When I was a child, I probably should have been diagnosed with something that now has a name and medication. Attention Deficit Disorder. At the time, it was simply called misbehavior.

I talked too much. I joked at the wrong moments. I noticed things other people didn't seem to notice and missed things everyone else thought were obvious. When I spoke I sounded mature and well spoken, which only made the punishments harsher. Intelligence was interpreted as defiance. Anything I did wrong was assumed to be intentional.

My parents were both teachers. Education mattered deeply in our house. If I had been slow to learn, which a lot of people associate with ADHD, then my parents may have sought out help for me. But since I had no problem with comprehension and was advanced in fact, my behaviour was categorized as a discipline problem. Like many families then, corporal punishment was considered not only acceptable but necessary. I was sent to Catholic schools run by nuns and monks whose lives revolved around order and obedience, in the hope that some of it would rub off on me.

It never occurred to anyone, except my grandmother, that I wasn't refusing to pay attention -- that I was paying attention to too much at once.

The stories that follow are not about villains or heroes. They are about misunderstandings. About how adults assign motive where none exists. About how systems built for control fail children who don't fit neatly inside them. And about how long it can take to find language for experiences that once had only consequences.

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