I thought I was a horrible mom…

…I just had undiagnosed ADHD.

I sent my mom this YouTube interview of author, TikTokker, and therapist KC Davis¹ to try to explain some of my experience not having any reason to suspect I might have ADHD until I became a mom of young kids.

The parts I can relate to are:

1. I always enjoyed school and did well in school, so it seemed that there was no way that I could have ADHD. Girls with ADHD are often under-diagnosed because we don’t present the same way as boys with ADHD, being able to follow social cues of how we should behave in front of others. ADHD-expert Dr. Ned Hallowell calls ADHD a misnomer in that it’s not a deficit of attention but an inability to regulate our attention. An ADHD brain has trouble deciding what it should focus on, and sustaining focus if the task is unpleasant or uninteresting. While I was a student, I had the structure, the peers, and the incentives to stay focused. I was interested in learning and also interested in getting good grades, so I modulated my attention based on my interest and, in some cases, how high a grade I cared to get based on my level of interest.

2. I didn’t even consider the possibility that I might have ADHD until after several years of being a mom of young kids². This topic probably deserves its on post, but I found myself completely unprepared when I had a newborn at 28. A few months after delivery I experienced my first ever bout of depression (anxiety has always been present, but depression was new) and was diagnosed with postpartum depression. (Looking back, having PPD was likely a result of having ADHD that I could no longer compensate for with “strategies.”) You know the way people feel about cleaning out the gross drain in the kitchen sink?³ That is how I felt about packing a diaper bag, researching strollers, deciphering different cries, picking out “colors” for the baby’s nursery. My brain couldn’t (and still can’t) comprehend how people can do these things without feeling overwhelmed/bored out of their minds. It is so freakin’ common for people with ADHD to feel like they are lazy, and that is 100% how I felt about taking care of babies. And I felt so guilty about it, so guilty about not doting over my baby or “just loving” being a mom. A good day for me in early motherhood was the baby following the schedule. I knew this would be embarrassing to admit, so I just didn’t talk about it.

3. For a long time, I thought I was a horrible mom (and/or had a horrible kid). Only in this last year (my firstborn is 9 now, and I’m 37), have I started to unravel these lies. I have felt so much grief wishing I had known this earlier so I could have been kinder to myself. (I know, I hear the irony in it, but it’s still a legitimate feeling.)

   Here’s a pic of my great kid eating chilaquiles.

   

4. Being diagnosed with ADHD was a helpful albeit initially confusing explanation for my struggles. In the interview, Davis mentions that people often start searching for a diagnosis when they go through a transition, such as finishing school, getting married, starting a new job, or becoming a parent. When previous structures are removed, our previous coping mechanisms can’t sustain the new input. Which is what makes it so confusing because we wonder, “I’ve only felt like this for the last two or three years; how is it that this could be ADHD?”

5. I’ve used so many compensatory behaviors that masked my ADHD for over 30 years. I think is a barrier for my own mom (and others close to me) fully grasping how I could have ADHD. When I would dance around the topic of feeling stressed about something, she would sometimes say, “But you’re so organized!” I’ve since learned that a ton of adults with ADHD feel exactly the same way. We organize things to death because otherwise we would be disasters all the time. I have limited working memory; unless I write things down and can see them, I will forget things. This explains why I’ve been pen-and-paper for so dang long.

Alright guys, I’ve been typing and editing for the length of Norah Jones’ entire album Come Away With Me (it’s an ADHD thing to listen to the same stuff over and over again—this is the same album I have been writing papers (or words) to for the last 18 years.

This is me peacin’ out. Thanks for reading.

1. ~45 minute listen. Even though it’s on YouTube, it’s primarily audio, so it’s a doable listen for dishes or a drive.

2. I did not felt this same debilitating executive dysfunction while fostering older kids in my mid-twenties; it was all the practical/physical tasks (hello, executive functioning skills!) of being responsible for little kids that knocked me on my behind.

3. Incidentally, I don’t have the common-to-ADHDers sensory issue of cleaning out the sink trap; however, it’s a major visual trigger for me when someone else doesn’t do, so I find myself doing a lot for someone with ADHD. Which I think is a fair price to pay for all the other home care tasks I really struggle to do.