I was diagnosed with ADHD 10 days before I turned 49. On my birthday itself, I logged in to LinkedIn to write ‘a quick post’ about it, but (as usual) I found myself writing way too much and it didn’t fit.
I’m sharing the resulting article over here too in case it resonates. I only found out about my own ADHD because of the generous and courageous posts by others on social media, and that has truly changed my life.
ADHD masking on an expert level
Reflecting back, I’ve always had the feeling that I fell short, never quite fulfilling my potential.
I often felt like I’ve let people down, and that I don’t really fit in. These symptoms and more are reflected in something called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and this in particular sums up my experience, especially during my school years.
I didn’t know why. I just assumed I was lazy and wasn’t good enough and so I worked hard to try and appear like everyone else.
That’s called masking, I’m expert level and it’s exhausting.
Masking has some serious downsides. I invariably came across as inauthentic, there was just something slightly off and disingenuous about me. And, in addition, the mental energy involved in keeping that mask in place makes human interactions a gruelling challenge that can take hours and often days to recover from.
I took note of my social exhaustion and assumed I was an introvert, staying home more to protect my energy.
Fortunately for me, masking brings some benefits as a professional voiceover artist.
Who do you want me to be? I’m all over it.
So I can truthfully say, it’s not impacted my performance.
The downsides of ADHD and business
But some of the other aspects of ADHD have been, to be frank, a bit of a disaster for my voiceover business.
People pleasing, procrastination, perfectionism, hyper-vigilance, and anxiety meant it could take me an entire day to word an email for a quote.
Pre-medication, my brain was always on, the noise truly never stops. And justice sensitivity can see me go into battle for things where most other people would have stood down. It can be embarrassing.
I’m empathetic to the extreme, experiencing what I believe other people’s emotions to be, and even feeling physical pain when someone hurts themselves.
Accepting myself and my ADHD brain
Around 2.5 million people in the UK are likely to have ADHD, and I consider myself to be one of the luckier ones now that I have a diagnosis.
I have friends who have battled with depression, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and all kinds of mental health diagnoses, when actually the root cause was not a mental health problem but a brain difference.
And that’s all it is. An ADHD brain works differently.
But in a world designed for brains that work one way, having one that sees an alternative view is hard.
I have a wonderfully supportive family, some dear friends, and a career I love. I completed my Masters degree to prove to myself I wasn’t stupid (what a ride!), and I love my quirkiness, my ability to see connections others don’t, and my creativity.
But none of this has come easily, and finally getting the diagnosis that explains what’s been going on, giving me the opportunity to learn new ways of doing things, and allowing myself to actually be myself, is huge.
Late diagnosis, especially for women, is a massive story at the moment. It’s not because we are being over-diagnosed, it’s not some new trend, it’s that we were missed before.
And in midlife, when peri-menopause meets undiagnosed ADHD, things get really tricky.
So. When I turned 49, my birthday gift to myself was accepting myself exactly as I am.
If you find yourself nodding along with any of this, and you’d like to have a chat about my journey to diagnosis and beyond into ADHD coaching, you are so welcome to book a slot with me.