The Immediate Aftermath

Finding Self-Compassion and Understanding After an ADHD Diagnosis

It was 17th May 2023, nearly a year ago to the day when I actually published this post. I came off the call and cried. In fact, I sobbed. I recorded a video for myself to remind myself of how it felt. (I would be happy to share this although for people with sensory issues it’s not great as I am sniffling and swallowing a lot!)

The video shows the relief that I actually felt and in my words from the video ‘the relief I feel for realising I am not shit at being able to organise myself, and everything else’ is just immense, in fact, absolutely immense.

The Emotions You Go Through as a Late-Diagnosed ADHDer

I cannot explain how many went through me in about 10 minutes after my ADHD diagnosis:

Relief

Relief that at last, I could understand myself and why I did the things I do. The answer to the ‘why can’t I just?’ There was pure validation in the understanding that all of these things I just could not do were actually not my fault. It is simply the way my brain works.

Self-Compassion

Self-compassion was next. For all of the constant negative self-talk I had given myself over the years, the doubting, the feeling of just never being enough, of not understanding why I couldn’t do what just felt like simple things. Why I felt like I had never been given the ‘common sense’ lessons. But also for all of the masking I had had to do to hide how I truly felt inside and how exhausting I could now see that had been.

Understanding External Judgement

Lastly, and probably more importantly for me, was the understanding that I had allowed other people to make me feel a certain way about myself and believed it because I thought ‘it must be me’. I am ‘useless, hopeless’, ‘sensitive’, got no common sense. The fear of judgement, I realised, had been huge. So many memories and occasions flashed through my mind where I had just never felt enough. I masked my way through it because it was all I knew to do. I felt sadness for all of the little me’s who had always tried her best and wanted it to be perfect but for some reason, it never went quite to plan or just never felt enough.

Grief

There was a definite sense of grief and sadness – for what might have been different had I known earlier, for all of the times I had really given myself such a hard time for things I now realised were not even my fault.

I felt the need to do the Ho’oponopono prayer (can expand on this if you like) and forgive myself for all of the negative self-talk I had given myself and allowed over the years, others to give me.

Embracing a New Beginning

Once the realisation of all of this had dropped in and I say it on the video.

A New Beginning: Embracing My Authentic Self

The stage that very quickly came for me was that this was ‘A NEW BEGINNING’. I was bloody ready! I knew I wanted to learn and understand myself, my ADHD, and how it shows up, be proud of who I authentically am. No more masking, hiding away from the real me.

It felt scary, I cannot deny… who actually am I behind the mask? Do I admit to people that I have ADHD? What will they think? What will clients think? What will friends think? Would they believe it? Do they think I am just jumping on the “having ADHD Trend’? Will they feel they don’t want to be friends with me anymore? Is it shameful to have ADHD?

Or do I stand up and own it? How can I expect my kids to own and accept their diagnosis, if I couldn’t own mine? How do I learn more about it? Do I learn more about it before I speak out about it?

Do I not want to love and accept myself and the way my brain works and feel I can be safe and at home with that?

I knew I had the tools to clear all of the negative beliefs and shit away that no longer served me. I knew I wanted to know more about it and find the tools that are going to help me manage it more effectively.

I had trained and certified in so many healing modalities to be able to help myself and to hold space for others who felt the same. Wasn’t this part of my why? Wasn’t this the final piece of my jigsaw puzzle to finally understanding and accepting myself?

No longer was I hiding away from who I authentically am and no longer was I allowing having ADHD to make me feel useless.

I wanted to learn more, I wanted to embrace the way MY brain works. I wanted to get to know and understand how ADHD is affecting me, how it shows up for me, what I can do to make that better and most of all I was just 100% ready to embrace the positives and strengths I get from having it and accepting it.