I wrote this two years ago. This is some decent stuff.
If you have any reason at all to suspect that you could be neurodivergent, chances are, you may tell yourself, “what’s the point of trying to get an assessment? probably because in Nigeria it makes no real difference in how it influence your job, studies or things like that in general coupled with the fact, we are still on survival mode so not many people give two rats ass about these things, so knowing, in this instance, makes little or no difference for you especially in how you navigate the complexities or everyday life. Mostly like because you are able to get by in school, at work and everyday life quite easily so no need to bother.
Well, I am here to tell you that you, you are wrong and reasons why you should absolutely see a specialist and be properly assessed.
I’ve interacted with some late-diagnosed neurodivergents, who like me, only found out in adulthood that they were in fact, either autistic, dyslexic, or had ADHD. One thing I noticed we all have in common, is that there is that deep persistent feeling like there is an invisible force messing up with our brains. See if you relate,
You know that deep feeling of inadequacy? You know there’s a piece of your puzzle is missing somewhere, yet you really can’t tell exactly what it is, you just know something doesn’t add up. There’s usually no words to describe it, yet, it is just there. That frustrating reality that for you, you require three or even four times the amount of mental and physical energy/motivation required to complete even the simplest everyday task, while everyone else seem to just breeze through them like it’s nothing? Your second name is “mistake” yet one simple mistake is potentially so costly in more ways you can imagine, and you are, in fact, surprised how you have managed to hold it together for this long for someone with such shit brain? How deep down you know it is unwise for anyone to rely 100% on you, yet everyone else seems to think you are brilliant?
In a rat race, you probably know that you are good enough, you know you’ve got the potential but the big question is for how long? How long until you burn out, lose interest then make a mistake or hit that self destruct button. The nerve wrecking moment when a potentially life changing task that requires absolute attention is scheduled on days you are most burnt out and incapable of lifting a finger. Consistency has no meaning here.
You can’t seem to understand why you are capable of doing some things pretty good yet you keep making all these very silly mistakes, sometimes so embarrassing that it knocks your confidence into pieces. In fact, silly, forgetful and procrastination is your middle and last names. Why you can’t seem to remember what you had for breakfast this morning, yet you have an accurat of a specific event from 20 years ago.
Now, That very thing I am trying to describe. That exhausting “barrier” that “extra” physical and mental burden, if carried on for too long, is precisely what drives you into depression, hence, the devastatingly high suicide rates in people with ADHD
You probably don’t know that not everyone is wired like that because you’ve never known or imagined it any other day. If you don’t know yourself well enough, you will continue to power through on raw strength where your talents would’ve saved you the stress. You will live only half of your potential no matter how good you think you’re doing. The fact you’re probably managing better than people around you will mask it even more. There is far more you can do if you understand how different your head is wired, Not to mention the relief from managing your weaknesses, stress and anxiety.
Secondly, in the journey of life, self awareness is key to almost everything you can achieve. It is not enough to know your star sign, or your personality type, and whether you are introverted or extroverted. Knowing how your brain is wired is even more important in this digital age.
The numbers would suggest that about 20% of people are neurodivergent, meaning our brains grow, mature and envelop slightly differently from 80% of the rest of the population. This makes us experience the world slightly differently. We process information and emotions differently as well. We have weaknesses that other people don’t and that is why we are considered “disabled”, but our brain, in an attempt to compensate for those weaknesses has given us some big advantages, in fact, some “super human” abilities if you like. Now I hope you understand and appreciate that you are unique and knowing yourself better will be doing yourself a huge favour.
If you’re planning to study or work abroad, getting an assessment is non-negotiable. Don’t wait until you are halfway across the world to find out by accident like I did. By that time it may be too late. You still have doubts now because you are in a familiar environment, you know how the system in Nigerian works in and out so you have unconsciously developed coping mechanisms that have helped you get by relatively easy. But let me tell you the truth, once you get to a new place, your real symptoms starts to appear.
You will be bombarded with so much new information all at once that your dyslexic or ADHD brain can’t handle at a time. It will first shut down on you. You won’t even know what is happening. Your performance in work or in school will dip, at the very least, it will take you a couple years for your brain to start developing new coping mechanisms for you. Before then, you may already have been withdrawn or fired.
But if you know yourself before hand, you understand your strength and weaknesses, you will be deliberate about everything you do and so life won’t be as stressful. You will know that you are entitled to work place adjustments or school adjustments by right, to help you maximise your strengths while working on your weaknesses. You won’t have to wait for your brain to do the adjustments unconsciously for you. I’ve recently seen many Nigerian students withdrawn from oyibo universities and sent back home for failing relatively easy stuff, my theory is that, of the many possible reasons, I think undiagnosed neurodivergence has a part to play.
If you are a student in a Nigerian higher institution, it is easy to think that there’s no point getting an assessment since there isn’t really anything anyone can do about it if it turns out that you are actually Autistic or something like that. Well, it may interest you to know that the biggest help you can get is from yourself. Every system in society is especially designed for neurotypical people. It will suddenly make sense to you why you never seem to learn anything in class but when you open YouTube tutorials, everything suddenly seems to make sense and you start getting angry at your teacher for making a seemingly simple topic look so complicated. You will realise that the educational system, designed by neurotypical people, lumps everyone in one basket and forces you to try to learn like them. You are forced sit still for hours unend while they feed you knowledge in bits and pieces. But that is not how your brain is wired to receive and retain information.
You will discover that your mind need to see all the information spread out on one very wide piece of paper and you need to see how each of them is related to one another. If you learn this way, chances are that you will notice that your brain will instantly start seeing new perspective of the image you saw, you will constantly be mentally me flipping the image upside down, left and right and imagining the changes that will happen If pieces of the information are moved around, that is one gift some dyslexics have. You probably think it’s nothing special because you think everyone can see it the way you see it.
That is when you will realise your learning style is by visualising images and your weaknesses is sitting with regular people as they concentrate for hours listening to somebody talk. You will know that attending lecture is purely for records, attendance sake and socialising but the real learning you have to do it on your own because they don’t teach you like they should.
This knowledge will save you from the constant exams stress and anxiety because now you will study to your strengths, you will make summariey of every course on one big cardboard and close your eyes and see the connections, the you will learn to hack your brain to manage exam time efficiently because your brain is usually very slow to boot in stressful situations, Like an old computer. Not knowing this means you will only have 30 minutes of real writing in test and exams and you will just constantly be a square peg in a round hole.
So, in conclusion: don’t wait. Know yourself. Unlock your potential. And, most importantly, hack your brain to live your best life, you are not like everyone else.
On a rather unrelated topic, I use to know some Jos girls who, gun to their heads, will never eat anything prepared my a man. Please you guys should be adding all the girls in that WhatsApp group. That is how me I went to carry the wrong one 😢😢 shey this rice I for eat for 1 week like this
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