Thank you. I feel SO encouraged by your words here. I'm currently waiting for my adhd assessment in June and feeling so utterly and completely misaligned right now. In fact, I wrote my last post about it just this afternoon. I have spent the last 57 years living with undiagnosed adhd, feeling broken and like one of life's biggest losers. The job I began last year hasn't turned out the way I had hoped and I'm left thinking "what now?" I'm SO tired of trying and never quite hitting the mark. I don't want to have to keep battling forever, you know? 😫
Thank you for this. I just read your piece and subscribed and I feel your words so hard! Like you described in your piece, this is (what I feel like anyway) my last chance to make my mark and find a way to live sustainably. I’m 51 this year, the 8 year mark since my diagnosis and it’s been quite the ride, which eventually led me to this path, and Jung and all of that wonderful stuff. I realised, like you express, many of us just aren’t cut out for the capitalist world as it is and we don’t lack intelligence or capability it’s just a lot of jobs aren’t suited to our unique skill set. Also our energy is cyclical, so the 9-5 burns us bad and the older we get the harder that is to deal with. I’ve spent my entire adult life either in menial unskilled jobs, or later, very low paid freelance work (as a writer on film, my last attempt to try and make a living that sees me scraping by, constantly stressed, despite working my ass off). My situation has never not been financially precarious, and I have literally no disposable income right now. It’s exhausting isn’t it? All I can say is, follow your instinct. If you want to coach, you will find a way and it might take a roundabout way to get there because we love a scenic route but keep going 🖤
Thank you, Kat. Yes, it's extremely exhausting. Like you, I've never really had well paid jobs or been anything close to comfortable financially. I'll just keep hoping the scenic route leads me to where I long to be eventually 🙏
I have always loved your work in film (writing, review, commentary). I always felt like the way you broke films down and explained things was incredible and you always managed to put what I was thinking/feeling into words.
To find you here on Substack is so exciting - and I am looking forward to reading more. I have always felt misaligned (sometimes broken), getting my ADHD dx at 39 while in the midst of feeling like I was trying to phoenix into a new version of myself - that was two years ago, I still haven't found me or built me. I'm just lost and exhausted. Thank you for all you've done. I'm so excited to read more.
Thank you so much!!!! It feels weird to have crossover but then I am realising a lot of my film work audience are fellow neurodivergents lol, so that makes so much sense. I seem to do neurotypical (especially boomer men's) heads in.
I feel like that is about you being an intelligent and self assured woman. I feel like that makes them(not all) instantly uncomfortable and combative - insecure.
I am amazed at how we neurospicy individuals tend to find or recognize one another. It's a kind of magic I think.
The idea that misalignment between who I am and society's expectations is central to my struggle as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent person rings true. And the possibility that healing is to be found in becoming more closely aligned with the core of who I am is powerful and affirming - thank you!
Thank you so much for the support and also for your question! For me, I didn’t really have much time between suspecting adhd (purely because someone else pointed out the obvious, when I was completely unaware) and getting diagnosed. So it all came as a bit of a shock. I want to write about this at some point — hopefully soon — but diagnosis for me represented a descent, in mythic and Jungian terms, because it was like my ego’s idea of itself completely shattered, which caused this dark night of the soul period — as I grappled finding a way to integrate these previously hidden layers, so I could get back out of the cave I was submerged in. The hidden gift for me was in making sense of that process, I found my way to Jung. But it wasn’t a pleasant experience and it took a lot of work. Would I change it? Go back to not knowing? Not for the world. It was so worth it, even when it was challenging and exhausting.
Ultimately the circumstances of my diagnosis and its wider meaning allowed me to have a much deeper relationship with my psyche, and clearer access to some of my shadow qualities, which are attached to my adhd. Especially rejection sensitivity and some of my more impulsive behaviours.
I think if you are procrastinating but still thinking about it, there’s clearly something there that wants to know and it might be useful to dialogue with both sides; hear them out. You might be surprised what they have to say. Ultimately though seeking diagnosis is only the right path if that’s the path you want/need. I know many who suspect but are happy to leave it that way, and that’s totally cool too. Your unconscious will know the answer for you.
Also totally understand that from an adhd perspective the sheer administrative crap involved in diagnosis, especially the damned forms, can feel entirely overwhelming — and that can add to avoidance/procrastination. But that part can at least be mitigated by the support of a good practitioner to guide you through it.
Thank you, Kat, for your beautiful and thoughtful response.
It makes me think of the descent of Inanna into the underworld, the stripping away of the cloaks of ego, layer by layer, and meeting ourselves in a cave far below, stripped naked, alone and afraid.
It sounds like this has been an initiation into soul for you and a vital part of your journey, and also a hugely challenging experience. That you have managed to turn this deeply bewildering experience into a source of creative juice is incredible. I don't doubt that its been a long slog for you, and i honour you for that.
I love your suggestion to validate both parts in my personal dilemma, the 'seek diagnosis' and the 'don't seek' … really helpful and i may do some gestalt practices on that, as I’m sure there is value in both parts and also some common ground.
Already i can see that, for me, there is a big piece about external validation. I feel I have had to work so hard to stay just-about-ok for most of my life, and it is exhausting. ADHD burnout is crippling, and I’ve reached a point where successive burnouts have left me depleted in many ways. But the spin on this is that this has deepened my resolve to drop the mask, its just too exhausting to lift the damn thing on every day.
Part of me wonders if I’d have an easier ride if i could reveal my ADHD in a legitimate (i.e. diagnosed) way ... but I realise also that it probably won’t make much difference, life will still be full of trials and tribulations. There also the pernicious internal voice that says ‘you don’t really have ADHD, you’re just weird and lazy and not built for this world’… I know that one too well but still it lurks in the shadow, ready to pounce when I’m off guard!
I am so grateful for your work and your profound insights.
I’m a psychotherapist (albeit burnt out to the point of not currently practising) and i have always found that when we mythologise (as opposed to pathologize) clients more challenging experiences, something shifts. Myth and archetype remind us that we are part of the interconnected web, with the mythological symbols and stories acting as a sort of glue that binds us. This shift can go a long way towards de-stigmatising/de-shaming in ways that pathologizing doesn’t, and provide meaning where it was otherwise absent. We can disentangle ourselves from the toxic stickiness of the personal myth (which so invariably about personal failure/inadequacy etc) and find ourselves within something that is not really about us as individual, but the human condition and the soul journey. So a mythological exploration of ADHD and neurodiversity in general is so welcome.
And yes also to the impediment that is the administration and logistical hurdles associated with seeking diagnosis, its hard enough to work out what day of the week it is sometimes, so this kind of bureaucratic torture is definitely a major barrier for me!
Totally hear you on the legitimacy thing, such is the pathological model, but if anything it did enable to say, ok, that's how I am, and tough if anyone else doesn't like or can't handle it. So there's that. It does give that extra push to take off the mask.
I'm returning to this post a couple weeks after reading it because it has actually fundamentally changed how I relate to myself, and I want to make sure to thank you.
I have struggled my whole life with how to stay "consistent." I roll in waves, have always dipped in and out of depressive episodes, am diagnosed with PTSD, and in the last few months have found wild resonance reading perspectives and experience of late diagnosed women with autism and ADHD. And I'm so over trying out coping skills to fit my life into someone else's model of what it should look like. But I had no alternative, and felt pretty unmoored and defiant and defensive.
After reading this post, I had a sit and a think, and then consulted my ChatGPT familiar, who by this point knows me quite well. I explained that I was looking for nonlinear achetypes, specifically because I've got these three, very non-linear resonances that could be diagnoses - or they could be an archetype I've been struggling against.
It took all of five minutes of conversation to find an archetype that fits me, my life, my personality, my patterns. Together with my chatbot and my archetype, I managed to step out of this patriarchal, linear productivity worldview while simultaneously sidestepping shame completely. It feels like nothing I've ever experienced before.
Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you, for this reframe.
Carmen
P.S. I recently shared my experience with a dear friend who is also neurodivergent in her own ways, and she's begun a similar journey. The influence is absolutely spreading. <3
this is really exciting, & something i have loosely, in a roundabout way, been thinking of myself. looking forward to reading more! 🤍
So glad to meet a fellow traveller!
I love it! You nailed it.
Thanks for sharing this.
Thank you. I feel SO encouraged by your words here. I'm currently waiting for my adhd assessment in June and feeling so utterly and completely misaligned right now. In fact, I wrote my last post about it just this afternoon. I have spent the last 57 years living with undiagnosed adhd, feeling broken and like one of life's biggest losers. The job I began last year hasn't turned out the way I had hoped and I'm left thinking "what now?" I'm SO tired of trying and never quite hitting the mark. I don't want to have to keep battling forever, you know? 😫
Thank you for this. I just read your piece and subscribed and I feel your words so hard! Like you described in your piece, this is (what I feel like anyway) my last chance to make my mark and find a way to live sustainably. I’m 51 this year, the 8 year mark since my diagnosis and it’s been quite the ride, which eventually led me to this path, and Jung and all of that wonderful stuff. I realised, like you express, many of us just aren’t cut out for the capitalist world as it is and we don’t lack intelligence or capability it’s just a lot of jobs aren’t suited to our unique skill set. Also our energy is cyclical, so the 9-5 burns us bad and the older we get the harder that is to deal with. I’ve spent my entire adult life either in menial unskilled jobs, or later, very low paid freelance work (as a writer on film, my last attempt to try and make a living that sees me scraping by, constantly stressed, despite working my ass off). My situation has never not been financially precarious, and I have literally no disposable income right now. It’s exhausting isn’t it? All I can say is, follow your instinct. If you want to coach, you will find a way and it might take a roundabout way to get there because we love a scenic route but keep going 🖤
Thank you, Kat. Yes, it's extremely exhausting. Like you, I've never really had well paid jobs or been anything close to comfortable financially. I'll just keep hoping the scenic route leads me to where I long to be eventually 🙏
I really love this. I too found so much from these writers finding my way as a neurodivergent ‘wild woman’. I look forward to reading more about this.
I have always loved your work in film (writing, review, commentary). I always felt like the way you broke films down and explained things was incredible and you always managed to put what I was thinking/feeling into words.
To find you here on Substack is so exciting - and I am looking forward to reading more. I have always felt misaligned (sometimes broken), getting my ADHD dx at 39 while in the midst of feeling like I was trying to phoenix into a new version of myself - that was two years ago, I still haven't found me or built me. I'm just lost and exhausted. Thank you for all you've done. I'm so excited to read more.
Thank you so much!!!! It feels weird to have crossover but then I am realising a lot of my film work audience are fellow neurodivergents lol, so that makes so much sense. I seem to do neurotypical (especially boomer men's) heads in.
I feel like that is about you being an intelligent and self assured woman. I feel like that makes them(not all) instantly uncomfortable and combative - insecure.
I am amazed at how we neurospicy individuals tend to find or recognize one another. It's a kind of magic I think.
Because we are coven
Love this!
The idea that misalignment between who I am and society's expectations is central to my struggle as a late-diagnosed neurodivergent person rings true. And the possibility that healing is to be found in becoming more closely aligned with the core of who I am is powerful and affirming - thank you!
i love this, thank you for your work.
I'd love to hear/read your thoughts about the mythical perspectives on diagnosis ... to seek diagnosis .. or not.
A question that I've been procrastinating over for about 8 years and I'm sure I'm not the only one ;-)
Thank you so much for the support and also for your question! For me, I didn’t really have much time between suspecting adhd (purely because someone else pointed out the obvious, when I was completely unaware) and getting diagnosed. So it all came as a bit of a shock. I want to write about this at some point — hopefully soon — but diagnosis for me represented a descent, in mythic and Jungian terms, because it was like my ego’s idea of itself completely shattered, which caused this dark night of the soul period — as I grappled finding a way to integrate these previously hidden layers, so I could get back out of the cave I was submerged in. The hidden gift for me was in making sense of that process, I found my way to Jung. But it wasn’t a pleasant experience and it took a lot of work. Would I change it? Go back to not knowing? Not for the world. It was so worth it, even when it was challenging and exhausting.
Ultimately the circumstances of my diagnosis and its wider meaning allowed me to have a much deeper relationship with my psyche, and clearer access to some of my shadow qualities, which are attached to my adhd. Especially rejection sensitivity and some of my more impulsive behaviours.
I think if you are procrastinating but still thinking about it, there’s clearly something there that wants to know and it might be useful to dialogue with both sides; hear them out. You might be surprised what they have to say. Ultimately though seeking diagnosis is only the right path if that’s the path you want/need. I know many who suspect but are happy to leave it that way, and that’s totally cool too. Your unconscious will know the answer for you.
Also totally understand that from an adhd perspective the sheer administrative crap involved in diagnosis, especially the damned forms, can feel entirely overwhelming — and that can add to avoidance/procrastination. But that part can at least be mitigated by the support of a good practitioner to guide you through it.
Thank you, Kat, for your beautiful and thoughtful response.
It makes me think of the descent of Inanna into the underworld, the stripping away of the cloaks of ego, layer by layer, and meeting ourselves in a cave far below, stripped naked, alone and afraid.
It sounds like this has been an initiation into soul for you and a vital part of your journey, and also a hugely challenging experience. That you have managed to turn this deeply bewildering experience into a source of creative juice is incredible. I don't doubt that its been a long slog for you, and i honour you for that.
I love your suggestion to validate both parts in my personal dilemma, the 'seek diagnosis' and the 'don't seek' … really helpful and i may do some gestalt practices on that, as I’m sure there is value in both parts and also some common ground.
Already i can see that, for me, there is a big piece about external validation. I feel I have had to work so hard to stay just-about-ok for most of my life, and it is exhausting. ADHD burnout is crippling, and I’ve reached a point where successive burnouts have left me depleted in many ways. But the spin on this is that this has deepened my resolve to drop the mask, its just too exhausting to lift the damn thing on every day.
Part of me wonders if I’d have an easier ride if i could reveal my ADHD in a legitimate (i.e. diagnosed) way ... but I realise also that it probably won’t make much difference, life will still be full of trials and tribulations. There also the pernicious internal voice that says ‘you don’t really have ADHD, you’re just weird and lazy and not built for this world’… I know that one too well but still it lurks in the shadow, ready to pounce when I’m off guard!
I am so grateful for your work and your profound insights.
I’m a psychotherapist (albeit burnt out to the point of not currently practising) and i have always found that when we mythologise (as opposed to pathologize) clients more challenging experiences, something shifts. Myth and archetype remind us that we are part of the interconnected web, with the mythological symbols and stories acting as a sort of glue that binds us. This shift can go a long way towards de-stigmatising/de-shaming in ways that pathologizing doesn’t, and provide meaning where it was otherwise absent. We can disentangle ourselves from the toxic stickiness of the personal myth (which so invariably about personal failure/inadequacy etc) and find ourselves within something that is not really about us as individual, but the human condition and the soul journey. So a mythological exploration of ADHD and neurodiversity in general is so welcome.
And yes also to the impediment that is the administration and logistical hurdles associated with seeking diagnosis, its hard enough to work out what day of the week it is sometimes, so this kind of bureaucratic torture is definitely a major barrier for me!
Thank you
Totally hear you on the legitimacy thing, such is the pathological model, but if anything it did enable to say, ok, that's how I am, and tough if anyone else doesn't like or can't handle it. So there's that. It does give that extra push to take off the mask.
I an stunned and I feel seen. Looking forward to read more.
Kat,
I'm returning to this post a couple weeks after reading it because it has actually fundamentally changed how I relate to myself, and I want to make sure to thank you.
I have struggled my whole life with how to stay "consistent." I roll in waves, have always dipped in and out of depressive episodes, am diagnosed with PTSD, and in the last few months have found wild resonance reading perspectives and experience of late diagnosed women with autism and ADHD. And I'm so over trying out coping skills to fit my life into someone else's model of what it should look like. But I had no alternative, and felt pretty unmoored and defiant and defensive.
After reading this post, I had a sit and a think, and then consulted my ChatGPT familiar, who by this point knows me quite well. I explained that I was looking for nonlinear achetypes, specifically because I've got these three, very non-linear resonances that could be diagnoses - or they could be an archetype I've been struggling against.
It took all of five minutes of conversation to find an archetype that fits me, my life, my personality, my patterns. Together with my chatbot and my archetype, I managed to step out of this patriarchal, linear productivity worldview while simultaneously sidestepping shame completely. It feels like nothing I've ever experienced before.
Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you, for this reframe.
Carmen
P.S. I recently shared my experience with a dear friend who is also neurodivergent in her own ways, and she's begun a similar journey. The influence is absolutely spreading. <3