Meanwhile, In My ADHD Brain…
Last week I left my phone in the supermarket at the checkout. Not for the first time and definitely not the last. Thankfully kind strangers tend to hand it in, which means I can laugh it off instead of cancelling my life. Still, it is part of what we call the ADHD tax, the little costs that add up when your brain does not quite play by society’s rules.
October is ADHD Awareness Month. Which is nice in theory but awareness can feel hollow unless it leads to real understanding and compassion in the mess of daily life. For many of us, the hardest part is not the forgetfulness or the distraction, it is the years of shame. Feeling like you are falling short, even when you are giving it everything.
ADHD affects executive functions like memory, focus, organisation and emotional regulation. In other words, the very skills society prizes most. Schools, families, workplaces all value consistency, calm and conformity. ADHD brains do not do conformity very well. Focus is possible but only when something actually sparks interest. No amount of “try harder” will force a brain into caring about something it does not care about. That is not laziness, it is neurology.
ADHD in my life
Growing up undiagnosed, I always felt like too much. Too chatty, too emotional, too restless. At primary school I twiddled my hair, talked too much and was constantly bored, a kind of fidgety energy in my chest I did not know how to manage. By secondary school I had learned to mask. Teachers stopped bothering, I checked out and underneath I carried a constant sense of being misunderstood and anger.
Anxiety followed. Hyper vigilance became my normal. Criticism landed like a punch and rejection was unbearable. I did not have the words for it then but now I know it as rejection sensitivity, something so many of us with ADHD quietly carry.
By seventeen I was on antidepressants and had tried therapy, though I lasted only a few sessions before deciding the therapist probably hated me. I was hoping someone would hand me an instruction booklet titled How to Human. No one did. The medication helped my mood but not the bigger picture, the emotional storms, the executive dysfunction, the low self esteem.
I would swing between deep hyperfocus and complete burnout, often on the wrong things. Loosing things daily, turning up to appointments on the wrong day, constantly in a rush, whilst always searching for a dopamine hit and always feeling a little hollow once I got it.
The turning point
Over the years I worked with some brilliant therapists and each one helped me build confidence in different ways. But I could not shake the feeling something was missing. Then, as I trained more in neurodiversity, I began to notice ADHD traits in my clients and in myself.
At first I resisted. How could I possibly have ADHD? I ran a practice, I listened deeply to clients, I trained in complex modalities. I did not fit the stereotype. However, the truth was unavoidable, I ticked almost every box. I had been masking most of my life.
Booking my assessment felt terrifying. For someone who dreads being misunderstood, handing myself over to a stranger and saying “see me” felt like high stakes. I was diagnosed with combined type ADHD and suddenly everything made sense.
Reframing ADHD
I started to understand my sensory needs, like why bright lights and background noise had always rattled me. I learned how to channel hyperfocus into things that actually served me, rather than just shopping my way into oblivion.
I realised how much ADHD gives me as a therapist. The complexity I bring into the room, the way I can hold multiple threads of a story, the empathy that comes from being a deep feeler, those are strengths not flaws. The very traits that once made me “too much” are now the same ones that let me sit with people in their pain.
ADHD still challenges me daily. But when I look back at that chatty restless child who was told off for being difficult, I do not see a problem anymore. I see a spirited girl navigating a world that did not know how to meet her.
Neurodivergence continues to fascinate me and it has become one of my greatest passions in therapy, creating safe affirming spaces where difference is not a flaw but simply another way of being human.
And if you recognise yourself in any of this, know you are not alone.