A thrilling diagnosis!

That offers legitimately good news

A representative story from a day in my life:

• A few weeks ago, I knew that my mom was picking me up for our beach vacation in two hours, and I needed to pack.

• I figured caffeine would help me get organized, so I ground up the coffee beans to brew a cup.

• Then my kiddo came downstairs asking for breakfast, so I pulled out the cereal, milk, and yogurt.

• When I did, I noticed the goat cheese and remembered I promised my mom I’d make beet and goat cheese dip for our trip, so I started on that.

• An hour later, I was uncaffeinated, surrounded by various open containers of food, without having so much as pulled my suitcase out.

It often feels like I share a brain with the mouse from If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.

But I didn’t start to wonder if I had ADHD until a dear friend suggested I look into it. 

Many people I love have ADHD and struggle with the hyperactivity and disorganization traditionally associated with it. Those symptoms didn’t align with my experience. I did well in school, always get my work done on time, and am professionally “successful” (whatever that means). 

Once I started to look at the symptoms of inattentive ADHD, though, I both laughed out loud and cried with recognition. 

A few weeks ago, I finally got diagnosed. It was thrilling!

An incomplete list of things I thought were character flaws or personal failings but may actually be a natural part of how my brain works:

• My child recently commented, “Mama doesn’t always finish her sentences.” Fair. I also find it difficult to stay on task when something more interesting pops up: i.e. beet + goat cheese dip is more interesting than packing.
  ADHD Symptom: An interest-based nervous system

• My inability to estimate how long a task will take, my assumption that my Mazda is actually a teleporter that will get me to my destination instantaneously, and my generally tenuous relationship with time
  ADHD Symptom: Difficulty sensing the passage of time*

• Feeling incapacitated by the intensity of an emotion, which can lead to me lying in bed under a weighted blanket wearing an eye mask, earplugs, AND sound-proof headphones, wondering if I’m defective
  ADHD Symptom: Emotional hyper-arousal and flooding**

• My capacity to make “silly mistakes”: see every math test I’ve ever taken and my struggles to recognize typos in my own writing
  ADHD Symptom: Making frequent mistakes while doing tasks

• That Mother’s Day when I became so fixated on making cards for my moms that I ignored all of my other responsibilities (like parenting), and my partner and I both ended up crying in frustration***
  ADHD Symptom: Hyper-focus

I’m still making sense of the diagnosis, recognizing how my perfectionism, sleep struggles, and other “quirks” might be related. I’m reading about how often it goes undiagnosed in women. 

Still, it feels worth sharing with y’all now. I talked about my diagnosis from the stage for the first time earlier this month in my keynote speech for the American Marketing Association. I was blown away by the reaction, by how much people (especially women) seemed to relate to my experience.

I’d share more, but I have to end abruptly because I just realized I’m going to be late to therapy. 

More soon!
Lelia

*It’s worth noting that some consider “time blindness” an ableist term.

**A term this New Orleanian does not use lightly

***Frequently interrupting oneself: also an ADHD symptom. Also, the cards were extremely cool.

My keynote involved both a Blackberry and vintage Motorola Razr