It’s one thing for a kid’s room to be a little messy, but this all came to a head for me when I attempted adult life. “ADULTING" as it is now often referred to, was damn near impossible for me. Since I no longer had my mother to “motivate” me - keeping organized became unmanageable. Piles would accumulate everywhere and now I had even less energy to do anything about it. I would often stay up late because the effort required just to change into pajamas and brush my teeth was more than I felt like I had to spend. I’d just sit there staring at the walls sometimes, unable to take my socks off. It was like my brain had literally short-circuited.

I personally wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 23. When I was a kid, it was the impulsivity or hyperactivity that got you flagged for ADHD… and I didn’t have either of those symptoms. I also loved school. I was the kid public education was created for - it was usually just the right level of challenge for my brain to feel stimulated, but easy enough that I could succeed. I got rewarded, so I happily came back for more. But that didn’t mean there weren’t glaring symptoms…

I have always been DISORGANIZED. My room was a disaster as a kid! It’s not that I didn’t want my room clean - I always felt better when it was neat and tidy (which was approximately 4 times a year). But I couldn’t seem to do it. The mental effort required to put clothes away actually seemed overwhelming for me!

It’s one thing for a kid’s room to be a little messy, but this all came to a head for me when I attempted adult life. “ADULTING" as it is now often referred to, was damn near impossible for me. Since I no longer had my mother to “motivate” me - keeping organized became unmanageable. Piles would accumulate everywhere and now I had even less energy to do anything about it. I would often stay up late because the effort required just to change into pajamas and brush my teeth was more than I felt like I had to spend. I’d just sit there staring at the walls sometimes, unable to take my socks off. It was like my brain had literally short-circuited.

As an actress, I didn’t exactly make a ton of money, which is unfortunate because MONEY MANAGEMENT is one of my chief ADHD complaints. I used to talk about my “red 22s” - the string of $22 overdraft charges that would suddenly appear on my bank statement when life got busy. My father (who does NOT have ADHD) tried to teach me how to use a checkbook when I left for college - he explained to me that you simply subtract the amount you spend from the amount you have, and you keep track of it. I had enough self-knowledge at 18 to know that as simple as that was, that wasn’t going to work for me. And it didn’t.

I think that’s been the hardest part of having ADHD for me - KNOWING MY POTENTIAL, BUT FAILING AT BASIC LIFE SKILLS. I’m not dumb, nor am I willfully rebelling. I understand how things are supposed to be done. I get the value of discipline and habits, and I WANT TO DO THEM. There has always been some future version of me that I can picture doing all of these very useful habits that keep my head above water. (Much less trying to reach lofty goals!) But as I learned recently, ADHD disrupts the part of the brain that connects knowledge to action. I understand what I am supposed to do but, especially when it comes to things that are tedious or detailed oriented, there is a good chance I am not going to be able to do it. 

This has all done a number on my self-confidence over the years. I grew up thinking I was destined for greatness, but it’s hard to feel great when you can’t even prevent mold from growing in your shower. (Mold is not a standard metric for ADHD. It’s just that I know that if I cleaned my shower every week, it wouldn’t happen. And so it stares at me as a constant reminder of my moral failings.)  

Like so many people with ADHD, I am creative, excellent at big-picture thinking, have a ton of energy and enthusiasm, and can tackle challenges head-on. It simply doesn’t make sense that I would fail at anything on paper. But oftentimes, I get STUCK AT THE STARTING GATE. My potential is awesome. My ability to pull it into reality… less so. In fact, I have this unbelievably vast vortex of ideas to improve the quality of my life (and for life on the planet), but they have all remained in the land of potential up until very recently. And the longer I went on without actually bringing any of these ideas into fruition, the more painful life felt for me. I still have some work to do in grieving the losses of what I imagine my life could have been if my brain functioned the way I wanted it to, but I am beyond grateful for the tools I now have to actually bring my potential to fruition… Starting by sharing these tools with you!