- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
I know what you sometimes see.
A person who is disorganized, noncommittal, scattered, awkward, intense, volatile, inconsistent, rude, overly sensitive, forgetful, distractible, loud, blunt, distant, impulsive, irritable, lazy, and confused.
But just imagine this as your daily experience...
You’re shaken awake by three large figures shouting in your face.
The first rattles off a list of tasks that must be done today or the world will implode. Each one is as world-shattering as the next.
The second keeps replaying that conversation that went horribly wrong yesterday.
The third shouts random facts, jokes, and story ideas, and promises not to stop until you tell someone.
The kitchen is mic’d so every clang of a dish, every hum of an appliance, every shout or screech is amplified and burrows straight into your skull and gut.
A group conversation feels like driving on a slow country road that suddenly intersects with a bustling highway: cars speeding by, horns blaring, and you’re frozen, bewildered, unsure when to merge.
Your plans and routines are signed on laminated paper and sealed in a wax-stamped envelope. But one sudden change doesn’t just crumple it, but sets it on fire and burns your whole house down.
Getting lost in your thoughts feels like finding a quiet, warm room with a mug of coffee waiting for you.
But being interrupted?
It’s like a pack of wolves biting your leg and dragging you into a volcano, while someone reprimands you for screaming.
Every request or question arrives by mail that you wait to be delivered, open the envelope, and sometimes need a secret decoder ring just to decipher it. All while the sender impatiently taps their foot, accusing you of ignoring them.
Every social interaction comes with rules, except they ran out of rulebooks before you arrived. You had to learn by watching, and no one told you the most important rule:
“They randomly change, and you’re supposed to know.”
Why didn’t you actually answer my “How are you doing?”
Didn’t you realize “Who put this here?” wasn’t rhetorical?
Most clothes feel like they’ve been dipped in itching powder. Towels have hidden nails that scrape your skin.
You’re locked into your work, focused, flowing, until someone smashes a bat against your head. You’re dazed, in pain, and being yelled at for not sending that email yet.
You have two companions in your mind:
One wants to throw a huge, extravagant party.
The other insists you stay home and do the same safe thing as always.
You listen to the first until the second freaks out and convinces you to cancel everything.
Perfume and strong smells explode into fire when they hit your nostrils. Little gremlins bounce on your brain like a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese.
Mundane tasks come with hecklers. One jabs your ribs to go do something else. Another whispers fairy tales in your ear. You glance up and realize the sink has overflowed, and the eggs you forgot about are burnt to a crisp.
Every criticism is a time machine that whisks you back to your biggest failures while a manic Doc Brown screams, “See? It’s all true! You’re worthless!”
Something tragic happens, and you feel nothing — so you feel guilty for lacking empathy.
You drop your ice cream, and your brain screams the world has ended — so you feel guilty for too much emotion.
One moment, you’re the entertainer lighting up a room.
Next, an invisible boulder slams into your gut, and every ounce of energy drains from your body.
You return to your work, but your thoughts have scattered like papers in the wind. The project you were once proud of now looks unrecognizable, so you start over. Again.
And everywhere you go, bright neon signs flash:
“You Don’t Belong Here.”
But here’s the truth I’ve been learning:
I do belong here.
So do others like me.
We just move through a world that was designed for different wiring; a world that calls our intensity “too much,” our confusion “careless,” and our sensitivity “weak.”
But AuDHD isn’t chaos or failure. It’s surviving in surround sound. It’s caring too much in a world that tells you not to. It’s living every day with a brain that burns bright, even when the world keeps dimming the lights.
If this resonated with you and you'd like to support my work, you can leave a tip either by clicking on the floating Support Me badge or by following this link.
If you want more work like this, then please consider subscribing to my Life on the Balcony newsletter on Substack.
Comments
Post a Comment