ADHD and me? and you? and us?

Ok so this is a section of this blog that I never fully planned on having. This was always going to be all about books. Today ironically enough I was talking to a friend about a lot of things but also organizational things and how that works with ADHD and how if I were ever going to have a lifestyle blog I would write about that, and she said “ You can still do that, you can literally have a section on your book blog where you talk about your life when/if you want to and about how you’ve learned to do things with your ADHD. That’s the kind of content I look for.” So here I am typing out this post still feeling like nobody is going to care what I have to say about anything to do with my life, ADHD, or even my thoughts on books if I’m completely honest. However, I decided that in 2024 I wasn’t going to care if people didn’t want to or care to read my thoughts and just do it anyway regardless of if anyone cares or reads. I am doing it anonymously currently mostly for my mental health. This is going to be the most judgment, free judgment free zone ( like Planet Fitness but actually judgment free) ADHD is a hard thing to learn how to live with, especially if you’ve got neurotypical parents who don’t understand it. I used to feel a LOT of shame for not being able to do things the “right way” or just straight up not understanding why some things were so hard for me. I had to learn for myself the hard way how to make everything work and my goal is to create a space where people can ask questions and get advice without being afraid of being judged for something they “should know how to do”. 

 I was diagnosed with ADHD and Dysgraphia when I was 12. At that time very little was actually known about how ADHD manifested in girls, honestly I’m still surprised I was diagnosed as early as I was. Even so, because not much was known about what ADHD is and how it can affect your life, I always thought it was just an annoying part of my personality that I had to learn how to control and hide. I’ve been on and off medication and I’m currently on a new ADHD medication journey. I wasn’t on medication long when I was first diagnosed, because not much was known about it and as far as I remember it was difficult to find a medication at the time that worked well for me, I was expected to just “deal with it” and told that I was just lazy or stupid and because of this I spent a good portion of my life feeling like I was lazy and stupid. This is something I’m actively trying to stop calling myself. 

 I’ve spent the majority of my life not realizing how much ADHD has been and will continue to affect my life. When I was almost 30, one of my closest friends was diagnosed with ADHD during Covid. After she was diagnosed she began to research and learn more and taught me (or rather untaught what I thought I knew) what she was learning. It had never occurred to me to do research because it was always something I had, and I guess I figured that if it were something I needed to know about I would know about it because of how early I was diagnosed. It never occurred to me that the research could have changed or that doctors would have learned more. ADHD was just something that I had that made me more annoying or aggravating to some people and again I’m still in the process of unlearning a lot of these things. Now I’ve learned that it’s not that I’m lazy or stupid, it’s that the world isn’t set up for neurodivergent people.

The reality of having ADHD is that sometimes you have to do things differently than a neurotypical person, sometimes that's making sure you have clear containers so you can easily see what's in them or using the reminders app on your phone. No one can really write out an ADHD how to guide because not only does it manifest differently in different people but also preexisting conditions can change what it looks like and what those coping mechanisms look like. All you can do is look at what other people with ADHD use for coping mechanisms or what systems they have in place like a blueprint and make changes so that it works for you. If it works for you that’s all that matters.

For example I HAVE to have something playing in the background to be able to do most things, people have big opinions about that. the only way I can get things done in a timely manner because it helps my brain stay focused on the task at hand. So now I don’t focus on what other people say about what helps me, at the end of the day most people without ADHD are never going to understand what it’s like to have it and that’s ok. My systems work for me and that’s what matters now. 

Now the reason I’m writing this is because I have so many systems and coping mechanisms in place that I put into place without being on medication or knowing that that’s what I was doing. I think this is why some of them work so well, because I wasn’t trying to set up a good ADHD system or following someone else's system, I was just setting up and tweaking things that worked well for me. At the time I was putting a lot of these things into place I still thought I was just being “lazy”, which one of my friends said is the most on brand thing for me.  Now I’ve tried to put a TON of systems into place in the past. Most haven’t worked for my brain. My mother has also tried to “properly organize me” more times than I could and when those systems didn’t work or fell apart it was always because I was “lazy”. This is in no way to shame or hate on my mom. She was honestly trying to put systems in place to help me, never realizing that my ADHD brain is what was preventing those systems from working properly because they didn’t work well with my brian. There just wasn’t enough information available at the time. Now there is an abundance of information available.

When I was debating whether or not to even start this section of this blog my friend said to me “when so many of your neurodivergent friends are telling you, you have your shit together, that means you really have your shit together”  and that convinced me that maybe I do have some things to share about living with ADHD and how to cope with that. I can’t promise that this entire section of the blog will be or not be fully about ADHD but regardless there will be ADHD content on here.  Later on, I’ll be sharing systems and tips I have in place that work for me. My friends have asked me for these and have helped them so I’m excited to include them here!