I never paid attention in school.
I always doodled and everything.
I was the only kid who couldn't sit in a circle and not get up during story time.
That lack of concentration and the ability to focus has been detrimental to my career.
School was complicated.
This is Molly Schmerling.
When I was really young, sort of in the elementary school age,
it was a lot of meltdowns, a lot of coming home, feeling really overwhelmed with assignments,
just this constant feeling of being too much, too kinetic, too loud,
and just really feeling like people got some kind of social rule book that I never got.
Molly's mom saw her struggling and tried to give her tips,
taught her how to do stuff like make lists so she could keep track of things.
And it worked.
Molly graduated from high school, college, and eventually,
she went to grad school to become a therapist.
But that too much feeling?
It wasn't going away.
I was also balancing clinical work with my academic work,
so I found myself just in a constant state of overwhelm.
One day she was sitting in her diagnostic assessment class.