Scene: One table with prescription pill bottle set on top.
Character enters stage right, crosses center.

Character: Okay, we’re going to do a brain drain. I am going to give you a topic, and I want you to tell me the first things that come to mind. Your topic is… a kid with ADD-- go.
Crosses to table, opens bottle, and takes a pill.
Returns center with bottle in hand.

Let me guess some of the things you thought of: crazy, hyper, loud, inattentive, funny, weird, distracted, talkative. Maybe creative, confident. (Holds up bottle) Medicated. Problem child.
Was I right?
Thought so.
I will admit, much of that list is right. As a student with ADD, I will admit I am talkative. I sometimes don’t pay attention, and I have a lot of energy that I’m not sure what to do with, which usually results in the detonation of an atomic bomb of non-conformity. Some people find my unique sense of humor and disjointed trains of thought amusing. My free frame of mind lets me be inventive and leads me to parts of the world I never thought I’d find, often because they don’t exist in reality. I’m not afraid to speak my mind or my heart. Adderall is one of my most steady companions. I will forever be crazy, loud, energetic, weird, talkative, and easily distracted. That is my story.
To you, I am the story of a child with ADD, a verbose, unpredictable, uncontrollable screwball. I am also the story of a writer, who sits quietly in the back of the room with my notebook and observes the way your words dribble out the corner of your mouth or the way your dark, arched eyebrows beg for answers. I am the story of an actress, who loves the stage, the sound of laughter, and the rumble of applause. I am the story of a Christian, who sings songs about Jesus and listens to the preacher on Sunday morning. I am the story of a younger sibling, who steals my sister’s clothes and tries to hang out with her friends. I am a collection of simplistic single stories.
To you.
To me, I am perfectly indescribable. I am an energetic teenager who loves to make people laugh and can make you weep when I pour my heart out onto a page, or play out a scene on stage. I sing songs of a God of whom I have no proof exists or knows who I am and that I myself don’t know if I 100% believe in, and I will ignore his teachings as I spit fiery slurs at my sister who tells me I am great but also the worst thing that has ever happened to her. I am a good student who can pay attention, all on my own. I like to think I am a loving friend, and I will listen to your grievances, your pains, your trifles, but will stop you when I think there have been enough tears or when I know that, as much as you need to get it out to heal your own heart, letting you say it will break someone else’s. I am a naive girl who gets way too attached but also might forget you ever said “I love you” two days after you stop saying it. I punch, but I also block and sometimes get the wind knocked out of me, get beaten while I’m down. I laugh, but I also cry. I love, but I also hate, and even then I try to tell myself not to hate because I will never really know everything about someone or something. There’s bound to be something in there that I cannot bring myself to dislike, even just a tiny sparkle. While I may not ever see that sparkle, I have to appreciate that it is there.
And that sparkle is the one thing I want you to know about me, a kid with ADD: I want you to know that I am a myriad of personalities, talents, faults, weaknesses, emotions, dreams, just like you, but I will never be able to make you fully understand me because, while the human condition conditions us to categorize, to classify, to concretely define that which surrounds us, it also makes it impossible for us to be definite. Rather, we are infinite beings. Defining the human soul is like trying to find every reflection in two facing mirrors. You can count as many reflections as you’d like, but they still go on forever and a day beyond what you can see.
Steps downstage.
I am not a single story. If I hear one more, “Oh, I have ADD, too, I know exactly how you feel,” I might collapse into a pile of indistinguishable dust. I am not defined by my brain or my medication or my symptoms or by defying the accompanying stereotypes. No matter how dry you drain your brain, no matter how complicated and convoluted and mixed up you write that single story-
There will always be more that you just can’t explain.
Exits stage left, leaves bottle on table.