From Awareness to Empowerment: My ADHD Journey
October is ADHD Awareness Month. A friend and coach recently shared that this year October can be considered ADHD Empowerment Month, per https://www.additudemag.com.
Shifting from Awareness to Empowerment shifts us “From educating others to lifting up our own community. From seeking external acceptance to celebrating self-knowledge”, per the ADDitudemag.com website.
ADHD stands for Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder. There are three main types of ADHD: Inattentive (difficulty staying concentrated and organized); Hyperactive-impulsive (difficulty slowing down, staying still, or not talking); and Combined (symptoms of both kinds). Since more than 10% of the population has ADHD, you know people who have it and may even have it yourself.
There are websites like the one listed above dedicated to educating the public about ADHD. Websites, books, practices, entire communities - SO MUCH INFORMATION! Which makes it difficult for me to communicate succinctly about ADHD in a 3 page article or 20 minute podcast episode. ADHD shows up in a million different ways and combinations. To make that more manageable, in observance of ADHD Empowerment month, this week I will share my own journey as an example.
Almost exactly a year ago, I received my results from my neuropsychological testing, and yes, I have ADHD - Inattentive Type. In January, 2024, I set a personal goal for the year to pursue the testing process to figure some things out. When I re-read my report this week to write this article, the Evaluator stated my reason for referral was to “Pursue testing for diagnostic clarification and treatment recommendations to help her in her day-to-day in order to assist her in being her best self.”
As I always mention, in coaching and in life, progress starts with awareness. For me, I knew that working through the testing process would help me gain awareness, and once I knew more about me and my brain, I could identify and utilize tools specific to me.
As a coach and a certified professional organizer, I have certifications and specialized training to work with clients with ADHD and years of experience of working with people with ADHD, officially diagnosed or not. My graduate independent project from the Coach Approach Training Institute was “Real Life Case Studies: How Coaching Helps Our Clients Who Have Behaviors Consistent with ADHD”, studying non-diagnosed clients struggling with ADHD. In the years of coursework and on-the-job learning, I also identified in myself traits and trends that I realized were likely due to ADHD.
A conversation during a podcast interview with a mental health professional opened my eyes. This trained professional mentioned pursuing their own ADHD diagnosis as an adult, that their hyperactivity was on the inside - that their thoughts were hyperactive - and not something others might notice externally.
Mind.Blown.
That was me. She could have been describing me. And the seed was planted.
You see, I had heard the arguments that said I couldn’t have ADHD. Yes, I am high achieving. No, I am not hyper. No, I don’t struggle with impulse control.
But I do struggle. I struggle with taking on too many tasks at a time and trying to choose just one to work on. I struggle with anxiety, perfectionism and procrastination. And the seed that was planted was “What if life didn’t have to be so hard all the time?” Maybe, just maybe, if I knew more about me and my brain, things could be just a little easier. And thankfully, they now are.
I made the first phone call in January, 2024. And yes, it took until October to get my results. The 10-month span from idea to completion is a reflection of the system - of how complicated it is for people to get diagnosed - and also a reflection of my overly busy schedule which I readily admit to.
The system is complicated because there are few practices or practitioners that can complete the full neuropsychological evaluation required for diagnosis. The process can be time consuming and costly and it is not always covered by insurance. And I am an adult and not in crisis. The available appointments should obviously go to school age students first. I did not want to fill an available appointment and take it away from a school age student who is struggling in school or in life, who needed to gain their own insight, for themselves, their parents, or their school district.
Here’s a fact: ADHD tends to run in families. A challenge some families have is that if a student is having trouble in school that may be caused by ADHD, it is also likely they have a parent who is also challenged with ADHD. And having ADHD makes it difficult to perform the tasks required to pursue the diagnosis, for ourselves or for our children.
People with ADHD struggle with executive functioning skills, among other things. “Executive function is a set of cognitive skills that help us plan, monitor, and execute our goals.” per psychologytoday.com. They are:
Planning
Time management
Metacognition (being aware of your own learning, what you know and don’t know)
Self-control / self-regulation
Working memory
Attention
Organization
Task initiation
Perseverance
Sustained effort
Flexibility
Stress tolerance
And, as stated above, students with ADHD may have a parent with ADHD, and an adult with ADHD navigating the testing process for themselves or their children may struggle since they don’t possess the executive functioning skills needed to succeed. Researching the available resources, making and following through on appointments, paperwork completion and submission, etc. - Yikes.
I’m a child of the 70s. That's all I'm going to say, age wise. ADHD was recognized as a disorder first in the 1960’s, and the current name was coined in 1980. The diagnosis was not common when I was a child, especially not the “Inattentive” type. Every classroom had those energetic students, typically boys, who had a hard time focusing and often got in trouble for acting out or being “hyper”. Those behaviors were easy to see.
Like so many other people undiagnosed until adulthood, there weren’t outward behaviors of ADHD for me. I was a good student, I followed directions. I was a talker (still am!) but could control my impulses. There was a gap between my academic testing scores (really high) and my GPA (solid B student), but that didn’t cause anyone any alarm since I was involved in activities, and had a job and many responsibilities.
Some of the strengths that come along with ADHD - a nimble mind, the ability to switch quickly from task to task, a deep empathy and ability to read a room and adapt because we are hyperaware of details in other people that go unnoticed by people without ADHD - also make it difficult to recognize when an undiagnosed person with ADHD is struggling.
Statistically, ADHD is underdiagnosed in women because we are more likely to have Inattentive Type which often goes unnoticed. And ADHD is underdiagnosed in all adults because we didn’t know there was a problem when we were kids and we were expected to figure things out over time.
In this ADHD Empowerment month, I wanted to share my experience in hopes that they might empower someone else to pursue awareness for themselves or for a family member.
Since I am sharing my experiences, I will continue to be transparent: the executive functioning skills I am working on are attention, task-initiation, flexibility, and unexpectedly stress tolerance and self-regulation. I say unexpectedly because I manage my stress and I have self-control but I often ignore or suppress my own regulation cues at the expense of my own well-being. I spend my social battery without replenishing it, and I spend a lot of time and energy on masking.
Some people with ADHD, autism and other brain based conditions learn to cover up our behaviors, or “mask”, because we realize some of our behaviors are not societally or culturally acceptable. For example, a child can learn to push down their impulsive behavior in a classroom to fit in or for fear of punishment or ridicule, but the impulses are still there. Masking can be exhausting and can leave us feeling not like ourselves.
Another challenge I find is with the name ADHD itself. “Attention Deficit” is not my problem - actually I am paying attention to everything all the time. And I have a ridiculous capacity for focus sometimes.
To complete the process for you, in the report I received and discussed with my evaluator, I received a number of recommendations.
Some were simplistic and already in use:
List-making
Using a daily planner
Setting goals
Having “an organized living space” (have we met?!)
Reviewing my work before completion
Working in 30-45 minute increments and “chunking” my work, then taking a 10 minute break (Pomodoro, anyone?!)
What I have changed in the last 12 months:
I meet with a counselor every other week, as I have a comorbidity of anxiety to go with my ADHD.
I take daily ADHD medication, specifically Vyvanse. I tried 2 dosage levels, and I find that the lower dose helps me without damaging my sleep. (Yes, I take a pediatric dose! But it works and that is what matters!)
I rearranged space in my home so that I now have a home office with a door that I can close to block out distractions.
I employ a daily “Done List” in addition to my lengthy to-do list, to review at end of day before planning and preparing for tomorrow
I have continued to learn more about ADHD in general, professionally and personally.
In this ADHD Empowerment Month, thanks for letting me share my own empowerment story. Looking back, I feel my motivation to “Pursue testing for diagnostic clarification and treatment recommendations to help her in her day-to-day in order to assist her in being her best self” is actively being met. And I hope that telling my story might inspire one of you, my readers and listeners, to seek answers for yourself or a loved one, as well.
Here are links for the resources mentioned in this article / episode:
Dr. Mirjam Quinn and Associates, Western Ave in the Beverly Neighborhood in Chicago, where I pursued testing, https://mirjamquinnandassociates.com
The Center for Self Actualization, https://www.forselfactualization.com/, where I participate in counseling
The Cognitive Clinic, https://www.thecognitiveclinic.com/, where I first learned that hyper thoughts can also be a sign of ADHD
The Coach Approach Training Institute, https://coachapproachtraining.com/, where I received my coaching training
