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ADHD is incredibly misunderstood in girls, women and nonbinary people. I went 19 years undiagnosed even though in hindsight, the signs were glaringly obvious. This is a thread of those signs. 
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I struggled remembering directions. When my teacher would give me a list of tasks, I would always forget what I was supposed to be doing by the second or third task and get really overwhelmed. In third grade, my teacher wanted to hire someone to âhelp me follow directionsâ
I talked a lot in class. I still do. I was never disruptive or ârowdy,â but I was always an active participant. Talking and participating was (and still is) the only way I can stay present with the lesson without âzoning out.â
I zoned out when people were talking to me. I would hear the words but I wouldnât understand them, and I would always feel guilty afterwards. I found ways to nod along and say little things to make it seem like I was comprehending their words though I âwasnât there.â
I felt restless. I attributed this restlessness to anxiety for a long time, but it was different. I was never typically âhyperactiveâ but I was also never completely still. I bounced my legs and cracked my knuckles and braided my hair and picked at the threads in my socks
I could never just sit in class. I cannot emphasize this enough. I could never just BE.
I felt like I was working twice as hard as my classmates just to stay afloat academically. I knew I was smart, but I didnât FEEL like I was. I felt like an IMPOSTER. People were always telling me I was âgifted,â but all of my âgiftedâ peers excelled ahead of me.
Okay, so this is a big one: I never understood how my peers could balance academics and extracurriculars and homework and chores and social lives all at once. Just taking normal classes and maintaining a couple of friendships was hard to keep up with.
I could never take AP classes. It wasnât that the material in and of itself was hard, but the effort it took to stay focused and on top of my work was EXHAUSTING. And at the end of the day, I didnât have the energy to do anything else but scroll through my phone.
I got INTO THINGS. Other kids could just watch TV shows. I watched TV shows and they consumed my life. I drew fan art and wrote fanfiction and thought about the characters all the time. I drove my friends up the wall ranting about obscure plot lines and âfun facts.â
When I was 12, someone told me I had an âoverwhelming personality.â That stuck with me for years. It struck me right in the place I was most insecure. I felt like I was âtoo much.â I got too excited about things that didnât really matter. I cared too much.
I didnât realize that I was hyperfixating. When I was really into something, I could hone in and focus on it for hours. But there was a flipside: if something didnât immediately spark my interest, it was almost impossible for me to get work done.
I was never a âreader.â I wasnât one of those âgiftedâ kids who read book after book after book. I loved being READ TO, but reading words on a page was an effortful chore, unless I was reading something that I was immediately hooked by.
Iâm still a slow reader. It can take me an hour to read 10 pages. Itâs easy to read the words, but itâs so effortful to actually COMPREHEND and DIGEST what they MEAN. Sometimes I have to read the words out loud multiple times before I understand them.
Iâm REALLY BAD at making decisions. Like, REALLY BAD. I always have been. Iâm just an indecisive person. And I didnât attribute that to ADHD until I started doing my own research.
RSD! Rejection sensitive dysphoria! Thatâs another fuckin thing I didnât know existed! Iâve always had a REALLY HARD TIME taking criticism. Itâs not that Iâm not receptive to feedback, itâs just that I get really upset by any criticism or rejection.
Once in 2nd grade my teacher politely asked me to keep my voice down and I started crying. I didnât want to disappoint her. I wanted her to like me. It took me 3 years to get over my first relationship because I convinced myself that if one person couldnât love me, no one would.
And finally, this is gonna sound tacky, but I donât know how else to put it: I always felt different. I knew I didnât think quite like everyone else, but I never knew why. Even with my mental illness diagnoses, I felt like I was missing a piece to my Brain Puzzle.
I also think that my anxiety made me âdisguiseâ a lot of my overt symptoms. For example, my perfectionism kept me functioning in school (as hard as it was) and my social anxiety kept me acting ânormalâ enough so people would like me.
I hope this helps some people. Being undiagnosed is awful. It really just sucks, and figuring out whatâs âgoing onâ is always a tremendous weight off your shoulders.
And if you have to self diagnose to get some peace and relief, thatâs ok!! Self diagnosis an act of self care. And often times itâs the first step toward getting the help you need.
I also do this. I donât know how to describe it, but this meme:
Okay I also just wanna add that I got super hyper focused on making this thread and completely neglected what I had intended to do with my time this morning
