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041Culture columnist MVUME NDIMBA takes us on a journey through the shifting sands of ADHD awareness, highlighting the positive changes and fresh perspectives that are paving the way for a brighter future for our kids.

I was born in the nineteen hundred and nineties and since my first steps on this planet, the one thing that always always fascinated me was the speed at which things have changed. 

In my lifetime alone homosexuality went from a shameful secret to a lifestyle choice to a completely normal, run-of-the-mill thing. So much so that I grew up quoting the problematic (but clever) phrase “Bi now, gay later”. 

My cousin would threaten to stab up all my little white friends every time he dropped me off at a birthday party.

I grew up being told that tattoos would impact my potential job prospects and that visible piercings on a man would almost guarantee a life of destitution and desolation. 

I say all that to say that I have been lied to for my whole youth. I know plenty of bisexual people in their 30s and 40’s so there’s not much “later” for the gay to hit. Some of my favourite colleagues had tattoos and piercings and somehow had the ability to perform their work at a high enough level to where they were secure in their employment. Hell, my baby’s mother has a tattoo on her wrist that says “Chilli Cheese Fries” in Nepali for some reason… it’s no shock we get along as well as we do. And my “stabbing” cousin is celebrating almost a decade of marriage to his white wife and my little niece and nephew speak German and Xhosa with little to no command of the English language. 

I’m quite happy to see that on the whole, changes around widely held opinions have been positive overall. There’s less stigma attached to being “different”. 

I think of my weekend routine, every Sunday I go to watch my daughter play soccer and over time I’ve begun to establish relationships with the other kids on the team and their parents as well. One young man, in particular, jumps out at me, we’ll call him Tim. Tim plays on the same team as my daughter and at every game and practice Tim and I can be seen talking shit with one another. Sometimes we discuss the match and exchange thoughts on what needs to be done to get the win, but he’s 9 so most times we’re just talking about whatever random idea pops into his head. 

I never gave much thought to why his brain works the way it does or what prompts the thoughts in his head, I just enjoy talking to the boy and according to Ms. Chilli Cheese Wrist, Tim’s mom says that Tim also enjoys our weekly chats. 

A few weeks ago I learned that Tim is living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) a mental illness that is common in children and in my schooling days, a disease that teachers exhausted themselves trying to beat out of us.

For years we saw the “naughty” boy go from trying his hardest in Grades 1-3 losing motivation in 4 and 5 to becoming the “bad apple” in Grades 6-7, being pushed out of the schooling system by an environment that clashes directly with instinct to move, that teaches him nothing of substance yet demands complete and total focus from him while offering nothing in the way of stimulation or distraction. 

For most of our lives, we saw these young men and women go into the world unprepared for what it was truly like, unaware of the affliction they deal with and ashamed to admit that they may need help. 

So seeing my guy Tim playing ball with a smile week in and week out brought warmth to me. You see Tim has a prescription for Ritalin which he takes Monday to Friday, taking weekends off to be his random awesome little self. He represents something in my eyes. A young man embraced for who he is, 

Over and above the cultural attitudes around ADHD changing, medicine has also kept up the pace, fine-tuning the required dosage for each child so we dont see the spaced-out zombies I attended school with growing up, promising a happy and healthy life for someone who 20 years ago would’ve been truly lost in a schooling system that cares little for the individual (both students and teachers) and concerns itself with churning out good little worker bees. When I look at big Tim I see a future leader, a potential role model and it’s all thanks to the ever-changing attitudes surrounding mental health and putting humanity first over productivity. 

ADHD awareness month in October is such a critical time to reflect on how far society has come in the handling of this treatable disease. To look forward to a future where this disease is no longer seen as a problem that needs to be fixed and to see it for what it truly is, a latent superpower waiting to be unleashed on the world. 

With the advent of new legislation such as the BELA bill and NHI being pushed through government as we speak, I feel that things can only improve from here on. As the education system changes to better allow children to be themselves, and health care becomes available for all South Africans and not the elite few, the future looks bright for the next generation. Our babies will grow up in a country that is better equipped to support them. 

I am excited to see who these kids grow up to become!