ADHD and overcoming fear
Turning a plank into a catwalk
My five-year old daughter and I drove by a home under construction in our neighborhood. We live in an old part of the city, so new construction is somewhat rare. She saw a worker on a roof next to a tall ladder and said “I want to do that one day!”
For clarity, I asked if she meant she wanted to build houses or to be on a roof…
“To be on a roof!” she said. “I want to know what it feels like up there.”
Some people are born fearless.
But I suppose that makes the inverse true, as well. That some of us are born scared.
I’ve been putting off my first real post for weeks. Years, really.
I tend to do this with big tasks as most people do. But I usually have a reason I can pinpoint for my hesitation. This time it isn’t writer’s block. It isn’t lack of desire or inspiration. It’s fear. I’m actually petrified.
What if I miss a word and lose all credibility? What if I misspell something important and lose my shot? What if I misrepresent a quote or fact and someone calls me out? What if I say something that pisses someone off? What if I hurt people?
What if I’m not good at this? What if I can’t do it? What if I fail? What if go down a path I don’t really want to be on? What if I die before I finish writing and all I’ve gotten down was the negative stuff? What if what I share is misconstrued? What if it’s taken out of context? What if it paints over the carefully brushed image I’ve worked my whole life to create? What if I lose everything that matters to me?
You can see why I might have trouble “picking up the pen” when it’s weighted by these doubts in my mind.
My ADHD went undiagnosed for 35 years. During that time, my symptoms ranged from emotional dysregulation to executive dysfunction to things like anxiety and OCD, which on me always looked like just plain old, unadulterated FEAR.
I was the kid that if my mom was five minutes late to pick me up from dance class (as she tended to be, because, well, the apple doesn’t fall far), I was certain she was dead.
I was the adult who obsessed over people washing their hands near my babies and even washed my own to the point of bloody breakage, so they wouldn’t get the flu and die.
I was the panicker, the fainting goat, the one who cared what everyone thought, and the one who couldn’t shake her hypochondria.
Fear. It’s a beast.
In 2023, I was laid off from a high-paying job that felt like I had “made it”. I was in a role writing for and working directly with senior leaders at a massive global brand. It was a really cool job.
But, man, did I flub up a lot. My imposter syndrome enveloped me anytime I had the opportunity to present in front of a group, and I always had some sort of technical (or cognitive) malfunction. I had a fear of not being good enough. And because I felt that way, I think maybe I became that way.
When I was let go, it was a wake up call that I had let a job define who I was. Instead of looking inside and figuring it out for myself, I let others paint a portrait for me.
Losing what felt like so much gave me just enough eff-it-all swagger to start an Instagram page one year ago. It gave me just enough courage to take the first step.
Since then, I’ve been waiting for small boosts of bravery to push me a little further.
Recently I recorded a podcast episode with Sam Johnson of Attempting Motherhood (yet-to-be-released). I fully expected to plan my responses and present myself as something. Instead, I showed up to talk to a friend. I finally spoke completely from my heart, sharing my pain, my messy truth. Not eloquently, either. Pretty much as articulately as a toad.
It felt important to be real in that moment, and it felt good, too.
It was after we recorded that podcast, though, that I thought about shutting all of this down. My old buddy fear was back again (I’m picturing the gangly, purple guy from Pixar’s Inside Out). What if I shared too much? I considered removing my Instagram and winding back my dream of writing, so I could stay comfortably masked.
Then I read the Britney Spears memoir, The Woman in Me. In it she says,“You have to speak the thing that you’re feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.”
Through my unmasking, one thing has kept me going: the thought that it would have helped me to hear the same things when I needed it most.
In one of my favorite books, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, she urges creatives to embrace that fear is part of the process. She describes a scene in which you are in a car with fear itself and must accept that it is along for the ride. She insists we can allow fear to be a passenger on our creative road trip, strapped securely and quietly into the backseat. We just can’t let fear be the driver.
I think about my daughter and how incredibly brave and curious and confident she is. She, like so many fearless little girls, inspires me. She makes me believe maybe I, too, can climb up on a rooftop one day… just to see what it feels like up there.
Maybe you can, too.
Every part of my unmasking has been terrifying. Every. Single. Tiny. Step. Forward. But I’m reminded daily how my story is helping others. I’m convicted in being loud for the next generation of kids who will be adults with ADHD, especially the not-so-fearless little girls.
I’m ready to walk the plank, if it means saving someone who is drowning. And maybe I’ll treat this plank like a catwalk while I’m at it.
Voraciously gnawing at the skin around my cuticles, I hit share on my first real newsletter post. Here goes nothing…
