Despite a 2025 CDC report divulging that they allocated $1.9 million to ADHD research during fiscal year 2024, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is one of, if not the, worst name given to a mental disability that remains in use. There is no deficit of attention, simply an inability to regulate what the attention is being spent on and the amount of which it is spent. Additionally, the hyperactivity aspect only comes from a root of chronic under-stimulation that individuals with ADHD have, with hyperactivity being one of the countless different possible symptoms that can present themselves. The only accurate part of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is the word disorder, which doesn’t leave much in terms of description.
Ever since kindergarten, I knew that there was something different about me. When I discovered what ADHD was in fourth grade, I found a name to describe what I had been feeling all along. Not wanting to be wrong or perceived as a liar, I decided not to tell anyone–I had good grades at the time, so it didn’t seem like that large of an issue at the time.
Unfortunately for me, when the COVID-19 virus his and school moved online, I, like many other students, felt the disastrous effects of my ADHD. My grades dropped drastically, and my parents searched for an explanation as to why this was happening to me. I brought up the possibility of my having ADHD, so my parents messaged two of my teachers to see what their thoughts were. To my surprise, both of them claimed that there was no way I had any mental disorder. A few weeks later, my mother emailed the teachers back with my test results: a 99.9% likelihood of having ADHD.
ADHD is one of the more well-known forms of neurodiversity today. However, much of the general public’s knowledge is surface-level and sometimes inaccurate. When people think about ADHD, they think of a little boy bouncing off the walls, always talking and screaming, and never listening to anyone. While that is one of the ways ADHD presents itself, it’s not the only way. That’s like saying that all sports are just large men screaming at and fighting each other for a couple of hours, and balls are being thrown around sometimes. While those are all characteristics of sports sometimes, there’s obviously so much more to it than just that.
This misrepresentation is especially prevalent in girls with ADHD, who are significantly less likely to have severe, uncontrollable hyperactivity as a symptom. I lack the hyperactivity aspect to the extent that it is stereotyped, and so my teachers believed that meant there was no possible way I had the mental disorder. The only reason they thought that was because of the gross amount of misinformation regarding ADHD being spread every single day—something needed to change.
I have been a Girl Scout for 12 years–since kindergarten. We used to have a troop of over 30 girls. However, over the years, membership has dwindled to just my mom and me. As I got closer to the end of my Girl Scout journey, I started to look at my gold award project during my sophomore year of high school.
The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouting. It’s like earning an Eagle Scout rank in Boy Scouts or completing a senior capstone project, but with a focus on leadership and community change. Earning the Gold Award typically involves 80+ hours of work, months of dedication, and mentorship from adult advisors. It represents the culmination of everything a Girl Scout has learned.
To earn the Gold Award, a Girl Scout must first identify an issue in her community that she’s passionate about–it could be anything. From there, she develops a plan that addresses the root cause of that issue, not just the symptoms, and carries out a project that makes a measurable, lasting difference.
The issue in my community that I was, and still am, extremely passionate about is ADHD. I recognized that the root cause of my issue was the lack of accurate information regarding the mental disorder, and so I got to work on planning a way to help turn that idea into a bona fide project.
There was a lot of brainstorming on what the project should be specifically. I considered hosting a series of seminars about ADHD in the Ohio Valley, but I ultimately decided to aim for a wider audience. I also wanted it to be fully accessible to practically everyone. That’s when it hit me: a website. It was the perfect way to get my message out there to a wider audience so that genuinely accurate information on ADHD would spread.
I submitted the project for approval and received my acceptance around a week later. Cate Phillips, Director of Programs and Education Services at the Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council, was particularly excited about the project.
“It’s important to educate people about ADHD in women and girls because for a long time, it’s been misunderstood and underdiagnosed,” said Phillips.
There’s a lot more to building a website than just research and some passion. There’s a whole graphic design portion to website building in order to make your website attractive and easy to navigate. Ms. Marshall, the Graphic Design teacher here at Wheeling Park High School, has designed many websites in the past and had some key insight to share on the process.
“There are so many different template websites now that it makes it really easy…You don’t have to be a web coder which makes it so much better,” said Marshall.
It’s important to not only recognize the different aspects of a project and what all needs to be prepared before taking on the task, but also the different resources around you that could make the task easier. Utilizing a template website maker, like Ms. Marshall suggested, really helped me with making the entire process of website creation a lot more manageable. It doesn’t make sense to make things harder for yourself than they need to be, especially on a task as large as my Gold Award project.
“It took me a long time to realize what I was struggling with wasn’t a lack of effort. It was ADHD…It’s important to educate people about ADHD in women and girls because, for a long time, it’s been misunderstood and underdiagnosed,” said Phillips.
Phillips’ experience is exactly why I wanted to make the website in the first place. So, I started. As I continued working on my project, it evolved along with the process. The result, however, is something I’m very happy with. Overall, the project turned out very well. I would greatly encourage you to check out the website and learn something new about ADHD.
