Diagnosis at 55: Not a Crisis, a Clarity

Because for decades, I wasn’t failing. I was performing at a high level while quietly falling apart. I wasn’t dropping balls. I was juggling ten at once—turning in high quality work minutes before the deadline, holding meetings with one part of my brain while the other fought off mental static. My success made it easy to miss the symptoms. Even I didn’t see it.

Suddenly, the procrastination, the sensory overload, the hyperfocus, the social fatigue—it all had a name. These weren’t character flaws.

Trauma made me hypervigilant. Expectations made me over function. Academia made me perform. But ADHD??? That was the throughline no one noticed. Once I understood that, I stopped shaming myself. I stopped bending my mind into neurotypical molds. I started building systems that fit me.

You don’t outgrow ADHD. You outgrow the lies that tell you your value comes from pretending.