ADHD Did Not Get the Memo That I Have a PhD

I have a PhD, a clinical license, and a full calendar. I have also searched for my phone while I was holding it.

October is ADHD Awareness Month, so let’s talk about what ADHD can look like in a grown woman with a résumé. It does not always look like a child who cannot sit still. Often it looks like a woman who is very accomplished and very tired.

Many of us built impressive systems without ever knowing why we needed them. The lists. The alarms. The over-preparing. The late nights spent catching up on what everyone else seemed to finish by five. We called it being organized. We called it having high standards. In truth, many of us were working twice as hard to look like we were keeping up.

Then hormones shift in midlife, and the systems wobble. The focus we could once force is harder to find. Tasks pile up. Words disappear. Many women first recognize their ADHD during perimenopause or menopause, because the coping strategies that hid it for decades stop holding.

If that is you, please hear me: you are not falling apart. You are finally seeing how much you have been carrying.

Here is the part I work on personally. ADHD comes with a loud inner critic. Years of “you should know better” and “why can’t you just” leave a mark. Over time, those messages can harden into beliefs: I am behind. I am too much. I am not doing enough.

Belief is one of my 5 Bs of Self-Care, and it asks a direct question: is what I believe about myself true, or is it simply old?

Try this the next time you hear a “should” in your head. Stop and ask, “Whose rule is this?” Many of the rules we punish ourselves with were written for a different brain. You are allowed to write new ones. I do my best thinking while moving. I need to see things to remember them. I finish strong when I have a deadline and a snack. These are not flaws. This is the user manual.

Your brain has carried you this far. It deserves respect, not daily performance reviews.

Your affirmation: “My brain works differently, and I have built a full life with it.”

Now I would like to hear from you. What is one thing your brain does differently that you have stopped apologizing for? If you are still working on it, tell me that too.

Subscribe so the next entry comes straight to you. You do not have to figure out this season of life alone, and you were never meant to.

With care,

Dr. Myra Wilkinson, LMFT-S