My Superpowers

That I never knew growing up.

Taken by the Author; Hong Kong Museum of Art

Growing up, more than one teacher would tell me that I have a problem of skipping certain steps or thoughts in my essays or speeches. For example, I should have said “I want an apple” (A), “There are apples in the supermarket” (B), “There is a supermarket near home” (C) and “Let’s head home so we can drop by the supermarket nearby” (D). Instead of saying all A+B+C+D, I would say “I want an apple (A), let’s go home (half of D)”.

My teachers would say, you need to set out everything that passed through your head. I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t already see those steps in-between, that why I would need to spell them out.

During university, I was taught in law school to set out everything step by step. Even though I spoke and wrote English fluently, I took a professional drafting course to learn this skill. It took a lot of effort.

When I started working, some of my batch mates would ask if I had ADHD, and I didn’t even know what was ADHD. All I knew was that I was allergic to boredom.

After all these years of legal training, I managed to turn myself into a high functioning hyperactive superwoman. Recently, I had a conversation with a newly met friend. When he found out all the activities that I’m doing everyday, and that I don’t feel tired until the moment I sleep. He gasped, “Omg…