Why I speak openly about my ADHD

because it matters to me! What I’m thinking about..

For years, I felt that there was something ‘wrong’ with me. That I couldn’t concentrate.

That I was ‘failing’ in life in ways that people were, easily and naturally, ‘succeeding’.

I’m not great at some of the ‘basics’.

I can also be quite detail-orientated, think ‘outside the box’, I thought, and am creative. My life has been searching widely, and with an open mind, for solutions to some of my ‘cants’.

Still feeling like a stain on humanity.

Adapting and masking, I really don’t know any other way.

Getting an adult diagnosis helped validate my experiences, improved my relationship with myself and has helped me start to shed layers of the shame. The shame was so deeply entrenched. In-built, like a secret that I had to hide. Bury away and curl up in my messy fortress, not wanting to admit how ‘bad’ I was.

Being given that impression and not feeling seen, because I felt, deep down that I had a huge heart. That I cared.

Too much probably.

Sometimes I didn’t know how to handle professional situations. How to ‘behave’.

I was this awful person,

that no one could ever ‘like’ if they knew.

This huge failure.

Wanting to crawl into my own skin, I felt I was dirty and disgusting. Much of this is, also, trauma-related, but the ADHD, it really did a number on me. It all did.

There are so many crossovers between how trauma and being neurodivergent have had me behaving and being. Expecting to be judged.

Thinking ‘the worst’.

I take responsibility for my mistakes, but try to be kinder to myself now.

Diagnosis has helped with the self-compassion.

There are things people said.

Hurtful things.

And, feelings I felt others had.

At school, it was also easy to ‘pick on’ me, as I seemed different. Gullible and trusting. Naive.

But, then, also, the facade was down with me.

I knew how people could be.

I hoped I was wrong.

I doubted myself constantly (and still do, but am working on it). Questioned my own perceptions.

Society and what is considered ‘regular’, led me to turn on myself, because no one understood why I couldn’t  ‘Just..’

Just do it.

Just get up.

Just model what everyone else is doing.

The things we are told make us worthy and deserving human beings.

Now, being able to speak openly (with some) about my feelings and experiences, and about who I am, it feels like my soul redressing the balance with itself.

I can say, my ADHD brain needs to try and quiet now, or that I love crossing my legs. I was so misunderstood for so long, and still feel that in many ways. It’s habitual and I expect it.

I am now more open and, naturally, more ME!

Putting myself out there can feel good (around the right people and in the right situations).

It’s all yellow

(I’m probably AuDHD).