And just like that my ENTIRE life makes sense. There was a reason I couldn’t get things done; that I had trouble juggling my own life, not to mention my family’s. A reason I struggled to maintain relationships. A reason that I wrestled with finances and constantly made impulsive decisions. Trouble with certain subjects in school. The job hopping. The hobby hopping. The college degrees I don’t use and the debt that came with them. The inability to just do one thing at a time. The inorganization. The messy house. Dear lord, the messy house. The list could go on.

I wasn’t a hot mess.

I wasn’t a disaster.

I wasn’t a failure.

I wasn’t a disappointment.

I had ADHD.

Oof. I felt some of those eyerolls from here. It’s okay. I’ll admit, I was you once. I thought multiple times throughout my life things like, “Everyone seems to need a diagnosis.” or, and I kid you not, “I probably have ADHD, too, but I did fine.”

Newsflash.

I. Was. Not. Fine.

I was great at hiding things.

But I wasn’t fine.

What I didn’t know was ADHD wasn’t just losing focus or the little kid that had trouble sitting still. What I didn’t know was 99.9% of the struggles in my life were actually symptoms. All those things that I just couldn’t seem to get right, that I had to work harder to achieve, that led to feelings of embarrassment and guilt, weren’t going to be fixed by “trying harder” or “focusing more” or “just remembering” or “getting it together.” That there’s a reason the advice I received throughout my life—both solicited and unsolicited—never helped me.

You may ask why I’m writing about it at all.

Because, we still have a lot of work to do in this society when it comes to being open about certain issues and ADHD is one of them.

Because it is my hope that if there is anyone out there currently struggling in the same way I struggled my whole life, that maybe it will lead them to do their own research and get help early. Before they are in their 40s and (if a woman) perimenopause hits and their life implodes.

It took a social media app to open my eyes, to “meet” people who had the same struggles I’ve hid my whole life, to set me on a new path that’s hopefully way more positive and a whole lot less painful.

If I can help just one person do the same, it will be worth it.

Because as happy as I am now to know, I can’t help but be just a little bit angry that maybe my life didn’t have to be so hard.