In today’s story, a boy with ADHD shares how his parents mistreated him during his childhood for behavior he couldn’t control.

At the time, he wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD, and now that he is, he’s doing much better.

The problem is that he told his friend’s family how his parents treated him, and now his parents are upset.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for embarrassing my family by talking about the things they said to me?

I’m (16m) the baby of the family and I also have ADHD. Pretty bad ADHD too.

Didn’t get diagnosed until I was 11 though because my parents don’t like diagnosis like that.

They don’t really believe in them. They also believe you just need to punish the inattentive hyperactive behavior out of kids like me.

My siblings are 3-9 years older than me. None of them have any mental or behavioral health issues.

They’re like our parents for not being understanding too.

When I was younger I was in hell.

I couldn’t be still.

I couldn’t focus on anything.

I could not keep track of time or things at all.

No matter how hard I tried I was always failing or making people mad. And my family were the worst of all.

OP’s ADHD was evident when he was 5.

When I was 5 I got left behind at home while my parents went to the Christmas Fair. They didn’t realize for an hour and came back.

I’d moved around so much instead of going to the car because I was struggling to stay still or focused on the task.

I was grounded for a week and had everything taken off of me. I ended up tearing up my room and got punished for a month with nothing and in that time I ended up so jittery and struggling.

My parents just yelled at me, and my siblings mocked me and yelled too for being weird.

There were a lot of other signs OP had ADHD, and his parents punished him for it.

Every time I got a report card my parents would bring my siblings for ramen (my favorite food) and make me watch everyone but me get some as a punishment for my bad grades.

One time I was running around the yard like crazy because I was so hyper. I was maybe 7.

Two of my sisters called me a r-word slur and told me to die instead of making their friends see that.

The r word was used a lot toward me by my siblings.

My parents and siblings always said I’d never amount to anything and I was destined for prison or homelessness.

My parents told me I couldn’t even get good grades in kindergarten.

OP is very thankful for a teacher who convinced his parents to get him evaluated.

My parents ignored many requests from the school to look into why I struggled.

It took until this amazing teacher when I was 11, who annoyed my parents so much they gave in and got me evaluated.

ADHD diagnosis happened immediately. I was one of the worst cases.

They said no to meds. Had to talk to a hospital social worker and changed their minds.

The initial meds process was rough and they were mean to me even then. Saying meds couldn’t even fix me.

I still talk to that teacher! She’s amazing. My favorite teacher in the world. Love her!

OP told his friend’s family how his parents had treated him.

I’ve been back to in person school for two years and my grades have improved a lot because of a program my school runs. I’m now getting Bs and Cs instead of D- and Fs.

My best friends family took me out to celebrate, and during that we talked about my family ,and I told them everything.

None of them expected it to be that bad. Maybe a little unsupportive but not to that level.

They shamed my parents for it afterward, and my parents were furious that I talked about it.

They said I went out of my way to embarrass the whole family.

AITA?

It definitely sounds like his parents were cruel to him for problems he couldn’t help.

I’m sure it made him feel better to tell his friend’s family, but it might’ve been a mistake for him to tell his parents that he told them.

His parents are probably embarrassed by their past actions.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader is proud of OP.

This reader explains why the parents are really mad.

Another person points out what the parents did is the real problem.

This person tells OP he didn’t do anything wrong.

Another reader points out that OP was actually abused by his family.

His parents’ reaction probably shows that they know what they did was wrong.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.