October is ADHD Awareness Month, and I’ve gone back and forth more than once about whether to write this.

I was diagnosed with ADHD very recently. So recently, in fact, that part of me feels like I haven’t quite earned my badge of honour yet. It’s a bit like being the new person at a meeting, sitting at the edge of the table, not entirely sure you’re allowed to speak. Who am I to talk about ADHD when I’ve only just been handed the label?

But I’ve realised something, and it’s the reason I’m writing this anyway.

Life as an adult with diagnosed ADHD is new to me. Life with all the quirks that come with it? I’m somewhat of an expert in that. It’s been with me all along: in how I work, how I think, how I rest (or don’t), and how I show up for the people around me. Nothing about me changed the day I was diagnosed. It just has a name now.

It’s a bit like finally finding the instruction manual for something you’ve been running for years. The machine is exactly the same as it always was, but suddenly so much of it makes sense. The bits you thought were faults turn out to be features. And the bits that genuinely are hard finally have an explanation that isn’t “try harder”.

One of the things that has taken me the absolute longest to get to grips with is the amount of expectation and pressure I’ve placed on myself. Being a teacher definitely didn’t help! Teaching trains you to hold a hundred plates at once and keep smiling while you do it. You become very good at being everything to everyone, and very bad at noticing when you’re running on empty.

Then there’s the pressure that comes from outside. The amount that is expected of me by others, whether that’s real or perceived. And honestly, when you’ve spent most of your life feeling slightly out of step, the line between real and perceived gets very blurry. You start meeting expectations nobody actually set, just in case.

Friendships, quite rightly, come with an element of give and take. Effort. Showing up. Equal input. I believe in all of that, and I’d never want friendship to be one-sided. But when you’re in absolute burnout, sometimes there is simply nothing left in the tank to give. The messages go unanswered. The plans get postponed. The birthday card arrives late, or not at all. From the outside it can look like you don’t care, or you’re not making an effort, or you’ve just become a bit lazy. From the inside, it’s a completely different picture. The battery has run flat. You haven’t switched off; you’ve run out of charge.

That’s why having a friend who sees the situation for what it is matters so much for people who experience the world through a slightly different lens. Instead of reading it as lazy, uncaring or lacking in effort, they see the person behind it and understand that the effort is still there, even when the energy isn’t. Those friends don’t keep score when you’re struggling. They just keep the door open until you’re able to walk back through it.

If I’ve learned anything since my diagnosis, it comes down to one word.

Grace.

Give it to yourself. Set the boundary. Check in with yourself. It is perfectly reasonable to hold a boundary if going above and beyond for someone else will be detrimental to YOU. Running yourself into the ground isn’t kindness; it just means there’s nothing left of you for anyone, including yourself.

Grace.

Give it to the friend who never responds to your texts or messages you a week later telling you how guilty they feel. The one who is always just that little bit late to the plans you’ve made. The one who forgets things that seem like they should be easy to remember. Before you decide what it says about how much they care, pause for a moment. Consider that their battery might be running on empty too. The unanswered text might have been read, thought about, and fully intended to be replied to, then lost somewhere between the school run, the inbox and the hundred other things competing for their attention. The late arrival might be the result of a morning where just getting out of the door took everything they had. The forgotten detail might have nothing to do with how much you matter to them, and everything to do with how their brain holds onto information. Sometimes the people who seem to give the least are the ones quietly using every last bit of energy just to keep going.

Grace works both ways. It’s the boundary you hold for yourself and the benefit of the doubt you offer someone else. And the more of it we give, the easier it becomes for all of us who see the world through a slightly different lens to keep showing up for each other.

As for me, I’m still getting used to the label. But I’m learning that I don’t need a badge to speak about something I’ve lived with my whole life. I just needed the words. And if you need some words today, here they are:

You matter.

There it is, plain as day, in black and white. Really obvious, no hidden meaning. You. Matter. Don’t go and overthink it, tack a ‘yeah but..’ onto the end, create conditions and rules and reasons about why that might not be true. You matter. I hope you find your people: the ones who make you feel like you matter so naturally that you never have to wonder if you need to be anything other than wonderfully you. 💛

#ADHDAwarenessMonth #ADHD #Neurodiversity #Burnout #Friendship #MentalHealth