My ADHD body

  This blog is a place for me to share my experiences as someone diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s, and ask some questions. I really feel that all the bloggers and writers and tweeters and youtubers and content creators in the ADHD community have helped me more than anything else in this process of figuring things out about myself. I also know there are some things I’ve shared over the past couple of years that people have found to be helpful. And since I been helped so much by the advice and tips I’ve found online, I thought it was time to share mine. Why the ADHD-body? As I get used to myself with the diagnosis and the medication, so many things have fallen into place. I've found new perspectives and coping mechanisms for my work, my relationships, my motherhood and so may other quirks of my brain. But many of the ways my ADHD manifests show up in my physical body, my physicality, my relationship with my body. Some of this is funny, some is problematic and some is downright painful. ...

  I was 34 before I was diagnosed with ADHD. I’ve seen a lot of talk about how dangerous over-diagnosis is, and how everyone has a label these days, and how these things are just convenient excuses. It makes it seem like something you stroll into a mall and pick up because you’d prefer to not fold your laundry today. That really wasn’t my experience. The diagnosis came after years, decades even,  of on and off depression, anxiety and panic attacks and a few other things thrown in. I won’t go into all of it here, but it wasn’t easy. Or convenient. And if there’s one thing I was terrible at through all of this, it was cutting myself any slack at all. It all came to a head when I suddenly had a job that should have been perfect – but came with absolutely no structure and no hard deadlines. And I somehow couldn’t make myself do the work I was supposed to be doing.   Diagnosis The formal diagnosis happened about 6 months after I had self-diagnosed via a twitter thread (tha...