What Even Is ADHD?
When I first heard the term ADHD, it conjured up one specific image:
young boys bouncing off walls, hopped up on red dye and chaos.
It was a 90s buzzword. A fad. A parenting crisis.
Definitely not something that applied to quiet, anxious, tired girls—especially not girls like me.
So imagine my surprise when, at 40 years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
If you know me, you know I have the energy of a slug.
I’m slow to start, sensitive to noise, and tend to shut down rather than rev up.
So how could I possibly have a hyperactivity disorder? It was time to do some research.
The Myth
The most common myth about ADHD is that it’s just an excuse—
some lazy way to justify messiness, forgetfulness, or being "bad at adulting."
Another myth? That it only affects little boys who can’t sit still.
I believed that one for decades.
The Reality
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, ADHD is “a developmental disorder characterized by an ongoing
pattern of one or more of the following types of symptoms:
inattention, hyperactivity, or impulsivity.”
The symptoms sound familiar to everyone—after all, who doesn’t get distracted sometimes?
But in ADHD, these symptoms aren’t occasional—they’re persistent, pervasive, and disabling.
They show up in every corner of life: work, school, relationships, self-worth.
They’re not quirky traits—they’re patterns of misfiring regulation.
In order to meet criteria under the DSM-5, you must have at least six symptoms (for adults, five)
that are maladaptive and impair functioning, present for at least six months.
Here’s one way to think of it:
Most people can fall into the occasional rabbit hole—say, wondering what Lenny Kravitz is up to these days.
You Google. You browse. You move on.
Now imagine you can’t move on. Imagine the rabbit hole turning into a tunnel with no exit.
You want to stop. You know it’s irrelevant. But your brain won’t release its grip.
That’s the ADHD difference. It’s not a lack of attention—
it’s a lack of control over attention.
For me, ADHD isn’t just distraction or difficulty maintaining attention, it includes obsessive curiosity.
I need to know the why, the root cause of an issue and the system behind the symptom, and then I try to fix the engine while it’s still running.
I’ve been called intense.
Stubborn.
Too much.
But the truth is, I just can’t stop until I get it in my bones.
That trait turned out to be not a personal failing but rather my natural design.
The Diagnosis That Changed Everything
Getting diagnosed didn’t fix my brain.
But it did reframe my story and explained so many “whys”.
I wasn’t lazy.
I wasn’t broken.
I wasn’t exaggerating.
I was wired differently in a world that rewards the sameness of the majority.
And for the first time, I had a name for it.
I had the why of it.
It didn’t erase the years of confusion or shame. But it helped me understand why things had always felt so hard.
And more importantly, it helped me stop blaming myself for it.
The shame I have for simply existing isn’t mine to bear anymore. It never was.
Even now, ADHD is still misunderstood.
We still talk about it like it’s a childhood disorder.
Like it disappears when you graduate high school or stop eating sugary cereal.
We don’t talk enough about how it shows up in adults.
We don’t look at the devastation of a late diagnosis.
We don’t talk about the mental load of masking, or the paralysis of overwhelm, or the grief of wasted potential.
We don’t talk about the women who go decades believing they’re just “bad at life.”
Why I’m Telling You This
Because maybe you’ve been there. Maybe you’ve had to push twice as hard to keep up.
Maybe an enduring theme of your life has been “Everyone else seems to be doing fine—what’s wrong with me?”
Maybe you’ve never had the language to name the weight you carry.
But now you do.
And that awareness opens the door for healing and change.
This entire project—My Greatly Exaggerated Life—is built on that idea. That when we name something, we don’t just understand it.
We reclaim it.
So if ADHD is part of your story—whether diagnosed or suspected—know this:
It’s not a character flaw.
It’s not a moral failing.
And it’s not your fault.You are not too much.
You are not exaggerating.
You’re just finally seeing yourself clearly.
