“This post is for the people who freeze the moment they’re asked a question, even though they know the answer. For the ones who rehearse conversations in their heads long before they happen, only to blank out right when someone is actually waiting for a response. For the ones who’ve spent their entire lives being misunderstood, underestimated, or labeled as shy, awkward, or slow - even though their minds are anything but.
What I Think & What I Say
For me it’s a constant battle to keep as vocally silent as possible.
There are occasions of course where I will open up, usually with a close friend, but even then it’s excruciatingly hard for me to say all the things stuck in my head, because in part I simply don’t know how to articulate what it is that is going on in my head, and with my body; this ‘lost for words’ has been hugely exaggerated by the AuDHD diagnosis.
The Worst Part about having Mental Health Issues?
The quote below is something that I’ve experienced in one form or another, since I first started experiencing depression and anxiety, some 35 years ago.
“The worst part about having mental health issues? That you’re seemingly required to have a breakdown in order for people to understand how hard you were trying to hold yourself together. Also terrible: post-breakdown, once you recover any noticeable functionality whatsoever, it’s often assumed that you must be “better now“.
Dostoevsky said:
“Isolate as much as you want to become stronger, even if you see that loneliness is an unbearable hell, it is much better than the multiple masks of humans.”
What’s wrong with you lately?
Friend: “What’s wrong with you lately? You seem to be checked out and not yourself.”
Me: “I’m grieving a life I thought I would have, battling stuff that no one knows about, and craving a future that I don’t think exists for me, so yeah. I’m pretty checked out. I’m fine though.”
↓ Via Jenn Read on FB: https://Audhd.short.gy/grieving
The Most Misunderstood Part of ADHD isn’t Attention; it’s Recovery
Focus, distraction, and motivation are all important, but living with ADHD is absolutely exhausting, from the moment you wake up.
It’s not always the initial effort that’s difficult, but the return to normality after overstimulation, burnout, or a mentally taxing day.
Even after small bursts of effort, our brains need a complete reboot. We lie down, scroll aimlessly, or go silent for hours.
We’re not lazy; we’ve spent everything on what seems simple to others.
AuDHD Late Diagnosis Grief Process
Bewilderment, non acceptance, tears.
The “wait a minute” moment…
Realising a lot of your life has been a lie, fighting battles with your mind and body that you were never going to win.
Losing friends, relatives, jobs along the way, now starts to makes more sense
Anger, frustration, shame and guilt, with immense uncertainty going forward.
Questioning and reliving numerous past events; relentless rage and grief at a life lost.