Slow progress is still progress

Jan 22, 2024

I saw my therapist last week.

As I often do, I brought a list of things I wanted to talk about. Typically, my sessions with her start in one of two ways: either she asks about something currently relevant—following up on a past discussion or bringing up a recent event—or I start with the first thing on my list that feels either the most pressing or the easiest to bring up.

Since I hadn’t seen her since my book came out, that’s where our discussion started.

As the session progressed and we naturally wrapped up that topic, she looked at me and asked, “What else is on that list of yours?”

I considered, once again, waiting to bring up my ADHD concerns. But after some stammering and what felt like a messy, drawn-out explanation of why I was apprehensive, I finally said, “I’ve been wondering if I might have ADHD.”

As I expected, my therapist was very affirming and validating.

She explained that, due to our long-term relationship, she knew me too well to be able to diagnose me herself. However, she offered helpful insights into what seeking a diagnosis might look like and the different routes I could take. She confirmed that it made sense for me to identify with ADHD and reassured me that, with or without a formal diagnosis, I deserve to access and utilize information and strategies that help me.

Speaking with her was incredibly validating and eased some of my ADHD imposter syndrome. But it also left me with another question: Do I need or want to seek an official diagnosis?

Feb 20, 2024

After my initial conversation with my therapist, I felt better—for a while, anyway. Her validation that my concerns made sense and that I deserved to find whatever help felt right for me quieted my busy brain on the subject for a few weeks.

During that time, I shared our conversation with some trusted friends, who also validated my feelings. I thought:

Maybe that’s enough for me.

Maybe I don’t need a diagnosis.

Maybe I just needed to know that it’s okay for me to identify as neurodivergent, and now I can continue to learn about it on my own.

But as the weeks went by, memes, videos, and articles continued to populate my feeds. My behaviors cycled from disorganized to hyper-focused to somewhere in between and back again. The thoughts started bubbling back up.

I thought about how I’ve procrastinated nearly every important project or assignment I’ve ever had, both in school and in my professional life, and how often I get stuck in analysis paralysis when making even small decisions.

I remembered my ex constantly telling me that I “lacked initiative” because I procrastinated starting new, difficult, or mundane tasks around our home, and how I used to believe I simply wasn’t a hard enough worker to be successful.

I considered how—even now, looking at everything I’ve accomplished in the last few years—some days, accomplishing anything felt nearly impossible. And how I rely on visual cues and calendar reminders just to complete even the most basic tasks.

Thankfully tomorrow, I have another appointment with my therapist and another opportunity to talk this out.

Feb 29, 2024

Welp, I procrastinated once again.

I went into therapy intending to bring it up right away, honestly. Though I was hoping she would bring it up first. It was one of the last things we discussed in our previous session, after all, and it felt like a pretty big deal to me, so I was kind of counting on her to mention it.

Of course, that means she didn’t. And because she didn’t, I felt like I had a free pass not to bring it up myself.

Instead, we had a really positive session. There’s been a lot to celebrate lately—my first book, my relationship, and just generally how I’ve been feeling and handling things. Talking about all these recent wins, I almost didn’t want to bring us back down by bringing up something that felt so overwhelming.

So, I never did. And when I walked out of the session, knowing I wouldn’t be back for another six weeks, I kicked myself for it.

It’s been on my mind a lot since then.

I could wait six weeks and try again, but I now know my therapist can’t do anything beyond referring me to someone else. Which means it’s up to me to take matters into my own hands.

For me, that looked something like this:

1. Obsess about it while doing absolutely nothing productive except consuming social media content that reinforces my belief that I have ADHD.

2. Google how to get diagnosed and fill out a bunch of online assessment tools, only to find that none of them provide actual results unless I subscribe to their services—something I’m not ready or willing to do right now.

3. Eventually stumble onto legitimate diagnostic services and discover that many cost thousands of dollars.

4. Briefly consider asking my GP for an assessment, then decide against it because I’m apprehensive about medication and not super comfortable talking to my doctor.

5. Actually find a more affordable option and resolve to give it a try. Bookmark the link for later, because obviously, I’m doing this search on my phone right before bed.

6. Fail to act on said discovery for weeks and forget where I saved the link.

7. Repeat steps 1–6 until I’m actually ready to take action. TBD on when that is.

   
   

So, it’s safe to say progress is being made—however slowly.

Choosing My Discomfort

Jan 15, 2024

Tomorrow, I have an appointment with my therapist.

There are quite a few subjects on my list to discuss with her, but ADHD has been on that list for a while. I haven’t brought it up before—obviously, for all the reasons I’ve already mentioned—but also because I always seem to let other things take precedence.

In a way, bringing up ADHD with my therapist is the very thing I’ve been procrastinating. The many other topics on my list, while valid and important, aren’t any more important than this big concern of mine. Talking about them feels productive—and it is—but I think, in some ways, I’ve been using that sense of productivity to distract myself. It allows me to put off something just as important and productive, but maybe a bit more uncomfortable.

It’s ironic when I think of it that way.

When I started writing about this, I didn’t know exactly where it would go. I had just published my very first book and wanted to keep up the momentum. My book is a self-help memoir called Choose Your Discomfort—a title inspired by my therapist, actually. In a nutshell, the idea of "choosing your discomfort" is about accepting that discomfort is inevitable in many circumstances, both positive and negative. This is particularly true when it comes to being vulnerable, speaking your mind, or making a change. If discomfort is unavoidable, then it’s up to you to choose which discomfort to engage with and how. You get to choose the discomfort that will serve you best in the long run.

So now, as I think about the discomfort I’ve been avoiding by not bringing up ADHD with my therapist, I have to wonder: Is avoiding this discomfort serving me? Or maybe, just maybe, choosing it could help reduce my discomfort in the future.

Left Standing

January 7, 2024

It’s January 2024, and I am thirty-four years old.

I no longer believe in setting “New Year’s Resolutions” for a lot of reasons. When I was younger, I often set resolutions I couldn’t come close to achieving. But as I grew up, began to understand myself better, and developed a healthier relationship with myself, I started setting much more realistic and applicable expectations.

Some years, I’ve set intentions. Other years, I’ve simply kept trucking along with whatever was important to me at the time. This year, it’s a bit of both. I know what I want to prioritize in my life—things that fill my cup and help me grow. I also know I want to give less of my time to things that drain my energy or don’t add value to my life. However, there is one very specific thing I’ve resolved to do this year: I’m going to seek an ADHD assessment.

I’m a millennial woman in the TikTok era, and I know I’m not unique in wondering if I might have ADHD. The thought first crossed my mind in 2018 when I became friends with a woman a few years older than me who had recently been diagnosed. As she shared her experiences and described symptoms she’d previously dismissed, I saw myself in her stories. Although I related to her, I didn’t mention it to anyone else. I assumed I was over-identifying or trying to make her situation about me—something I’ve often accused myself of doing.

Then something happened online. As the pandemic unfolded and people began focusing on mental health, more and more stories of neurodivergence started popping up. I could be wrong—maybe this content had always been out there, and the algorithm just got better at delivering it to the right people—but it seemed like everyone was finding out they had ADHD.

For me, it started with a few videos and memes that felt uncomfortably relatable. Gradually, it infiltrated the mental health and self-help content I found most insightful. Soon, I was casually discussing it with friends who shared similar feelings. That led to more videos, more memes, and eventually, books—fictional and educational—featuring neurodivergent characters. Without trying, I even attracted more neurodivergent clients into my coaching programs, many of whom also shared experiences that mirrored my own.

The more I learned, the more certain I became. But with that certainty came fear.

I get overstimulated by noise, especially competing noises, like when two different sources of music are playing at the same time.

I can’t listen to music while I eat.

I procrastinate on important tasks by meticulously completing less urgent ones, like cleaning my house or organizing files.

When I focus on a task, I tend to hyperfocus—forgetting to eat and obsessing over perfection.

I’m constantly a few minutes late for almost everything.I have time blindness and often misjudge how long things will take.

I talk to myself. I tell long-winded stories and get lost in the details. I interrupt and finish other people’s sentences, sometimes with mixed reactions.

I am forgetful, and have to leave things out as visual reminders. Like the reusable container my sister-in-law filled with Christmas leftovers; I washed it, left it on the table, and still forgot to return it for nine weeks—even though I visit every Tuesday.

Every day, memes, reels, and TikToks about ADHD and neurodivergence hit me with something that makes me feel seen, heard, and called out. But so do posts about trauma, anxiety, and other mental health content.

With all of these concepts bouncing around in my brain, I've hesitated to seek a diagnosis for some time. I felt like I had to decide whether I wanted to believe that the way I am is something that can be labeled or diagnosed—or as the accumulation of everything I’ve experienced and how I learned to survive.

If I’m honest, I know both can be true. But they feel different when I hold the weight of them in my hands. That likely has a lot to do with the stigma surrounding these diagnoses—and my own internalized ableism. I’m working on it.

It also comes down to control. I couldn’t control the trauma I experienced at home as a young person. I couldn’t help growing up in a society that taught me my value as a woman was based on my appearance and that I was simultaneously too much and not enough. But now, through years of therapy and personal growth, I’m reclaiming control.

I’ve fought personal battles, grown, set boundaries, improved my communication skills, built a healthy relationship and a small but growing business. But I’m still always running late. I’m hypervigilant. I procrastinate. I forget to eat. I constantly lose my phone. I have trouble wrapping up big projects or getting started on new ones. I regularly worry that people are pretending to like me or just being polite.

At any given moment, my thoughts and feelings swirl in my brain like a game of musical chairs. When the music stops, I’m left standing—fitting, since I have trouble sitting still anyway.

In the moment, these experiences feel normal—not in the air-quote “normal” sense, but in the sense that they are my normal. I’ve accepted myself as an anxious, clumsy, overthinking, highly sensitive, recovering people-pleaser with poor time management. To me, that’s just who I am. And after all the therapy, self-reflection, and affirmations, I’ve learned to to have compassion for even the most challenging parts of myself.

I decided to bring my ADHD questions to my therapist first rather than my doctor because, ultimately the idea of being rejected or invalidated is what has held me back from speaking these concerns out loud up until this point. My doctor has not necessarily given me a reason to think she’d dismiss me, but I don’t feel entirely safe from her judgment. My therapist, on the other hand, has always made me feel validated—even when offering necessary reality checks.

This fear isn’t new. It’s the same fear I’ve had all my life: fear of the reaction more than the thing itself. I’ve always felt the need to explain myself—to justify all of my actions and choices before I'm even questioned on them. I mentally prepare to defend my every decision as if I do not have the right to make them for myself.

I’m afraid of being judged for self-diagnosing. Afraid of being seen as attention-seeking. Afraid I am attention-seeking. Afraid I’m wrong and there’s no explanation for how I feel.

At the same time, I’m afraid I’m right—and I’m not sure what that means.