Hi!

Over the summer months, after yet another burnout from work and finishing four years of therapy, I have realised something. Not exactly realised, as I’ve always had an inclination (yes, leaving keys in the sink, storing glasses in your shoes, and needing an extension on every single university assessment from undergraduate to MRes should have been a clue)… but I think I have ADHD and I am currently undergoing/procrastinating an assessment.

I know a lot of people have possibly already eye-rolled at this self-declaration, as I know it appears that many people are now randomly being diagnosed with ADHD, particularly women. This is something in itself that has stopped me from seeking help for a long time. However, what is sadder is that neurodivergent women have been masking and struggling for years due to not presenting in the same ways as neurodivergent men. Think more absolutely racing rat fairy brain chaos!

The thing is, I know I have ADHD because the way I live and experience my day-to-day life is a huge inconvenience to me – and for a variety of other reasons I will share when I’m more comfortable.

At the moment, having come to the end of four years of intense therapy, I have been reflecting a lot on who I am. As part of our end session, my therapist asked me to reflect on who I am compared to the version of me who walked into therapy, and what tools I have gained along the way. Now, I know we all want some profound and insane answer, but one of the most surprising things in therapy is that the simple answers are the ones that shock you the most. Who I am now is not someone much different to the person who walked into therapy at all… at her core she was brave, resilient, strong and determined to make a better life for herself. I am endlessly grateful for myself in these darker moments – she got me here.

I still struggle with things I went to therapy for to begin with… disorganisation, mental chaos and a sprinkle of perfectionism? Of course! It’s had me thinking though. There are many parts of me I have healed, but some things do remain the same…

Connecting the dots

One of the things I have realised since coming to the conclusion in therapy that I may have ADHD/Autism is just how much time I spend trying to regulate myself on a daily basis. Although I have made a lot of progress in therapy with healing trauma, what I have done less of is dropping the shame around how I function as a neurodivergent woman. If anyone knows me deeply, you will know I have always been that person who rearranges their room/home at least 15 times a year, has a ‘spring clean’ / clear out at any minor inconvenience, and declares they are in a ‘new era’ at least twice a week. I am also the person whose room/home will look like a bomb has hit it within 24-48 hours of said clear out 😀

Whilst this does sound quite funny, and the chaos of being Megs is a huge part of my personality, it has been something that has impacted me and my life quite negatively for a long time – I just didn’t realise or acknowledge it as neurodivergence, but saw it as something inherently wrong with me. I cannot explain the sheer exhaustion of functioning in this way, of always losing my possessions, having mess around me constantly yet not being able to think clearly with any level of mess, being overstimulated so easily by sound or lights in restaurants to the point I feel physically unwell, crying at night because a light or sound in my environment has triggered my nervous system, constantly fidgeting, thinking, moving, making careless mistakes, avoiding tasks and life and leading to eventually, the break down of many friendships I’ve tried to make or maintain since moving to Aus. It’s something I’ve only very recently realised I hold A LOT of shame around, and contributes massively to my loneliness.

For a long time, I have felt really quite trapped in a reality in Australia that I didn’t dream it to be. I have dreamed of going to Aus my entire life, and yet I’ve spent more time trying to regulate myself on a daily basis that the days have slipped away and the deep shame around my ability to function has grown… and grown… until I’ve realised (after yet another work burnout xoxox) that I can’t continue like this (I know I have said this for a long time)… but it’s time for me to ACTUALLY do my ADHD/Autism assessment after 9 months of procrastinating it…

…. yes, I know. It’s all making sense now, right?

Loneliness

Whilst we are on the topic of neurodivergence… I just wanted to slightly interject here and explain how and why my blog will be taking a different direction. When I started Kindred Impact, it really was such an inspirational time. I felt like my brain burst open with so many ideas for the blog, and the reason I called it Kindred Impact was that I wanted to build a community of people who felt seen, and I wanted to create a positive ripple effect of healing from my own personal journey.

More than that, I felt so deeply lonely when I moved to Australia that I wanted to find my kindred spirits. I wanted to find other people like me, who had similar experiences and could find solace in my reflections. For a while, I made content, but I got burnt out so easily – because I hyperfixated on it, and when it didn’t resolve my loneliness inside of me I gave up. I realised that once again my blog had been about proving I was capable of maintaining something extremely busy and demanding. Instead, I want to return to my roots and purpose of this… to connect, to speak about research that excites me, and to use it as a creative outlet. & yes, you will have to now deal with my inner geek coming out and listening to various pieces of research I find and read, as this is one of my deep interests!

My loneliness wasn’t to do with the blog, but just with how I was coping with life at the time. I just ended up avoiding my blog as I was either completely absorbed by it and my inspiration towards it, or trying to regulate myself in every other possible way.

As I work evenings in Australia, it can really put me in a state of paralysis during the day, with work looming over me in the late afternoon. I would wake up in an environment I’d yet again messed up, and spend my time trying to perfect and correct every corner of my small (yet infinitely possible) universe. I was still carrying my therapy journey every single week and was in the first year of running my business (abroad, may I add… I never did it in the UK before?!), I lost friends along the way of moving to Aus, and I was constantly spiralling about the future… not to mention the constant overstimulation I lived in because of poor routines (and my inability to be consistent at anything other than nothing). I tried at different points to make friends in Aus, but I am so sensitive to rejection that I wasn’t very successful at making or maintaining friendships. I will also admit that I became quite avoidant of making connections with people, as I lost trust in myself to maintain them.

During this complicated time in Aus, I also have had a variety of family emergencies happen in the UK, meaning I’ve returned to the UK whilst on my WHV at different points – whilst also navigating short-term tenancies, moving costs every few months and the impending doom of ‘I’m not making the most of this’…

The hidden purpose of reorganisation and cleaning for neurodivergent people

The reality is, in the first year and a half of my WHV, I haven’t made the most of it, because I haven’t been functioning well enough to. I have been so busy trying to regulate my body and brain on a daily basis, constantly overcoming the burnout of life, that the neurodivergent symptoms I experience have completely and utterly taken over my life at a time in my life when I should be the most carefree and having fun. That has not been my reality, and I’ve carried a lot of shame around that. It makes me sad – as whilst I have been living this reality, I have also held a lot of grief that I’ve spent so much energy trying to survive that I’ve missed out on parts of life that I’ve been so excited to live.

Research demonstrates that whilst neurotypical brains are so efficient at filtering irrelevant background noise, a process known as selective visual attention, neurodivergent individuals experience a deficit in this filtering system. If I speak to any of my neurodivergent friends (hilariously, most of my inner circle are, because we just get each other like no one else), every single one of them ends up in visually messy and chaotic environments as a never-ending cycle, yet experiences it as an absolute sensory nightmare that causes them a lot of stress… and repetitive cleaning. Removing this visual overstimulation lowers baseline anxiety for neurodivergent people. Hence why… I spent more time cleaning my flat than I have exploring Australia.

Recent reviews conclude that ADHD is associated with differences in selective visual attention, including both top-down (goal-directed) and bottom-up (stimulus-driven) attention. Irrelevant visual information may compete more strongly for attention in some people with ADHD... so helpful!! Just what we needed! When my brain is already trying to process every object in the room, every pile of washing, every unwashed glass, and every visual reminder of unfinished tasks, cleaning becomes a route for me to reduce the number of things competing for my attention. By the time you know it… it’s time for work again.

Where do we go from here?

So… now I’ve come to this very confronting realisation, finished four years of therapy, and finally stepped back from work long enough to breathe, I feel like I’m standing at a crossroads. I have such an amazing opportunity to experience Australia, and I need to get out of my own way of doing just that.

For years I’ve tried to force myself to function like everyone else (did always wonder why I can’t hold down a full time job and need to work for myself)… I’ve blamed myself, pushed harder, worked longer and convinced myself that if I could just become more organised, more disciplined, more motivated, more like other women, that everything would click into place. It never quite did… It’s the part of me that remains even after years of deep self-work, healing and reflection.

I think it’s time to stop trying to work against my brain and start learning how to work with it.

I’m under no illusion that an assessment will magically solve everything; in fact, I have heard it can be a difficult confirmation to receive. But having spent so many years trying to understand why life has always felt so much harder than it seemed to for everyone else, I finally feel ready to understand myself and the ways I still struggle.

So, first on the list…

✓ Finish my ADHD/Autism assessment (lol)

And returning to Aus this time after another hard period of time at home? I’m promising myself that I will…

✓ Explore Australia without my flat needing to be perfect first

✓ Build routines that work with my energy rather than against it

✓ Learn where self-regulation ends, and avoidance begins (I really, really want to make friends, and I know I need to try harder)

✓ Replace my shame with curiosity and keep learning about myself

Always here if anyone wants to talk.

Megs xxx