SYMPTOMS

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ADHD in girls – The complexity of this unknown condition

50% to 75% of girls with ADHD are missed. This is an alarmingly high percentage, and unfortunately I was one of these unlucky girls. Often, when we try to imagine ADHD, we see a young boy, a little over-active bully that performs bad at school and can’t sit still. Unfortunately this is not the only …

7 April 202028 May 2020

I am not supposed to be great and that is ok

When I tell people I have an ADHD devil living inside my brain, they never believe me. People don’t notice anything strange about me and I definitely don’t fit the image of the overactive little boy that appears inside their mind when they hear the word ADHD. My ADHD remain invisible most of may days, …

8 April 202013 April 2020

ADHD : Deviation, not Disorder

I am diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD. But every single letter that is used in the name for this this type of brain, makes me a little angry. After living with my ADHD devil for 27 years, I believe the name is completely wrong. Especially the last D of the name, the one that …

6 April 202019 April 2020

The truth about the symptoms

When I search for information on ADHD symptoms, I keep finding the same list, a sum-up of all the things ADHD brains suffer from, impulsiveness, disorganization, poor time management, problems focussing, trouble multitasking, excessive activity, poor planning, low frustration tolerance, frequent mood swings, problems completing tasks, hot temper, trouble coping with stress… When I look at this list I see the things that are mostly visible to the world around me, the things that frustrate neurotypical brains about ADHD brains, the things that make ADHD brains different and unappreciated in everyday life, for other people. For sure the symptoms on this list bothered me, but they are not the things that are causing the everyday trouble I’m experiencing because of my ADHD.

After 27 years of living with myself and my ADHD I know I have these symptoms, I know how I have to handle them, how I can, and have, changed things in my life to deal with these symptoms. For me the real struggle, the real fight with my ADHD is not fighting these symptoms, it is in how both ADHD and the fight with ADHD changed me, how the symptoms had an effect on my life and personality, and how I am shaped by this effect rather than by the actual symptoms. In this blog I want to write about what this general list of ADHD symptoms has given me, and what it has taken from me. How managing the symptoms meant giving away some parts of myself I did like, and gaining some parts that I’m not happy about.

Bye!

Almost two and a half years ago I found myself in the most difficult place I have ever been, alone at home, going crazy because of my own thoughts, unable to function in the life I had made for myself. I described it as being in a deep, scary and extremely black hole. Life was …

7 June 202218 June 2022

The Ideal Word Count For Someone With ADHD

The first time 30 Days ADHD was found by a search engine was about a year ago by someone who was looking for the answer to “The ideal word count for someone with ADHD“. Ever since this day, I have been wondering about what this person was looking for, what did he or she mean …

12 March 202110 March 2021

ADHD and Sex – Balance Between Obsession and Many Distractions

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, ADHD, causes a range of symptoms like being distracted, impulsive and unorganised. However, a life with an ADHD brain comes with much more than the well known general list of symptoms. Although ADHD presents itself differently in each brain, the struggles never limit themselves to the inability to sit still. I believe …

17 June 2020

The Secret Damage of ADHD

Loving the ADHD devil – DAY 13 I started writing because I wanted to talk about the truth, the real experience of a life with an ADHD devil inside your brain. The reason to start this blog was the lack of information regarding my own struggles, a lot of what the internet has to offer …

26 May 202010 June 2020

ADHD and gaming

Although ADHD symptoms are presented different in girls than in boys, for me there is one aspect that makes me fit the stereotype boy with ADHD. I am a gamer. I own a wii, an x-box, a playstation and my laptop and phone are filled with games. Everyday I spend at least one hour playing …

8 May 20203 April 2021

Lack of emotional compassion

My therapy had started, focussing on self-compassion. I have to learn how to love myself, how to listen and how to be more compassionate and sweet with the person I am. The first exercise I have to complete is writing myself a letter, a letter in which I tell myself how the thing that I’m …

21 April 202020 May 2020

The ADHD devil’s biggest competitor – Exercise

There are periods in my life that I can not keep myself from spending hours a day at the gym, swimming pool, squash court or any other kind of sporty accommodation. But in between these periods, I find myself unable to leave the comfort of my couch, spending all my time on series and gaming. …

19 April 202019 April 2020

Peak – end rule

“When More Pain is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better End” is an interesting 1993 study, providing groundbreaking evidence for the so-called peak-end rule. The research contained two different versions of one unpleasant experience:1. Subjects submerge a hand in 14°C water for 30 seconds.2. Subjects submerge their other hand again in 14°C water for 60 …

13 April 202013 April 2020

Sadness Dysregulation

I have always had a problem with my emotions, mostly with my sadness. Due to my ADHD and the impact it had on my life, I don’t allow myself to feel sad, and I try to cover it up. Yesterday I completely fucked up and the sadness-replacing-anger took over destroying everything.

2 April 202010 June 2020

ADHD makes me feel like an alien on earth

Imagine waking up on a different planet and walking into a room with 30 aliens. However, you don’t know that these creature are aliens, you don’t even know you’re on a different planet. The creatures in the room look exactly like you, your bodies are exactly the same. You notice that the 30 creatures around …

25 March 202028 May 2020

ADHD and Emotional Rejection

One evening when I was about four years old, we were going to eat lasagna, my favorite dish back then. I helped my grandmother with the cooking and I spend 30 minutes staring at the over, waiting till my favorite meal would finally be ready to eat. Then, the oven beeped and my father opened …

22 March 202021 April 2021

ADHD : Hyperarousal, not Hyperactivity

I am diagnosed with the combined ADHD type, the one that makes me impulsive and hyperactive and comes with a deficit of attention and a lot of distraction. But am I really hyperactive? My hyperfocus can make me sit still for hours and even when this ADHD feature is not activated I am not moving …

17 March 202019 April 2020

Best thing to own when you have an ADHD brain – Notebooks!!

It is a good thing I decided to study architecture because without it I might not have been able to see the importance of owning a notebook. I remember my first class, in my first year on my first Monday morning. This class just had one message, own a notebook, always carry it with you …

15 March 202029 May 2020

ADHD : Attention Difference, not Deficit

I have always believed there is something wrong with the name ADHD or Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. If I would really have a shortage of attention I would not have been able to do so many things I do. I shouldn’t be able to loose all track of time when I’m writing, drawing boxing or sometimes …

14 March 202019 April 2020

Ritalin – The bad things

In order to control my ADHD devil I take Ritalin or Methylphenidate. This medication gives me the opportunity to take over control, to set goals and focus on them, to not get distracted by everything and reduce the chaos that is always present inside my brain. I see Ritalin as an eraser, a tool I …

11 March 20209 March 2020

Ritalin – The science and the good things

I can write books about my medication. About how these little pills I take every day effect my life, both good and bad. How I can not live without them but hate to live with them, how they help me to win the fight with my ADHD devil, but also make me loose on parts …

10 March 202011 March 2020

ADHD and control – The dangers that come from feeling out of control all the time

This is a hard one to talk about, a difficult one, even for myself to understand. ADHD brains tend to be impulsive, they don’t have control or schedules, they just do things without thinking, do whatever it is that comes to their minds. And this is true, also for me. But in the 27 years …

8 March 202028 May 2020

ADHD means black or white

My ADHD brain makes me do things 100 percent or not at all. The little devil either looses itself completely in something or decides it is not interesting enough and won’t spend even a second trying to do it. The ADHD devil makes everything black and white, there are no shades of grey, no balance, …

7 March 20209 March 2020

ADHD and hypersensitivity – The main symptoms

My ADHD brain seems to intensify everything, all the input, all the things that happen around me seem to become too much in my brain. Not only do I lack filters to manage the input to my brain, my ADHD brain also seems to experience things much stronger than a neurotypical brain. I am hypersensitive, …

4 March 202029 May 2020

ADHD and insecurity

People that don’t know me that well see me as a person that is confident, strong and in control of her life, but when I’m at home, the real me comes out, I see a person that is the complete opposite. I wear a mask, a non ADHD mask, but when this comes off, the …

3 March 202028 May 2020