Dear Sue,
I’ve watched you getting on the same bus, day after day. The one with the windows layered thick with the grease and grime of shame, and the floor that is littered with cartons and wrappers, memories you kick around. I’ve felt the weight of that rucksack, the one that is stuffed with all the pain that you need help to heave up onto the luggage rack that is full of all your past regrets. I cringe as you overshare your stories to anyone who will listen and sigh as I see you, wrapped up in your own past, stuck in your groove, going around in vicious circles, on the bus that only goes one way, down Victim Street.
But today, there’s something to show you. There’s a new route coming into service, and this letter you are holding in your hand is your ticket on board. The new route is the ADHD63. It’s your bus. Your journey. This letter holds the key to what you’ve been waiting to hear for sixty-three years. You see, Sue, the dots have at last been joined. You have ADHD.
Take a seat, sit down. Yes, the seats are clean, and you can see out of the windows; this is all brand new. I know you are exhausted. Your brain has been working in overdrive for far too long: it has had one hundred tabs open at a time, overthinking every possibility, every decision or potential mistake. You’ve been on high alert for so long, with a sense of urgency. It has a name, you know – executive function – it’s what makes all those decisions feel impossible, and to add to the mix, rejection sensitivity turns up the dial to the max and makes all your mistakes feel catastrophic.
You can’t stop overthinking – day or night. Thinking has become a way to stay safe. It’s your brain trying to find stillness in what it thinks it can control. But you’re knackered! It isn’t working. You need to come on a new journey, and I have here your ticket to begin.
I hear you, staying at home is safer, keeping all those friendships at bay, only online, avoiding those group situations where you might say the wrong things, talk too much. You’re scared of not being liked. It grows from rejection sensitivity, constant overwhelm and a deep fear. You learned at such a young age that your emotions were too much, too loud, too aggressive.
Here, have a tissue. You’re bound to be upset. It’s been six decades of hair-tearing (literally, you pulled out your hair when you were a child). Decades of seeking help for breakdowns, depression, anxiety, autoimmune disease, back pain and never, not once did the professionals join the dots and see it for what it was: ADHD.
You see, the system wasn’t built to see women with ADHD. Sure, you looked like you had it all together: renovated that house in the hills, had a brilliant teaching career (until it all came crashing down), ran your own business, published a book. ADHD has been seen for so long as a condition that manifested in boys who couldn’t sit still or concentrate. But for women like you, this hyperactivity is internal, in our minds. The system wasn’t built to see women’s ADHD. They medicated your pain with pills, sent you to assertiveness training. You had CBT, Cognitive Analytic Therapy, and Psychotherapy, but no one saw it as ADHD. They missed the why beneath it all. Decades of trying to waft the smoke away while the fire still burned.
You’re angry now! I’m not surprised. That little girl deserved better. Sit with that for a while, and when you are ready, let the driver know, and we’ll set off. You don’t need to be going down Victim Street any more. Sure, it might be bumpy, but there is help out there. Look at this as an opportunity to learn, to grow. You are going to get the help you need now, and maybe even some medication to top up that dopamine that is lacking in your brain and that you’ve been seeking in so many other ways.
Look out of the window, the sun is shining. Can you see the leaves changing colour? The future is starting to look brighter already. ADHD, managed well, with the right support in place, and under the right conditions, has the potential to drive excellence. You have such a creative brain and so much resilience. You will thrive!
With so much love,
