, don’t just assume they are a screw-up. If you notice a student not turning in assignments, don’t assume they don’t care and, most importantly, educate yourselves on neurodiversity.

Students, if you have a friend with ADHD, telling them to calm down won’t help. We can’t just calm down. If you notice that your friend has a lot of missing assignments, offer to do them together. If you want to be a really terrific friend, learn about ADHD, what causes it, what it may look like and how you can help people like me cope with it.

Then remember no two people with ADHD are the same.

When I or any of the people that suffer from ADHD get distracted, help us stay focused cause we are easily distra… SQUIRREL!

BY THE NUMBERS 60% 50%

1 in 6

Adults with ADHD are 60 percent more likely to lose their jobs (World Health Organization)

50 percent of employers in the UK admitted they would not hire a neurodivergent applicant (Institute of Leadership and Management)

1 in 6 children aged 3-17 were identified with a developmental disorder from 2009-2017 (CDC)