Starting a blog is very on brand
It has only been a few days since I was diagnosed with ADHD, so naturally I now have an entire website with a blog ready to go.
To be fair, I already owned the domain name. A previous brainwave of mine wanted to start a blog about long distance relationships. That relationship unfortunately stranded somewhere along the way. RIP. Before anyone worries, he did not die, don't you worry.
The name Distant Diaries turned out to work surprisingly well for this story too, so it felt like a shame not to use it.
The moment ADHD entered the conversation
Being 25 (six months and two days, if we are counting) and getting diagnosed with ADHD is confusing as hell. When the idea was first brought up, my immediate reaction was honestly just: really? Growing up, jokes in my family were much more likely to be about me maybe being autistic because of how sensitive I could be. ADHD was never really mentioned.
When my doctor and psychologists started explaining what ADHD can actually look like, things slowly began to make more sense. In my mind ADHD had always been something associated with hyperactive children who could not sit still. It never really occurred to me that it could show up in completely different ways.
When things started clicking
In the weeks that followed I became more aware of myself than I had ever been before.
Even though I had not officially been diagnosed yet, things started to click. Certain behaviours, reactions, and thought patterns suddenly had a possible explanation.
And strangely enough, that realization was also one of the most frustrating parts of the process.
You start noticing everything. The way your brain jumps from thought to thought. The way your reactions sometimes feel bigger than the situation. The way you can get completely stuck in your own head.
The best way I have found to explain it is this.
Imagine one of those little flipbooks that create a tiny movie when you flip through the pages. That is what my brain feels like. Except the flipbook is playing on repeat about five times per minute. All. Day. Long.
The part that is harder to talk about
Something else that came up for me during this process was shame. Not new shame. That has been around for a while.
Shame about how my brain works. Shame about how many imaginary scenarios and conversations I have lived through in my head. Honestly, I could probably fill several books with those. Shame about how I handled certain situations in the past. Shame about how little I sometimes manage to get done compared to what I had planned.
Looking at all of that through the lens of ADHD suddenly explains a lot, but it also brings those feelings to the surface again.
Why I started this new hyperfixation
And I think that is exactly why I wanted to start writing about this. Partly to understand it better myself, and partly because there might be someone out there who recognizes a little bit of their own experience in this.
Maybe no one will ever read this. Maybe one person will. Either way, it feels good to get it out of my head and onto a page.
For now, this blog will simply be a place where I try to make sense of things as they happen.
So if you also happen to have a brain that feels like it is running a flipbook on repeat, welcome.
You might feel at home here.
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