Finding myself, again
So, living as a neurodivergent and forcing myself to try my hardest to present as a neurotypical for 25 years has resulted in me, now, at the age of 25 having to reexamine absolutely everything about my personality and who I really am as a human because…
I have no idea who I am right now.
But, let’s go back for a minute.
My name’s Shakirah and after a failed marriage, messy divorce with my ex literally telling me I’d be perfect if I stopped ignoring him, forgetting his every need, and if I hadn’t murdered the goldfish by starving them, as well as an unbelievable amount of ideas and projects that never saw the sun, I realized that I was either completely mad or something was extremely wrong with me for me to be where I was all before my 24th birthday.
So, reluctantly, I decided to speak to a therapist. When she told me I had adult ADHD I rolled my eyes and agreed that this is why I don’t like therapy, because therapists really don’t know what they’re talking about.
How on earth could I have a neurological disorder that was for naughty kids who couldn’t have sugar and E-numbers… How could that be the answer to my ability to hear nothing during a two-hour conversation and still manage to let out a sound every five minutes making sure that the other person wasn’t aware that my attention was actually in Ice-land exploring ancient volcanoes?
Then, unbeknownst to me my hyper-focus kicked in at 3 am and 4 days later I had watched every single video and read every single article on ADHD, pausing only for rushed toilet breaks and doughnuts.
I came out of my hibernation knowing four things
Therapists do know what they’re talking about
I 1000000% had ADHD
I was extremely tired
ADHD had nothing to do with E numbers
Going back to the opening paragraph, here I was, with years of emotions and experiences that I now could see for what they truly were at the time. Now I knew why I couldn’t finish certain things, why my relationships always seemed to fall apart when there was nothing actually wrong and why I seemed to be failing at the one thing others happened to do with ease, exist.
It’s taken a lot of unlearning and relearning about myself to finally begin to feel comfortable with introducing myself to others let alone even reintroducing myself to family and friends.
‘So… remember when I forgot your birthday after being reminded every day for a month?.. Yh, I have ADHD’
For some friends as soon as I told them I was ADHD I was met with
‘Oh ok, so that’s what it is’
‘That’s a lot to take in, how are you feeling’
and the dreaded
‘Are you sure this isn’t just something to blame things on’
The last response really hurt in the beginning because it took a lot to even share such a life-changing diagnosis with someone in the first place but after a while of finding my tribe and the right people around me and for me, those responses stung a bit less every time.
Now, as a woman, society already has a whole bunch of expectations thrown on us before we’ve even left the labor ward after birth. Add on to that the fact that I am a black woman and suddenly the odds against me climb higher still. Then in comes, ADHD to light it all on fire because, well, why not.
My brain is a fuzzy radio station, skipping between channels without a signal. It’s as if there are dozens of TV channels open, all playing at once, and finding out who I am deep down beneath it all takes a lot of courage and dedication.
Yes, I know my name, my age, my nationality, and the color of my skin, but how do I know who I am, my dislikes, my emotional needs, my fears after pretending I was mentally present for so many years.
It can be exhausting. But there are positives.
The positives of having a constant download of information means that when I do find a channel with something interesting on it, it really is interesting. And when I do happen to come across something interesting on SKY ADHD TV, I can focus without real sleep and other human necessities for as long as I need to build an entire empire off one small idea.
We can get lost within the noise, lost between the channels but community, support, and the true desire to know who stares back at you in the mirror drive you to wade through it all in hopes that somethings can be plugged out and put to rest.
So yes, I’m 25, relearning who I am as a now, proud owner of a beautiful neurodivergent brain, swimming through life in the deep end, here to tell you this. In the words of my favorite short-term memoried fish friend:
Just keep swimming
