Foreword

I’m going to do that thing therapists aren’t supposed to do. I’m going to share my experience some - for a therapeutic purpose of course. I have always been an advocate of therapists being relatable to those they work with. I think it’s valuable for people to know we’re not immune to the same struggles they’re possibly facing. We ask the same questions and hold ourselves to the same impossible standards at times. It will always be my aim to offer an intimate and relatable perspective on subjects that affect all of us..

As someone who works in the mental health field, I thought I had it figured out. I felt overwhelmed by small inconveniences, couldn’t manage my emotions and had zero motivation. Stress? Depression? Anxiety? I went to my primary care doctor ready to lay it out. I explained my situation and he asked me how often I forgot my keys. He asked me if I found it hard to get out of bed days after I had been very productive. He asked me if I felt compelled to shop or eat when it wasn’t appropriate. I answered his questions honestly and he asked me if I had ever been diagnosed as ADHD or ADD as a child. I said no but that my teachers talked to my parents about it once, who were non-believers. It was the early 90’s afterall. Adult diagnosed ADHD is a feat we often don’t talk enough about. To find something out that helps you understand the last 40ish years is life changing. It allowed me to give myself more grace and understand the why behind some of my behaviors.That was a game changer for me - to finally feel seen wholly by my own eyes. The behaviors are still there sometimes but I don’t feel out of control anymore and it really empowered me to start saying no, especially to myself. My point: Meet yourself where you’re at. Ask questions. Talk to providers. Raise your own awareness.

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It seems fair to say that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, is a hot topic of conversation these days. No matter which side of the fence someone may be on, it remains one of the most searched for topics on the google search engine. While we once associated this term with children who couldn’t sit still or got into a lot of trouble at school, it feels important to notice the shift in conversation around adults. There is no shortage of ADHD information if you’re looking for it but what if you aren’t sure what’s going on? What if what you’re feeling doesn’t feel like ADHD?

Some, maybe most of it is like the internet says. Even as I sit here and write this, I have 27 other tabs open in my brain and laptop, the puppies are being too quiet and oh yea my coffee has been done for 20 minutes. Some of it is difficulty focusing, being easily distracted and forgetting things. I definitely don’t want to take the focus off of the diagnostic criteria but I do want to put some attention on the invisible challenges- the daily nuances and things that happen in our lives that could also be ADHD. How does this look in my life? Let’s face it, that’s what we really want to know. How does something like this look FOR me, throughout MY day and life?

Invisible Challenge #1: Crisis management

Individuals who deal with ADHD are often great in a crisis. We can throw ourselves into action without thinking. This is probably why we procrastinate and put things off until the last minute because it feels easier to manage once it’s a “crisis.” During a time of crisis, hyperfocus really pays off and we feel that semblance of normalcy that the rest of the world must feel. What a feeling!  Of course this leads to a host of other issues such as procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, and feeling incredibly drained but in the thick of the specific chaos, we don’t feel that different.

Invisible Challenge #2:Emotional Upheaval

This shows up in different ways, especially for women. It can show up as hypersensitivity, moodiness, difficulty accepting criticism, a sense of perfectionism and strong feelings of overwhelm at the “smallest “ of things. We have a hard time regulating our emotions which feels more intense than we can handle. In this intensity, we can lash out or we can shut down and those around us won’t understand it. How could they? How can we explain it when we don’t really understand it? We’re told we’re too sensitive but we don’t feel sensitive. We’re told we’re moody but we don’t know another way. We’re given suggestions to improve but we feel imperfect so we shut down or feel crippling guilt.

Invisible Challenge #3:  Hyperfocus

This can be as simple as finding a food that you enjoy and eating only that food for a week until you literally can’t stomach the idea of it anymore. It can also be going all in with a new hobby only to abandon it a few days later. We won’t even discuss the rabbit hole of the TikTok algorithm. It can also be as complex as doing nothing but what has our focus without regard to what else we need to be doing. This is a common, but overlooked, symptom of ADHD, and while it can be helpful with productivity and creativity, it can also be damaging. It makes us more prone to losing track of what our body needs, feeling disconnected from people and the world and even addictive tendencies.

ADHD is often criticized as an overdiagnosed condition with some going as far to call it an excuse for whatever behavior is being criticized at the time. This stigma can be and is damaging. An ADHD brain is complexly wired differently- it’s a slew of neurological terminology involving differences in the brain’s structure, the brain’s networking and neurotransmitters that show time and time again that these differences can and do impact attention, organization and impulse control in ways that can look different from individual to individual. Add environmental factors and life experience and it makes the possibilities more endless than we know. Though perhaps that’s a topic for another post.