adhdteacherthings:

Headcannon: Mulan has ADHD.

Just hear me out on this one.

She shows throughout the movie that she is forgetful, impulsive, emotional, distracted, always late, creative, nonconventional, awkward, hard working, and very hard on herself. She constantly tries to fit into a society that really doesn’t accommodate someone like her.

Throughout the movie she works as hard as she can, but always comes up short. It is only when she embraces her true self and uses what she has come to know as her weaknesses to her advantage (creativity, nonconventional thinking, impulsivity, emotional reactivity, etc.) that she turns things around and actually saves her country from its biggest threat.

She reveals that she didn’t go to the army to save her father, but rather to prove that she could do something right for once and be someone worthwhile. Her self esteem is fragile from start to finish and she never truly accepts that she can do something right (until the end, arguably) because she’s so used to being a screwup. The scenes at the end where the crowd bows to her and her father hugs her choke me up to this day because she finally gains acceptance for who she is and what she can do, and she’s never felt that before.

Basically what I’m saying is this: Mulan is a character with ADHD who displays a lot of the internal turmoil that people with ADHD actually feel. She compensates for her weaknesses, feels shame for being different, feels the sting of rejection when she fails to meet expectations, and has a hard time accepting herself and her achievements. She doesn’t bounce off the walls like the stereotype of ADHD is always portrayed, but she is a good example of the actual effects of unidentified ADHD on a woman who just wants to “prove that she can do something right” for once.