Just a Barbie girl trying to find her way in this Barbie world
In first grade I wanted to be a princess, in the third a pop-star, and in the fifth a baker. Then I landed on heart surgeon during the summer before grade eight. I also played with dolls maybe a little longer than I may be willing to admit, but I will assure you that my three storey Barbie house was out of my room before high school started.
What do my childhood career aspirations and my never-to-old love for Barbie dolls have to do with each other?
I am so glad you asked.
I was always jealous of the kids that knew what they wanted to do from a young age, and it only got worse once they started fulfilling those goals after graduation. On the other hand, you had me — I could never seem to find that path that my friends seemed to be on, but always found comfort and inspiration in play and TV shows.
However, sometimes that inspiration led to confusion. From about grade seven to nine I had my heart set on working in the medical field, mostly due to my deep obsession with Greys Anatomy at the time. By 10th grade, I was well into Love Island and was convinced I was destined for reality television fame, not the operating room.
After about the sixth time I told people, “I, one hundred per cent, want to do this for the rest of my life,” I realized that I had no one true passion. I just wanted to be like Barbie. She can be a model, a cook, a doctor. If Barbie can be anything all at once, why couldn’t I?
This Barbie has ADHD
When I was diagnosed with ADHD at 21, it started to make sense why I had trouble focusing, procrastinated my work, and even why I couldn’t pick a career path.
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affects how a person functions in daily life and is “defined as a neuro-developmental condition, affecting five – seven per cent of children, and symptoms persist into adulthood in approximately 65 per cent of cases,” according to a study on paradoxical career strengths and successes in adults with ADHD.
Analysis from this study identified that those with ADHD in adulthood are often misunderstood in workplaces, largely due to a lack of research and available accommodations for ADHD. The study also suggests that the majority of research to this date has only focused on negative traits of ADHDers and their functionality.
However, through analysis of ADHD adults, the study was able to gain insight into how the participants recognize and relate their success in their careers to traits associated with their diagnosis.
The consensus among participants was that they “felt that their most authentic successes have occurred because of their ADHD; successes achieved in spite of their ADHD have been hard-won.” This would mean those in the study felt that their achievements were thanks to traits of ADHD, and that they had to work much harder for success when they weren’t able to apply those traits to the task at hand.
Before I got my diagnosis, I was scared that I wouldn’t ever find a career that would make me happy and I would be skilled at. Why couldn’t I find my calling like all my friends had seemed to?
This Barbie finally feels like Barbie
A large part of finding my love for journalism was finding out I had ADHD.
One of the study participants describes how they felt authenticated by the diagnosis. One person reported: “I’m more forgiving of the fact it’s more important to always have things that are stimulating enough to keep me going.”
Realizing that I wasn’t just lazy or not talented but that my brain just worked differently shifted the way I viewed my future and myself. For the first time in my life I was able to look at my future with excitement, not fear.
When I started my journalism studies shortly after my diagnosis I was finally able to see how my ADHD would allow me to commit to one career, while still being able to deep dive into my ever-evolving interests.
I can also interview a heart surgeon and secretly imagine myself as Meredith Gray for a day. While the next I could speak with a drag queen and live vicariously through the glitz and glam.
I finally found a way to be Barbie.