The Things I Thought Were Broken About Me Were Just AuDHD

 

For most of my life, I carried around a quiet shame. Not the loud, movie-monologue kind of shame. The slow-drip kind. The kind that builds over years of unanswered questions and silent struggles. The kind you try to smother with forced positivity or a new productivity app. 

I kept wondering: Why is everything so hard for me when it seems effortless for everyone else? And then came my AuDHD diagnosis with the dual cocktail of autism and ADHD. It didn’t solve everything overnight. But it did do one thing immediately: it reframed everything I thought was “proof” that I was broken. 

So many of the things I thought were personality flaws were actually neon signs pointing to neurodivergence. Like: 

🔹 If I got interrupted mid-task, even just for a second, it was almost guaranteed I wouldn’t finish. That might sound trivial until you’re grabbing an afternoon snack to discover the milk you poured for cereal is still on the counter hours later. 

🔹 “Do the dishes” was never one task. It was 87 different jobs under one header: collect the dishes from all corners of the house, fill the sink, don’t forget the soap, soak the crusty pots, but then get distracted by a buzzing light, a weird smell, a random childhood memory, or the way the sponge feels against your hand. On top of the running monologue in your head trying to keep it all together. 

🔹 I could be thrilled to attend a party, excited all day… and the second I walked in the door, my body would scream get out. I’d crave a closet to hide in or a reset button to push. 

🔹 Sometimes I’d be ready to do a chore, fully intending to shovel the driveway or mow the lawn, but if someone asked me right before I started, my brain short-circuited. Suddenly, the very thing I was about to do became impossible. 

🔹 There were times I’d get a bolt of creative energy with a story idea, a newsletter concept, a video I wanted to record, and I’d feel euphoric. I could see the end result so clearly. But the moment I sat down to start… exhaustion. Paralysis. It was as if my brain flipped a switch from “exhilarated” to “burnt out” in a single second. 

🔹 I’d spiral into shame for days over a casual comment: a joke about how I chopped vegetables, an eyebrow raised at my off-beat dancing. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t meant cruelly. My brain interpreted it as a character flaw, not a quirk. 

🔹 Socializing was its own exhausting game. I’d rehearse before leaving the house: smile, nod, don’t ramble, remember small talk, don’t interrupt, ask questions back, keep eye contact but not too much. . 

🔹 I felt like I lived in two extremes: either obsessively passionate about something, or completely unable to start. There was no middle ground. I either poured every ounce of energy into something until I crashed, or I couldn’t even lift the first finger. 

🔹 I thought I was lazy because I couldn’t build habits without alarms, checklists, or reminders plastered around the house. 

🔹 Secretly fearing I’m on a hidden camera show that will reveal I talk to myself, act out imaginary conversations, and play act imaginary stories.

🔹I thought I was dramatic for needing silence just to think clearly. 

🔹I thought I was too intense for the way I “liked” things, because my version of like usually meant 17 browser tabs open and 10,000 words of backstory. 

🔹 And the burnout? It’s real, and it’s sneaky. One moment I’m buzzing with ideas and excitement but the next, I’m flattened. It’s like my internal system overheats and shuts down without warning. 

I used to think I was just being moody or flaky. But now I understand: it’s neurological. It’s how my brain manages overstimulation, even from things I love. I spent years trying to be “normal,” thinking everyone else had a secret I’d somehow missed. It often felt like life was a play everyone else had rehearsed, and I was trying to improvise in a language I didn’t speak. 

But here’s what I’ve finally come to believe: None of this means I’m broken. It means I’m neurodivergent. It means my brain processes the world in a different, beautiful, complicated way. 

I have a deep well of empathy, an imagination that won’t quit, a heart that feels everything at once, and a drive to connect even when I’m unsure how. 

Sure, it comes with challenges. I still get stuck. I still burn out. I still rehearse “normal” in the mirror more than I’d like to admit. But I’m learning to stop labeling those things as flaws and start recognizing them as parts of my wiring, not defects. I used to think I needed to be fixed. Now I know I just needed to be understood.