Something Shiny: ADHD!

If you have ADHD, there's a good chance somebody labeled you before anybody actually saw you. Maybe you were the kid making commotion, so everyone knew, and what they knew was that you were a problem. Maybe you were quiet about it, so nobody knew at all, and you disappeared to the nurse's office for your second dose wondering why none of your classmates had to. Different labe...

If you have ADHD, there's a decent chance the way you motivate yourself is by beating yourself up. The internal spiral that goes: if I mess this up, no one's gonna like me, then I lose the job, then everything falls apart. It works, kind of. Things get done. So you keep doing it, and it costs you every single time.

Here's what this episode gets into: that spiral is fuel...

If you have ADHD, you've spent your whole life being told to stop procrastinating. And you've tried. But starting two weeks early feels like nothing. No pressure, no relief, no reward. Just the nagging sense you wasted an afternoon. So you wait. The deadline gets close, the stress kicks in, and suddenly you can work. You finish, you feel incredible, and then you beat yourself...

Remember when summer meant you got to just... whatevs? No school, nowhere to be, just go. But then as an adult with ADHD, summer shows up and the structure just evaporates. Your kiddos are out of school. Friends are on vacation. Meetings get pushed, projects stall, and everyone who used to be available just... isn't. And yet you're still supposed to be fully operational.

If you have ADHD and grief shows up, do you stay busy? Keep moving? Find something else to do? Stay ahead of the quiet? And then through it all does it find you anyway? Waking up at 2 AM, out of nowhere, when you thought you were past it?

That's not you doing grief wrong. That's just how ADHD brains grieve. And this episode is about what to actually do wh...