The Irony of ADHD
October is ADHD awareness month. All of September and October have been spent gathering info to share. But in the most ironic moment of ADHD documented, I have yet to make this post. It is October 27. 😂 Better late than never, right?
I have diagnosed anxiety, depression, and ADHD. What is so interesting to me is that as I unfold each layer of this beautiful brain, I uncover so many new layers that I was unaware of. I noticed that most of my life, my anxiety was so high, that I wouldn’t let my ADHD show. It got to the point that I was throwing up 8+ times a day. We all get nauseous when we’re worried, right? As I managed to get a better control over my anxiety, I started questioning out loud if I should also have an ADHD diagnosis?
“There’s no way you can have ADHD” “But you’re so organized!” “Everyone gets distracted” “You don’t even know what it feels like” “You sit still and read for hours, that’s not ADHD”
I let others affect my opinions of myself and that negatively impacted my life. Learning to listen more to myself and my own intuition is a long journey. I have also learned to lean into my ADHD and use it to my advantage instead spending all of my energy trying to fight it. For example: I currently have 15 tabs open and I am jumping between them as I work. It is just a brief little comment on Facebook, or to read one email. But that little break is all my brain needs to get back to one of the heavier tasks that I need to complete. Like finishing this blog post or working on my budget 🤮. While I’m managing my anxiety around money, I’m also learning to “hack” my ADHD to help me get things done. For example, once I get a task done, I’ll pause for a pumpkin butter and bagel break or a dance party. It feels like my brain is covered in wall to wall sticky notes and sometimes it is a struggle to keep up with them before they fall. The ADDitude website has been awesome in providing resources and easy to understand articles.
One of the ways my ADHD, anxiety, and depression all collide results in one or two sleepless nights a month. Lucky for me, my last sleepless night was the night of the new Taylor Swift album (the anticipation was probably part of my inability to sleep). I listened to it on repeat all night and have been since. As I end this post, Dear Reader plays in the back and it was too ironic not to share:
Dear reader
If it feels like a trap
You’re already in one
Dear reader
Get out your map
Pick somewhere and just run
Dear reader
Burn all the files, desert all your past lives
And if you don’t recognize yourself
That means you did it right
Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart
Never take advice from someone who’s falling apart