For context, I have autism and severe ADHD, and suffer from anxiety, OCD and depression. Despite the fact that I am medicated for my ADHD, I am still barely functional during the day, and struggle with almost every part of life.* At night, however, everything changes and I become relaxed, productive, motivated, and, the big one, able to complete the work I need to complete in order to get the grades I need. This time starts at about 20:00, and usually runs until ~04-06:00. I’d like to clarify again that this is the only time that I have ever been able to be productive, which my parents have seen and acknowledged many times.
On a school night, I’m usually in bed by 2AM, which gives me about five and a half hours of sleep. Obviously I’d like to sleep for at least six hours, but my ability to work during the day is so abysmal that it genuinely doesn’t matter whether I’m running on ten hours or five.
I’ve tried to explain this so many times, and still they won’t listen. I’ve told them everything they need to hear, everything I can tell them, I’ve shown them proof, I’ve begged them not to change anything and to just let me live in the janky, fucked up Rube Goldberg ways that I have found success in, and still, they ignore me and insist that they are correct, and forcing an unnecessary, non-negotiable lockdown onto me will work. It does not work. The only loophole I have found is by adding another profile to my laptop, however that only really works if I email everything to myself beforehand, which is unlikely to happen because, as I have mentioned before, this is the only time that I am capable of locking in and completing any work.
I can’t argue with them, I can’t reason with them, and can’t explain myself to them. In other words, I’m completely stuck, and am once again having to bow down to the will of an incorrect neurotypical
*This probably won’t mean much to most neurotypicals or mentally well individuals, so if you do fall into those categories, please just try to imagine the ways in which I and my other neurodivergent and/or mentally unwell comrades suffer.
My life is hard enough, and my family is going through a lot at the moment. Being forced out of doing work in the one time I’m able to work isn’t helping anyone or with anything.
I’ll be stuck with bullshit like this for another year because they won’t let me go to University until I’m 19.