A Key to a locked door
ADHD: The Life That Finally Made Sense
For years, I floated through life, like a leaf caught in the wind—tossed between moments of clarity and chaos, always wondering why I couldn’t quite hold on to anything, why my mind would scatter like autumn leaves in a storm. I never felt “lazy,” though the world told me I was. I didn’t lack ambition, though I was told I had none during my schooling. Bewildered would be a good place I would often sit, as a kid in a classroom. I wasn’t “broken,” but I often felt like I didn’t fit the mold, like a puzzle piece forced into a corner it never quite belonged in.
Then, in my late 30s, the diagnosis arrived, like the sun breaking through a stormy sky. ADHD. The words were like rain on a parched earth—cooling, soothing, and oddly familiar. Suddenly, it all made sense. The forgotten appointments, the scattered thoughts, seasons of deep depression, the recreational substances that would allow my body to feel and my mind to stop. The endless energy that never seemed to settle. It was as if someone had handed me the map to the labyrinth I’d been wandering in, and for the first time, I saw the paths that had always been hidden from me.
For years, I lived like a river racing to the sea—swift, unpredictable, and tumbling over rocks, never quite knowing where I was headed but where one would always take a risk. I’d jump from task to task like a bird flitting between branches, never resting long enough to see the beauty of one place before I was drawn to the next. It wasn’t laziness or lack of focus—it was a hunger for life, for something to anchor my restless spirit. But the world didn’t know how to speak to my chaos, only now we are starting to, how to quiet the noise in my head that danced like fireflies, just out of reach nor to be controlled or conformed to the “norm”.
And then, finally, the name. ADHD. It was like finding the key to a locked door that had been in front of me my entire life. My brain, a wild garden, suddenly made sense. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t flawed. I was different but the world struggles see how diversity could learn differently, yes, but in a way that could be understood with empathy. My thoughts weren’t random—each one was like a seed sprouting in its own time, sometimes growing wild and untamed, other times blooming at just the right moment.
The diagnosis didn’t erase the struggles, but it gave me permission to understand them. It turned the confusion into clarity, and the shame into a gentle acceptance. It was as if I’d been running a race without knowing the rules, and now someone had pulled me aside and said, “You don’t have to run like everyone else. Your path is different—and that’s okay.”
With ADHD, my mind is a garden, blooming and wild, constantly shifting and evolving. Some days the thoughts grow tall and unruly, but other days they are delicate shoots of inspiration, pushing up through the soil, eager to reach the sun. I don’t try to tame the weeds; I let them grow alongside the flowers now, knowing that sometimes the chaos can be beautiful, too. And it is the driver of change, it is the abstract mind that desperately needs thoughts like mine to see problems as opportunity, as possibilty.
The energy that once felt like a curse now feels like a gift. I can dive into tasks with a fierce passion, creating something from nothing, and then leap into something new when the spark fades. I don’t need to apologize for my restlessness. It is part of who I am. It’s a reminder that life, in all its beauty and chaos, is never meant to be still.
Now, I embrace the ebb and flow of my thoughts (sometimes) like the tide reaching the shore, sometimes retreating, sometimes crashing in full force. I’ve learned to navigate the waves rather than fight against them. I know that each wave is an opportunity to grow, to learn, to ride the current in my own way.
Living with ADHD is like living with a constant wind—sometimes it feels overwhelming, pushing me off course, but it also carries me to new places, takes me to horizons I never would have reached otherwise. It is the breath of a wild, untamed sea, always shifting, always changing, and always full of potential.
In my late 30s, I found my answers. The life that never quite made sense is beginning to, piece by piece, come together. I’m not the same as others—and that’s okay. I am a garden of thoughts, ideas, and energy, always in motion, always growing. And finally, I understand: I was never meant to be still. I was meant to bloom in my own time.
As a child should be granted the gift to explore their own race, but sadly some don’t give them grace.
