Growing up, Anne of Green Gables was a rite of passage for my sisters and me.
At a time when mum judged us ready, she would carefully unpack the series her own mum had gifted to her. Three at a time they would come, carefully wrapped up in old, soft cloths. Precious gifts we unbundled in awe and expectation.
Anne never disappointed.
I loved her. I loved her wild imagination, so similar to my own yet spinning tales I’d not yet discovered. I loved her enthusiasm, and hope, and how she threw herself into every moment without hesitation. If she was happy, she knew joy like no one else. Sad, and she was in the depths of despair.
As an adult, she lived in my memories. But time, as is its habit, had distanced me from her. Even when they turned her story into Anne with an E… I hesitated to watch it.
When something new is created out of something already so precious, it’s hard to imagine ever loving it so much. But eventually, the call to reunite with the red-haired girl grew too strong. I began watching the TV show.
And came face to face with myself.
I cried, through that whole episode. Then the next, and the next.
No, I am not a wild, exuberant red-haired girl with freckles dusting her nose.
Instead, I finally saw in myself something I’d never recognised before in her. Something that’s always tied us together that I could finally see. Finally name.
Finally admit to.
Anne with an E has ADHD. I have ADHD.
And knowing that is both freeing, and earth-shattering.
It’s not an idea that came completely out of the blue. In the month or so before beginning to watch the show, I’d begun seeing a psychotherapist. For grief over the loss of my father, for my family, and for myself. But in our discussions, moving from childhood to adulthood, she’d noticed something.
One day she handed me a book, and suggested I read it.
The next week I could barely think about anything else, but the book’s contents. I researched, and read, and watched lectures on the topic. I couldn’t focus on anything else, and my mind spun in circles.
I was, I wasn’t, I was, I wasn’t.
Of course I was, it was all so obvious, how had I never known? Here were feelings, frustrations, taken straight from my mind and placed on paper.
Don’t be ridiculous, I couldn’t be. I didn’t match that symptom, or this one. And really, did I actually match the rest, or did I just want to see myself in the diagnosis? To finally have a reason for my inability to kick into gear when I most wanted to that was more than just a lack of discipline on my end?
My eczema flared up. My mind flew in every direction, and so did my life – more so than usual.
That was when I watched Anne with an E.
Her energy. Her distractedness. Her impulsiveness and the intensity in all she did. Her forgetfulness, her creativeness, and her endless curiosity.
Her daydreaming.
In her, I finally saw what I am. What she is.
ADHD.
But more than anything… She reminded me that it didn’t have to be a bad thing.
Everything I love about Anne, everything everyone loves about Anne, is in part due to her mind. Her ability to see a world of her imagination all around her. The burning love of life she has, and the energy that infuses her. The intensity at which she loves and hates, the good intentions that somehow always go awry.
All these things, so precious. All these things making a character who glowed with life and love, who stole a corner of my heart for her own…
ADHD isn’t a sentence, or a curse. It is like all things – what you make of it.
There are negatives. I don’t try and deny that.
But with them come the potential for so much brightness.
One small brightness for me? Knowing that, if Anne and I had ever been able to meet… We’d have loved each other dearly.
We are kindred souls, she and I.
Thank you, Anne. For reminding me that there’s always scope for the imagination, if you just look hard enough.