What hides behind ADHD exhaustion: loneliness
If I had to summarise having ADHD in one word, it would be lonely.
The first word that comes to mind is exhausting, but behind this, is the loneliness of endless, silent, and often subconscious fighting against yourself.
It's lonely to grow up with a brain that plays 250 radio stations at the same time, non-stop. To sit in class and realise everybody else can listen, but you can't. To have to use so much energy up on trying to be 'normal', monitoring your every word and action. To see others chat so easily, whilst you overthink every word you say - or blurt out things uncontrollably.
It's lonely to know that there is something that makes you different to other people, but you don't know what, and can't explain it. On the outside, you all look relatively the same - but on the inside, others don't seem to be living in a state of constant turmoil. The sense that there's something deeply broken seems to be unshakeable, even though everything looks fine.
This traps you in a solitary, but invisible, prison, because how can you ask for help if you don't know what you need help for?
It's lonely not be able to understand your own feelings or needs, and live with the impossible challenge of communicating these to other people. To blame yourself for the utter failure of every kind of relationship in your life, because you forget to reply to texts or to say happy birthday, whilst living with the constant belief that everybody hates you. To say automatically say yes, even though every inch of your being is screaming no - but you seem to be incapable of picking yourself first. To feel like you are a burden for having needs.
It's lonely to blame yourself in every situation. To constantly be ganging up on yourself, angry at why your brain doesn't just do the things it's meant to do. It's lonely trying to read every self-help book humanly possible to find some sort of answers, and never managing to finish them, let alone put them into practice.
It's lonely to feel like your brain is speeding so fast that nobody else could keep up, paralysing you in the process. To constantly find yourself making the same mistakes, sabotaging your own success, being your own worst enemy.
It's lonely not to be able to trust yourself. To have to second-guess every move you make, from remembering the food in the oven to not locking yourself out of your house every time you leave it. To feel there are certain parts of life that are simply off limits to you, because you can't trust yourself not to betray yourself in the process. I avoided going on holiday for years, because I couldn't trust myself to come home.
It's lonely to feel the waves of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, as you hold yourself to the impossibly high standards you set for yourself, comparing yourself to others who seem to just have things so easy. Our dopamine seeking brains seem to be plugged into these screens so much more than others - social media worlds filled with people that leave us feeling lonelier than ever.
It's lonely to find yourself addicted to seeking mental stimulation, with over 30% of workaholics meeting the criteria for ADHD. It's lonely to have an interest-based nervous system that is wired to hunt down only the thing we find most interesting, to struggle to regulate our obsessions, and to switch off. It's lonely to find yourself writing at 4am whilst the world sleeps, the silence filled with your own thoughts proof that you are awake at the 'wrong' time.
It's lonely to feel like you're an alien living in a human body. To feel like you're speaking a different language to most people. To feel like your brain is on fire, but nobody seems to care. To have your turned upside down by ADHD and stuck on a rollercoaster of reliving every painful moment of your undiagnosed life, whilst everything else goes on around you as normal.
It's maybe even more lonely when you realise that help exists, but you can't access it because of waitlists or complicated assessments processes, or simply second-guessing whether you 'really' have it, or are making it up. When you finally ask for help, and you are ignored. When you prove your worst fears right.
It's lonely to become obsessed with ADHD, and being determined to find out what is 'you' vs 'your ADHD'. To feel like you've finally got some kind of answers, but you don't know what to do with them. To realise everybody you know is sick of hearing about ADHD. To become hyper-sensitive to any discussions about it, or news articles. To overthink whether you should tell someone about it, or whether it will change how other people see you. To experience the impossibly high highs and low lows by yourself, trying to figure out how you 'should' feel about this 'superpower' that could also be seen as a 'disability'.
I wrote ADHD: an A to Z because I didn't have anybody to talk to about what I was experiencing. I didn't have a community like other people: my mum refused to even fill in the medical check-list for my assessment. (Apparently I was 'fine').
All I wanted was to feel like I belonged somewhere. To feel like I wasn't too much. The day I got my law job will go down in history as one of the best days of my life, because I felt like it was my shot at finally being normal. So normal that I literally took out an 8 month contract I couldn't afford in a flat over the road, on Chancery Lane, because I was so determined not to quit.
However, I was still the same person, with the same brain. The diagnosis meant I just had a name for what was 'different' about me. It was only when I met an ADHD Coach that I realised that I wasn't completely alone - that there were others out there who thought like me, who could teach me about what to do with this brain. This changed everything, and led me to actually publish the book sitting on my computer, which has led me down the squiggly path of writing this today.
Running ADHD Works is an antidote to the loneliness. Getting to pass on the support in 1:1 coaching, group coaching, retreats, courses, event, training new coaches - it's endless. I am in an extremely fortunate position, which makes me feel like I 'should' have my happy ADHD ending where I always feel connected to myself and those around me - but this doesn't exist.
When my publishers wanted to rename ADHD: an A to Z to 'Figuring it out from Attention Deficit to Zen', I hit the roof. The truth is that I still feel all of these things, and I probably always will. There is no zen at the end of the ADHD rainbow - just self-acceptance.
Acceptance makes the loneliness less painful over time, as we can take responsibility for it. Now I try to consciously avoid myself situations that make me feel lonely, or where I end up invalidating myself. I try to cater my life so that I don't have to mask. I forgive myself when I beat myself up. I know help is out there, and push myself to find it. I go to bed when I am having a terrible day and want to run away. I accept that I will probably always struggle with relationships, but it's okay to not have a life that looks like everybody else's. I accept my brain is prone to whizzing in the fast lane, but there are people who can keep up. I am slowly building the trust in myself to remember that I've kept myself alive for 30 years, and I'm still growing. Maybe it's okay to just live day by day instead of planning out a house and kids, figuring out how to parent myself first.
I hope that if any of this resonates with you, you know that you're not alone. I know it might feel like nobody in the world can understand what you're going through, but that doesn't mean you are by yourself. There are people out there, some whom you haven't even met yet, who will 'get' you, and who will make you realise that you were never the problem. They will provide you with the kindness and support that you deserve. If you feel like you don't fit into this world, it's because you're here to help build a new one: so find your people.
Above all, I hope you can find this connection within yourself. The funny thing about feeling lonely with a brain that refuses to shut up for a second means that we already have all the stimulation and dopamine we crave inside of us. If we can tune the radio channels slightly to ones that cheer us on and encourage us to work with our natural strengths, instead of against them, everything can change.
So please, assume people like you today. Assume the best in them. Assume you are invited to that gathering. Assume you are accepted exactly as you are, and that you can relax. Assume people feel about you how you feel about them. Assume people are not annoyed at you, they've just been busy too. Assume you are doing a great job. Assume everything is okay - because it is. Trust yourself.