Ohhh... This Explains A Lot

There is a strange moment that happens after a diagnosis later in life.

You start replaying your entire life like a movie you suddenly understand differently.

Things that never quite made sense before?

Suddenly they do.

Why I could hyperfocus on one thing for ten hours and procrastinate a ten-minute task for two weeks.

Why I could look at a set of data and immediately see patterns other people missed, but somehow struggle to finish a report I had already mentally completed three days ago.

Why some days I could take on the world and other days I could not get myself moving.

After my ADHD diagnosis, I found myself saying the same thing over and over again:

Ohhh… this explains a lot.

Now, to be fair, there was a very brief grieving period after my diagnosis.

And I mean brief.

Not because I did not have questions. I absolutely did. Mostly, I found myself wondering about the alternate-universe version of me.

Could I have gotten straight A’s if I had been medicated in high school? If I had gotten straight A’s, what kind of college would I have gone to? Would I have ended up in a completely different career?

I joke sometimes that maybe I could have been president. Which, if we are being honest, feels only mildly unrealistic.

But the thing is, I never stayed in that place very long.

Because I am in a phenomenal place. I love my life. I love what I have built. I love the weird path that got me here.

So for me, the diagnosis was less grief and more curiosity.

The thing I could not explain

Before my diagnosis, people used to tell me all the time:

“You see around corners.”

“How did you know that was going to happen?”

“How did you connect those dots?”

And the honest answer was: I had no idea.

I just… saw it.

People would ask me to teach them how to think that way.

And after my diagnosis, I realized:

Oh.

That was the ADHD.

My brain processes information differently.

The reason I could see patterns other people missed, connect dots quickly, and “see around corners” was not because I had learned some special skill. It was hard wired into me.

It was not something I could teach.

Maybe it was the thing that helped me become successful in the first place.

That realization changed a lot for me.

Because truthfully, there had always been parts of my brain I quietly judged.

For example:

If I have five things on my to-do list and all day to do them?

There is a decent chance I will finish one or two.

But if I have ten things to do?

I will probably get nine done.

Explain that.

I cannot.

But if you have ADHD, you are probably nodding right now.

Same with this:

“Sure, I will get you that report by end of day.”

The report takes ten minutes. I know it takes ten minutes. You know it takes ten minutes.

And yet somehow… next week arrives and now you are annoyed with me.

Before diagnosis, I made up all sorts of reasons for why I did things like that.

I needed to try harder. Be more disciplined. Be more organized. Be more like everyone else.

The answer was not to try harder

But through this diagnosis, I discovered that the answer is not to try harder.

It is to understand how my brain works and then work within the framework of what I have.

Here is what I realized:

Creating systems has always been easy for me.

Sticking to them?

Nearly impossible.

So I stopped trying to force myself to magically become a different person.

Instead, I started building around it. I made the people around me aware. I asked for accountability because accountability matters to me.

I hired people who are good at the things my brain naturally struggles with.

And because I was fortunate enough to be in a leadership role, I stopped beating myself up for not loving the super detailed Monday morning thing that someone else could do better and faster.

But honestly?

The biggest shift was grace.

I stopped trying to force myself to be someone I was not.

The answer is not to try harder. It is to understand how my brain works and then work within the framework of what I have.

The part that still stings

And maybe the hardest realization of all?

School.

There was a part of me growing up that thought I was dumb. Not because I was not smart. But because I could not always produce in the way school expected me to.

I could understand incredibly complex things. But then struggle with details that felt easy for everyone else.

I most often got 100% or 50%.

Rarely much in between.

And growing up in the 80s and 90s?

If you could sit still in a chair for three hours, you did not have ADHD.

Nobody took into consideration what your brain was doing during those three hours.

For me?

I can sit somewhere for three hours without moving.

But my brain?

It has already traveled the world, come up with three new business ideas, planned my next vacation, and figured out exactly how much fabric I need for my next quilt.

All while “listening” to a history lecture and hearing exactly none of it.

But because I sat there, I did not have ADHD.

So like a lot of girls, I never even considered it.

I just thought I needed to try harder.

Now that I know?

I know.

And honestly, that changed everything.

Not because I suddenly became different.

But because I finally stopped trying to change the parts of myself that were never actually broken.

I finally stopped trying to change the parts of myself that were never actually broken.

If you are reading this and quietly wondering if maybe your brain works a little differently too, here is what I want you to hear:

What if…

You are not lazy.

You are not undisciplined.

You are not failing.

This is just the way you were born.

And the goal is not to change it.

Maybe the goal is to understand it.

To stop fighting your brain.

And start building a life that works with it instead.

Because for years, I thought I needed to try harder.

Now?

Now I know.

 Gratefully,