Cheers to My New Cape

“She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful.” 
― Terri St. Cloud

Oof.

That hits me a little differently now then it did the first time I read that quote. You see, being recently diagnosed with ADHD (you can read about that here) I would love to go back in time and fix some things that finally make sense now. I have had a ton of people ask what signs and symptoms I have noticed throughout my life and I wanted to take you through my journey. I think it is important to highlight some of the valleys that I walked through without knowing one of the contributing factors. I was talking with my therapist last week (everyone should go see a therapist) and he asked a hard question.

“How are you processing your new diagnosis?”

I actually laughed because I hadn’t really processed it. For so long I had felt incomplete as if I was a stained glass window missing the crucial panes to make sense of the image. I feared for most of my life getting an actual answer to my problems because that meant something was indeed “wrong” or I was somehow “broken”.

Growing up I noticed that I was a hard worker. This is not to pat myself on the back, this is simply a fact. What was so frustrating was how hard I had to work to just be adequate at school. I was always the girl that teachers would say, “she has so much potential and we would love to see her work just a little harder to get there.” To this day that word gives me so much anxiety. Potential. I often felt like I was a hamster on a wheel… I run and I run and I run and I have gone nowhere, yet I am physically, mentally and emotionally drained. I was passed off as being silly, flighty, ditsy or blonde when in actuality I was intelligent. What I lacked in school I made up for with my work ethic. I studied twice as hard and I used the pressure of procrastination to inspire results. The chemicals released in the brain during stress helped me focus enough to get the task done. (A classic symptom of my undiagnosed adhd). How did I miss it? My older brother was diagnosed with adhd at a very young age. His life was incredibly difficult and I admired how hard he had to work as well. Unfortunately our symptoms didn’t present in the same way, so no one even looked twice at the possibility. This is no ones fault, just something that more and more girls are dealing with as we reach adulthood frustrated with the lack of understanding we face. Adhd as a diagnosis never made sense because of my attention and focus in my craft. I would hyper focus on anything to do with musical theatre or singing. This is also where I learned to fill up on validation from performing. Thus the perfectionist who was afraid of failing was born.

Looking back it makes sense how I could memorize the lead role for a musical in one weekend yet fail a history exam after studying for a month. That always made me crazy. I graduated high school with mostly As and Bs with a couple Cs (thank you stupid math and my undiagnosed dyslexia 😂🤦🏼‍♀️) and I pressed on to college. I didn’t apply to many colleges because of how bad my test scores were. Oh the anxiety I faced taking the ACT and PSAT. I never understood why I tested so terribly. Seriously. My score on those tests were mortifying. I had close friends who worked in the admissions office at my university (including 2 of my exes 😂🤦🏼‍♀️) and I was always TERRIFIED that someone would have access to that information and think less of me because of my scores. I was so embarrassed, because at the end of the day, I felt so unworthy and I felt stupid.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” -Albert Einstein

I didn’t know how much ocean was available to me because I was tying too hard to climb the trees everyone else was climbing so easily. I was so excited to finally go to school for music, something I was passionate about and frankly something I was good at. My first year of college went pretty well! I got into a great choir, I made a couple good friends and teachers started to talk about me. Then I starting hearing the word… the one word that paralyzed me.

You have so much Potential.

I dug my heels in and started working harder than I ever had. I felt a spark of excitement when I finally stated to see positive growth. I was getting solos and being asked to lead many things. I was even making really good friends and was starting to figure out how to “fit in” with everyone. I became so good at being who everyone wanted me to be. I blended in and allowed other people to tell me who I was.

It shocked my system when I started hitting road blocks. I started testing badly again and I had to take Gen. Eds. because of the Liberal Arts education plan. I stated getting scared and feeling inadequate but it was ok because people liked me and I could just keep working harder and harder…. and then I met a boy.

Looking back it was a perfect storm and I was in the right place at the right time for a boy to fill all the places of inadequacy with the opinions from someone who was ready to mold me. I also had been dealing with being extremely sick with endometriosis and was put back on birth control to try and reduce the amount of surgeries I had been getting. It was legitimately the perfect storm. I started failing at everything. I was striving and striving to be what I thought everyone wanted me to be. (read about my relational chameleon-ism here) I dove head first into everything and my heart was so invested. No matter what I did I wasn’t good enough for him. I worked overtime to make myself into the perfect girlfriend and the perfect friend. It worked for a little while but I felt like an imposter. Cue Imposter syndrome.

It was no surprise to anyone when my heart was clobbered. The breakup wasn’t quiet unfortunately, our blended group of friends made processing the emotion of the rejection extremely difficult. I lost a lot of friends.  Most of my friends at the time took sides and because of my inability to stand up for myself, I let so many people believe lies because I didn’t understand my inability to process emotion. I think because I had difficulty focusing on things I began to romanticize the relationship and I made it more special than it was. If I had been able to think clearer I would have seen how much of a blessing it was that that relationship had ended. That wouldn't be the last time I reacted like that when a relationship ended. I think I focused so much on being whatever they wanted me to be that it was that much more devastating when it ended, like somehow it was a failure if you will. I had also been dealing with health issues, surgeries, failing classes and then people started spreading completely untrue rumors about me. It was one of the lowest points in my self worth. I just couldn’t understand why my brain processed things so differently than others. So, I poured myself into my music and I worked harder than ever to be the best singer I could be. Then I got pneumonia the week of the most important jury (kind of like an exam for vocal performance majors) of my college career. I powered though it only to lose my voice while singing on stage in front of the entire vocal music faculty, with a fever of 102. The head of the vocal department at the time called me into her office and accused me of not knowing the words to the song, faking being sick and told me that I wasn’t cut out to be a performance major; which was a shame because of “all that potential.”

I felt stupid, damaged, misunderstood, alone, abandoned, unworthy and inadequate. I didn’t understand why things like this kept happening. In those moments I was so grateful for my voice teacher at that time who spoke so much life into me and replaced the lies I had heard and believed with truth rooted in scripture. He advocated for me, stood up for me and believed in me. Dr. Brendel will never understand what that meant to me. It kept my head above the waves long enough to see the shore. He encouraged me to swim even though I was weary… he was the reason I was able to sing at my senior recital proving all of them wrong. I wasn’t inadequate. I was strong, resilient, brave, talented and left that school a singer! I wish everyone had someone like Dr. Brendel in their life. He saw my potential and taught me how to sift through the dirt to find the gems. He taught me how to be patient with myself and he showed me more grace than I deserved. He was patient with me when I missed lessons and when I showed up unprepared. It was like he knew before I did that it wasn’t a lack of work ethic, rather a symptom of a problem that had yet to be uncovered. His patience and endurance helped me though the five years of Lee. I am eternally grateful.

After the meeting with the department head I left feeling like, what now? Do I change my major? Do I throw in the towel?

I remember I had to go take my music theory final and I didn’t even finish the test because I was so out of it. I literally left the back page completely blank. My professor called me into his office and walked me through the test. This was the first time a teacher had actually noticed something was off with my testing. He asked me specific questions on the test and I was getting all of them right even though I wrote the answers wrong. He said, “I think you are way smarter than you thing, and you know this stuff more than you give yourself credit. Maybe you test poorly? Sometimes it seems like you are flipping the notes, you should get tested for dyslexia.”

Woah.

I let that go for a minute because the school sent me home for the rest of the semester based on how sick I was. I’ll wrap up my college sob story by saying that there were many glaring signs that the adhd was there and I missed it.

There is a lot that happened in that 5 years that I would love to redo and save myself the trouble of what I went through. I guarantee you if I knew how to process my emotions in a healthy way I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get treated the way that I did. I might have stood up for myself when I was cheated on. I might have been able to focus in class and I might have been able to get the grades that actually reflected my knowledge. I might have been able to process rejection better and see it as a blessing rather than being debilitating. I might not have been as socially awkward… hahah nah, that’s just me. 😂

If you are still with me, thank you for caring and reading my story. I know this may feel like a journal entry but if I am hoping that someone will resonate with this the way I resonated with other peoples stories. I just want someone else to not feel alone.

I struggled with focusing and my room was and is always a mess even though I love being organized. I may not be hyperactive, but I can assure you that my mind is! My anxiety masked the adhd for so long. For years I didn’t think I was impulsive until I looked at my spending habits or I thought about how many impulsive things I did. Or the impulsive things I said. 🤦🏼‍♀️ Oh the embarrassing stories I have. The moments that I walk away saying, “I have NO idea why I did that.” Misreading social cues also made some pretty embarrassing moments, at least I can laugh about it now! College was where I developed the ability to be a turtle and the hare. To hide and stuff my emotions and run away when I feel like I have embarrassed myself, which to be honest was a whole lot!! 😂

Mostly I am incredibly grateful for the people who stood by me, especially in college when I felt like it was the worst. I am overwhelmed thinking about the friends who gave me their support and encouragement without knowing what was truly happening in my mind.

Would I love to go back and save myself from hyper fixating on boys that didn’t actually care, yes, but everything I have gone through has made me the strong & confident(almost😜) woman I am today. Now that I have a reason behind all the struggles I had I feel even stronger. I know that there is a reason for my late diagnosis and I am learning to be ok with joining the tribe a little later than I would have preferred!

So, how am I processing?? I think I just did! haha!

So here is to my new tribe. To the friends who have already welcomed me with open arms I am eternally grateful. I know that I am new to the fold and I am grateful for the support and encouragement I have already received.

To the girl or guy who is reading this. If you resonated with anything I wrote… please reach out and tell me. You are not alone. You are NOT broken and you are not damaged. I know that asking for help is overwhelming, but it was something I am most proud of. It is ok not to be ok, it is ok to not be perfect and it is ok to ask for help. It makes you a better person. Understanding how your brain operates is so important. I am still trying to figure out how to ask for help and how to be honest. I think it is a life long journey and I am finally ok to open up and take the first steps!

So here’s to you. The strong, beautiful, talented, smart, unique, bold, brave and amazing adhd tribe! Thank you for the cape, I now understand that I can be super too.

XOXO,

KB