A real ADHD Moment
You ever feel like you’re functioning—but you honestly have no idea how?
It’s like you can see the road ahead, but everything feels just a little off. Everyone around you seems to be cruising along just fine, but in your own little corner of the world, every direction feels distorted. It’s like driving through fog with a cracked windshield - technically, you’re moving forward, but it’s exhausting, disorienting, and unpredictable.
That’s exactly how I feel right now. And honestly, it happens more often than I care to admit.
No matter how many times I think I’ve finally got my focus and things seem on track, one blink - and it all slips again. That’s life with ADHD, at least for me.
People often misunderstand ADHD. They label it a learning disability, a mental health condition, or a deficit in functioning. And while it can intersect with all of those things, and in some ways that’s technically correct. ADHD is more than any one label. It’s a neurological difference. It’s a way of existing in the world that can’t be turned off, fixed, or “cured.”
It’s not something I wear like a jacket, that I can take off - it’s wired into who I am. Just like my voice, my smile, my skin, my laugh - ADHD is part of me. And while I’ve learned to accept it, even embrace it, I won’t lie - sometimes, I hate it.
I hate how invisible it is. I hate that it’s so hard to explain to those that haven’t experienced it. I hate how much internal effort goes into what looks like a simple task on the outside. I hate the moments when I completely fall apart, quietly and alone. I hate when a medical professional tells me the biological impacts of it but when I mention that I break down and cry when I forget to take out the garbage and their response is “well just don’t forget make a reminder” its makes me so frustrated.
And when I say I fall apart, I mean that literally. When the weight becomes too much, I sit down, and I cry. I break down. I feel like a failure. I feel weak. I hate my brain I’m mad at how I’m made, it’s just too exhausting sometimes.
Yes, I know it will pass. Yes, I know logically that I’m not a failure, but ADHD doesn’t always respond to logic. Because the evidence of our struggles is real. The executive dysfunction is so real and so evident in every day that when it hits, it hits hard.
I share a lot about accepting ADHD and living with pride in who I am - and I do believe in that. That is why I have this blog and website, that is why I make my public appearances. But acceptance doesn’t erase the hard days. Embracing my neurodivergence doesn’t mean I sometimes wish that I didn’t have it. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t wish that things were easier.
As I was working on my next post I kind of forgot some deadlines, and then I forgot to do something that my roommate asked me to do, and I completely had a moment while I fell apart. I felt utterly useless, I felt like a complete failure. I wanted to delete this whole website, I questioned why I was adding this extra work to my already complicated life, and when I finally reached out to a friend with ADHD and I started to explain what I was feeling and that today it was just too much, in the small second it took to have them say “oh I’ve been there, and then you felt like this…..” and they explained EXACTLY what I was trying to say and I felt seen again. I felt like although I’m different (and I am, my brain is not a typical thinking brain) and it’s ok to be different. It was a wonderful reminder that I’m never going to match when I compare myself to a neurotypical person, but sometimes I’m a perfect match to another ADHD or neurodivergent person.
It’s not self-pity. It’s not selfish. It’s not even really complaining, it’s just the truth, and some times we just need to say it.
You can love who you are and still mourn the difficulties.
You can be proud of your growth and still grieve your struggles.
You can accept ADHD and still hate how it feels some days.
That’s the reality. That is what living with ADHD is.
And if you’re here too—if you’ve ever felt like you’re functioning but faking, like you’re falling apart inside while the world expects your best on what they say is simple - just know: You’re not alone. You are not broken. And even if the world can’t see it, I do.
I’m right here with you.
So although I missed my deadline of posting my next post on the July 11 date I had written down. (Don’t worry it’s almost completed and it will be up soon in the next couple of days.) Right now I felt like I needed to share a real moment with my readers, that I don’t have it all together, I don’t have all the answers, and I’m not a pro in living with ADHD but I do have a skill that allows me to share it. When I share my story, when I make my public appearances I’m always meet with people coming up to me after and sharing how much it helped them. And those moments remind me why I started this blog, so I can reach more people then the small groups or classrooms I get invited to. But those presentations and appearances has one thing my blog didn’t, they had real moments. When I’m presenting or speaking and things don’t work out or my presentation doesn’t work. Or I make a mistake and have a moment when I need to regroup, those moments were shareable because they happened then and there in public.
This website and blog is very controlled I can wait to have the wording just perfect before I share it and I felt like maybe… maybe this blog needed a real moment. So I’m hoping to share more of these real moments in-between my postings. I’ll continue to post my tips, my knowledge, my ideas, any help I can share, but I’ll also share my struggle, my failures, the moment when I feel like even for a second my ADHD was more then I could handle.
Sometimes it feels like having ADHD is like walking a puppy on a leash, I mean I have control of it… kind of…. The puppy isn’t going to run into a store, or across the street or into a tree or something. And for the most part I feel like yeah I have my ADHD leased we are walking together. But sometimes my ADHD see a cat and it runs off to chance it, and my grip on the leash isn’t tight enough and I’m being dragged down the grassy field with my ADHD puppy just gone. HA-HA. That’s probably the bests analogy I have used to describe when my ADHD becomes it’s a bit too much sometimes. And sometimes I just feel like I’m being dragged along. But eventually I get my control again and I stand back up and get my ADHD puppy walking along with me again. And sometimes I can look back and I can also find it pretty funny, but before I can laugh I get dragged through the mud.
So to everyone out there…..if you have ever felt like this……..remember to just keep on
Slaying It YOUR WAY
………because your way is the only way you can!
A real ADHD moment with Sheena Shay
