ADHD lessons from the other side, or the journey towards it

The journey is all we have got, after all. Here and now, and hi!

Well, hello!

Yes, it’s me! Niamh, that woman diagnosed with ADHD in midlife and working her way through it, determined to share it all with you. You signed up for this, you did! And I wrote some newsletters and then I had to stop for a bit.

It was supposed to be a short while.

That determination was true, and it still is. A break was overdue and partly because I never chose to take it, it took me instead.

Nothing big or serious requiring symphonies or prostrations. Well maybe a little bit of that as the word came fiercely to the front of my head, and I thought, well maybe I should just double check the meaning of that?

And, lo, the internet said:

“the state of lying stretched out on the ground with one's face downwards”

and there might have been some of that but no more than you have had. I feel much better now. Mostly.

As we know, the whole experience of understanding that you have an ADHD brain / nervous system is to realise that that is the reason that you feel everything so BIG and so very LARGE and that you might tend to run yourself very very ragged. You almost very definitely do. At times. And all the other times.

That is how it can be for me anyway.

In between I watch a lot of TV (I love it, I do!) and mooch around in my pyjamas tending to my many plants, my finest friends, and eat too many sweets and ice cream.

Too many? Well, yes, my dentist says so but I have a weakness. I try to be better but when I am tired they fill the pit inside for a little while. Small little sugary friends.

Besides, what is living if not to indulge?

I do get tired. I will in time introduce you to my friend peri-bloody-menopause, although not just now. That’s too much just to sit beside sometimes. But, it is here and that is how it goes. It massively messes with ADHD too. So much! Another time.

It’s in my ADHD nature to want to overexplain my absence and my return. To pull you into my neural spin cycle, and turn and turn. I did a little but it could have been much worse. I promise this has been ok, relatively speaking.

I have learned and continue to learn that I don’t need to (over) explain everything. (Yet, here I am, I just can’t help it!). I just need to show up when I can as well as I can and be present in that moment.

I am learning to treat myself with more kindness and compassion. To respect my brain for the mishaps as much as the magic. To scold myself fiercely less.

I can’t find my keys again. So what? Let’s cut lots more. We need a better back up plan. We need just one back up plan. To start, at least.

I can’t find my wallet. Oh well, that’s ok. It’s in the flat somewhere and until then we have apple pay.

I am running late because I had to return to the flat 3 times for my — choose as appropriate — keys | meds | wallet | bag | shoes (YES! I have found myself fleeing the scene urgently in my slippers more than once) — and all the other things.

These days I am mostly just happy to find myself on the move mostly prepared. This brain can flex when it needs to. It is after all what we do very well.

It’s good to be back, friends, I promise to return soon and often.

Next time I will share what I have learned as an ADHDer who just turned 50 - FIFTY! - 50! Only recently diagnosed formally, so that surely means that in actual life terms my ADHD age is 5, as I was diagnosed at 45.

Let me tell you that the view from here is much better than what you think it might be before. Maybe that might be true for you, whether you are before or after, whereever you are?

I will be a truly realised being when I am 50 with a house and fabulous bank account and a big garden with a huuuuge greenhouse and a career on track and I will be so happy!

There were at least 29 other things. At the very least. Perhaps 503 more.

We are hardest on ourselves, there is no doubt in that.

Crushed under the weight of my own unreasonable expectations of what I might have achieved by 5-0, it was remarkably freeing the day after, when I was a mere and precious 50 years and 1 day old, just to feel free of it all.

Hey, look at all this all around?! Isn’t it kind of marvellous?

I will leave you with photos from my birthday eve when I bounded round the streets of London with my giant 5-0 birthday balloons (there were many cocktails involved) and from my beloved karaoke.

Behold my vein-y feet - I care not a jot - these fabulous feet take me all around and suffered such torture by way of these fabulous birthday shoes. Which I have had for 10 years and found under my bed a few weeks ago, never before worn. That is ADHD torture and magic, right there! I know you must know it.

Come back soon and I will share my finest and best ADHD hacks, stories, and let you know what I have been up to. All the ways I tried to be better (what larks!) and what I have learned. What I recommend you do, and what I fiercely recommend you do not.

I will try at least because I know you will all be tempted to saunter down those rocky roads yourselves.

Pointers are good though and I am good at that. So, let me point for you, and me, and in general.

Let me tell you about the time I went on a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Yes, I really did that!

Comments and emails bring joy and connection - don’t hold back :-)

Edit note: for your pleasure, I had to return in panic after I thought I had published but it seems I did not - apologies if I did and you receive this twice - because even though I read ths several times, I still managed to spell greenhouse like this - greenhosue - hey, you know what? I want one of those too!