Letter of Introduction
Dear Lang 120 Colleagues,
When I pick up the pen or brace my fingers above a keyboard I get a feeling of nostalgia, a feeling of home. Literature has drawn me to it ever since I was given the gift of reading. Most young people won't struggle with learning to read but for a young person with ADHD, it can be incredibly difficult. Many older people with ADHD still find reading and writing troublesome or unpleasurable. Many feel this way because there are so many rules to reading and writing with ADHD. I don’t like to call my ADHD a disability or a disorder because it does help me in some ways, but it did make reading and writing more difficult for me. When I was little I couldn't find ways around these obstacles so my solution was to avoid reading and never worry about why I didn’t like it, and that worked for a few years before I started falling behind in school.
After my grades started to drop my parents took me to the doctor and I was diagnosed with ADHD. I want to say I was thrilled to finally have a solution but in truth, I was terrified. In my head, I thought those medications would take away my entire personality and make me only focus on school work. But nevertheless, I went on the meds and they truly opened a door for me into the world of literature. I was on those same meds for about 5 years. Soon after I was reading three books a week and had a secret notebook filled with poems I had written. My head was filled with fantasy lands and I had so many stories to tell. Notebooks and books were my favorite Christmas presents and I earned my title of ‘Bookworm’ by the 6th grade.
In high school, the meds stopped working the way they were supposed to. The doctors said it was something about my new teenage hormones and suddenly I was left without the key to reading I had relied on for so long. I was only left medicine free for about two weeks before I started another one but that small taste of helplessness had stuck with me. This new medicine worked well enough but it would make me violently sick every morning and I began to dread taking it. And so I did what every chronically ill teenager has done before and rebelled by not taking my meds regularly. This was the final nail in the coffin of my life on medication. I had already decided I was done with it, and when I’m done, I’m done.
My mom found out and was pissed at me but the doctor suggested that maybe it was a good time to figure out if I could function without medication altogether. And again I was terrified of the future ahead. This time I was just reverting back to my natural state, a state I was never taught how to function in. The time period immediately after I stopped my medication was horrible. I could no longer read my favorite books without getting violently bored or frustrated and my grades in school began to take a dip again. I had been 7 years with a crutch helping me read and write and now I found myself without it, I was panicked. For a while, I had to try really hard to do everything relating to my attention deficit but I was slowly making progress. I taught myself to pay attention to tv shows I was watching by watching everything in another language with English subtitles so if I looked away I had no clue what was going on. I taught myself to read again by listening to the audiobook while I read. I taught myself how to write again using the natural cadence of my thoughts rather than the textbook flow I learned while on meds. Eventually, my reading and writing capabilities had returned to what they once were and I found that I never really needed meds, I just needed a different way to read. Once again my head was filled with stories and my notebooks were covered in poems and my journey with literature could pick up right where it left off.
It’s only been a few years since I regained my love of literature so I’m definitely looking forward to learning more ways to write. My favorite part of all of my favorite books is the writing style. I love when an author has a unique way of writing because it helps immerse me into the plot and just elevates the experience. When reading a book I can excuse lacking descriptions or awkward dialogue but I cannot stand a poor writing style. One thing that I’ve always personally struggled with is dialogue. I’m not sure why but it just won’t flow in my writing the way I wish it would so I’m excited to learn better ways of using dialogue in my writing. My favorite type of writing to read is definitely fiction. I love that one person can create whole worlds or universes and I get to read it. High fantasy is one of my favorite genres because it forces me to think creatively. Who can say a beast twenty feet tall covered in scales with six eyes doesn’t exist? No one can when you’re reading a fantasy book. The possibilities are endless as soon as I step outside of the world I live in. Literature has truly changed how I look at life and how I experience it and so I’m always raring to learn more.
Best Regards,
Percy Pinnix