health

Burn Out

| skwarepegrowndhole

21st century life in the Western World seems to be focused on productivity and results. Via our phones we have access to the internet, social media and emails (work and personal) 24 hours a day. Even though it’s not expected of me at all, I know I check work emails in the evening and at weekends. I also struggle to do nothing, and feel that I have wasted a day if I haven’t ‘done’ anything. I’ve put done in quotation marks as a day resting is still doing something, but my 21st century ADHD brain does not see that as doing something meaningful.

It’s been a busy term at work, and it’s been a busy term at home. The summer term always feels very long, and alongside this there are exam & coursework deadlines, tired learners, tired staff, and we have had the knowledge that Ofsted could visit at any time. I was torn between wanting it this term to get it out of the way, even though we were all tired, as it would be before the new inspection standards arrive in September, and hoping it would be at the end of September when everything was new and fresh.

At home, I have been busy studying. My self-imposed deadline to get all of my doctoral research done and in was the end of the term – and I did it. Huge thanks to any colleagues who are reading this who took part in a focus group discussion during a particularly tiring week, and the lovely young people who agreed to tell me their stories. I am so pleased it’s all in – just analysing and writing for the next 18 months now – and that I hit my deadline.

However, all of this meant that when we finally broke up on Tuesday, I was done. I was burnt out. I was so tired and emotional, and I felt ill. I even did a Covid test as I felt as washed out as I had when I had it. Wednesday I listened to my body – still did an Ikea and Costco trip with my grown up children, and had a uni meeting in the evening, but in between I rested. I resisted the urge to pick up a book and read, and to do some crafting. Instead I flopped on the sofa and watched old episodes of ER. Thursday things got a bit messy again, but I ignored my body and didn’t rest, so Friday was a day of relaxed coffees and reading, and then family time in the evening.

It has taken me over 50 years to learn when I was in burn out. Before I used to get cross with myself for not being able to be my best all the time, for getting over emotional or for wasting a day resting. I hope I have taught my children to do it better, to listen to their bodies, to rest when they need to. We don’t have to do everything every day. A day of rest is a day of doing. Turning off our emails and social media is fine – we can catch up later on or tomorrow. We won’t be able to be our best if we are running on empty, or we are out of spoons.

I have learnt self acceptance this week. I am not invincible, I will, and do, burn out when it gets too much. I am learning to rest when I need to. I hope you will too.

what difference does a label make?

| skwarepegrowndhole

I promise this blog won’t end up being just about me and ADHD, but this is another ADHD post!

It’s just over 3 months since I had the official ‘yes, you have ADHD’ conversation, and I can honestly say that is has had a huge, positive impact on my mental health. I obviously haven’t only had ADHD for 3 months, I have had ADHD for the past 53 years so the diagnosis and label didn’t change that at all. The diagnosis didn’t make it appear, it didn’t make it more or make it ‘worse’, but the diagnosis did change how I feel about me, and how I deal with how I feel.

For 53 years, I felt that I wasn’t enough, but I was also too much. I replayed conversations in my head over and over again. I had to stop myself butting in to conversations and finishing other people’s sentences. I felt I had nothing to say, but also had everything to say. People walking too slowly would make me stim, and if someone took to long to explain something obvious, I know my facial expression would show my boredom – this isn’t to be confused with conversations that start with one story and quickly deviate off to all kinds of unexpected places. These are my favourite conversations.

I still replay conversations, I still get fed up with people walking slowly, I will want to butt into conversations and feel all the feelings, but now I know it’s not because I’m broken, or because there’s something wrong with me. I have a brain that is whizzing at 100 miles an hour, focusing on everything and picking up on things that others may not. It’s not a superpower, but it’s me, and I am not broken.

Over the years, I have had multiple conversations with people who don’t want a label or a diagnosis, and I’ve written before that a diagnosis is a lens rather than a label; it allows other people to see and to understand, but I now understand how it also allows us to understand ourselves.

I remember when our eldest had his ADHD diagnosis, and he said it was a relief to know that he wasn’t going crazy, and that it was something that had a name. As well as allowing us to understand him a little more, it allowed him to understand himself. As he’s grown older, but before he left some, he sometimes told me that he may be having an ADHD week, so could I break things down into smaller chunks or instructions, and give specific times that things needed to be done. It could be ‘washing in the washing machine by 9am on Saturday’. This was a direct instruction with a deadline. It made things a little easier for both of us.

I understand the ‘ADHD weeks’ too – some weeks things seem to be more chaotic than others, and when they are like this, I have started using lists in my phone. I have to add a couple of things that I’ve already done so I can tick them off, as this makes the list less daunting, and also gives me a bit of a dopamine hit. I am also more honest about what’s going on with my thought process. In the past, if things didn’t go the way I expected, or if I was upset by something, I would clam up, but then be off with people close to me. Now I explain why I am feeling how I’m feeling, however obscure these feelings may seem when I say them out loud. It’s helping others to understand me, and stops me being stroppy or grumpy over something that can be resolved or understood.

Some have asked me if it was worth going to see my GP and then waiting 15 months for a diagnosis when I am in my 50s. Yes, absolutely yes. I had imposter syndrome about self diagnosis – was I just making excuses, and was I almost belittling the things that people who ‘really’ have ADHD go through? It has been liberating – and also explains why we missed so many signs and behaviours that our children had when they were younger. Your son putting a staple through his finger at 7, just to see if it would go through, doesn’t seem that odd when you did the same thing at the same age.

That saying, many are happy with self diagnosis, and that’s fine. I’m not saying everyone who thinks or knows they have ADHD or are autistic should go and get a diagnosis. It’s about doing what’s right for you.

For me finding out that I definitely have ADHD has been a game changer. I’m not on any medication, it hasn’t changed me that much, but it has allowed me to be kinder on myself, to explain how I’m feeling, and to rest when I am close to burn out.

Do I wish I had found out sooner? I’m not sure. I wish I could go back and hug my younger self and tell me everything would be ok, but I love where I am now, and finding out may have altered my course and led me somewhere else.

I feel I found out at the right time. I have ADHD, my brain is different not less, and I like it.

DIscovering me

| skwarepegrowndhole

On the 1st March 2025, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD. I was 53 and 3 weeks old.

I knew I was, deep down, but there was still doubt. I self diagnosed a few years ago when we were going through diagnoses with our children, but I didn’t tell anyone that I thought I was for ages, as I felt like a fraud. I was jumping on their bandwagon. I couldn’t have ADHD as I was a woman in my 40s. I was just a bit scatty, very messy, had lots of hobbies that I’d started and then got distracted, often felt like I didn’t belong, and the fact that I left everything until the deadline panic hit was because I was lazy.

In January 2024, inspired by a friend who had been diagnosed as an adult and had found it liberating, I spoke to my GP and then the practice mental health nurse, and using NHS ‘Right to Choose’ I was referred to Psychiatry UK and put on their waiting list (I wrote about this last year, to read the post click here). Just over 13 months after my appointment with the nurse, I had my assessment online.

I didn’t know what to expect, which sounds still as, at his request, I sat in with our youngest when he had his assessment. I was really nervous. The doctor was nice, tried to put me at ease, and then he started asking questions. Some of my answers surprised me – one was about how I did at school and in later education. I can’t fail, and I won’t fail. This isn’t because I’m a genius, it’s because I can’t. If I think I’m going to fail, I quit. And if I do a course, I have to do my absolute best and come as close to the top of the class as I can. If I can’t do well, I won’t do. The doctor seemed very interested in that!

Another question I remember clearly was what would I do if all the things on my to do list were completed. If I woke up tomorrow without any spinning plates (my words here, not his), without anything I wanted or needed to do, how would I feel.

I panicked.

I could not (and cannot) imagine having nothing to do.

I must have looked terrified as I stuttered ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. I can’t begin to imagine what that would be like’ as he told me not to worry and we’d move onto another question.

At the end of the assessment, he told me that there is no doubt whatsoever, I have ADHD. The assessment ended, I told my family, and then I went and curled up on my bed, and I cried.

I cried for the 14 year old me who watched the popular girls at school in awe, not knowing how to be like that. I cried for the younger me who always felt like an outsider. I cried for the me who couldn’t get her written work to match her classroom knowledge. I cried for me now, only just beginning to understand that I was never broken, I wasn’t an alien, and I was always enough.

Eight weeks on, and I’m still doing lots of self-reflection. I’m now seeing where I have masked and camouflaged, and I’m still not entirely sure how I can free myself of masking – and I’m pretty sure I will always camouflage and mirror, especially in social situations.

I don’t necessarily wish I’d gone for diagnosis earlier as I am happy with where I am and who I am, and even if I did regret, it wouldn’t change anything. However, I wish I could go back and hug my younger self and tell me it will all be ok. I also wish I could go back to when our children were little and realise that the behaviour I saw as normal wasn’t normal for everyone. It’s hard to see atypical behaviour when in your world it’s typical. But I didn’t know then, and I have to forgive myself.

This brings me to getting a little political. In a week when RFK Jr has talked so negatively about autism in the US, and Farage as spoken about over diagnosis in the UK, it’s important to remember that there hasn’t been a huge increase in neurodivergent conditions, we’re just beginning to see them. When I was at school in the 1980s, nobody talked about ADHD, and it definitely wasn’t something that would affect an academic, well-behaved girl, so I was missed. There is a meme on social media saying that before 1930, nobody knew about Pluto – but it was still there! It didn’t suddenly appear, it just hadn’t been seen or discovered. It’s the same with ND conditions. And as they usually have a genetic link, quite often a child is diagnosed, and then the parent(s) have a lightbulb moment, and also get assessed – and then you look at other members of the family who were seen as being a bit ‘quirky’, and suddenly it all makes sense.

ADHD, Autism and other ND conditions are not diseases, they are not caused by vaccines, they are not caused by chemtrails or anything else like that. They are a different way of thinking, being and processing. We are different, not less. We have been here since our ancestors came out of Africa, and probably before that. We’re just not hiding any more.

I’m back!!

| skwarepegrowndhole

I really enjoy blogging – I find it cathartic and a positive way to connect with people. When I blog regularly (or semi-regularly) it helps me manage my mental health, and from the comments and messages I get, it helps some of you as well. But sometimes life gets in the way, and then the habit of blogging slips. When I get out of the habit, it feels like it’s been ages since I wrote anything, so I put it off for another week, and another week, and then life gets in the way again, and then here we are, almost a year since I last wrote anything.

My hope is that I will spend Sunday mornings when it’s just me and the dogs awake to write – I’m not promising a blog post every week as I have other writing projects I’d like to get started, but most weeks (fingers crossed).

So, what’s been going on since last May? Well, I officially have ADHD – I had my appointment on the 1st March, and it was quite an emotional hour but at the end I was told that I definitely have ADHD. The relief was huge, and the mental and emotional rollercoaster since then has been a little turbulent, but worth it. I’ll write more about this and the impact it’s had on my well being in my next blog post.

My research has finally got ethics approval, so this starts in about 3 weeks, which is incredibly exciting. To think that 3 years ago I didn’t know about the EdD program at the University of Sheffield, and now I’m coming to the end of the third academic year, about to start interviewing and talking to participants, and within 18 months I could (although it may take longer) have a finished thesis. Exciting but very busy times lie ahead.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 have both had other diagnoses in the last year – both are ASD and ADHD although they both present very differently, which is no surprise. I think it’s been a relief to both of them to know that what they suspected was right, and that the missing pieces in their understanding of themselves are now there, more or less. Diagnoses are there to help us understand ourselves better, as well as for others to understand. If we struggle to know who we are and how we function, it becomes hard to advocate for ourselves – another future post will look into this in more detail.

I want to build Skware Peg as a community for anyone who feels that they don’t quite belong withing societal expectations. Diagnoses are not needed, and I want this to be an accepting, safe place for everyone – especially with what’s happening in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK.

If you have any suggestions for future posts, please message or comment.

And now it’s my turn

| skwarepegrowndhole

I am 52 years old, and I have always felt like I was on the outside looking in. Unless I am really comfortable in your company, I feel awkward in social situations. I am so messy, I go from one hobby to another, I lose my keys, bag, glasses, phone on an almost hourly basis (and I regularly look for my phone while talking to someone on said phone) and I never feel that I am enough, or that I do enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I have self confidence & self belief. I know my value, and I know that I am good at my job, that I can do almost anything I put my mind to, and I am a fixer (clothes, fencing, DIY, people…), but I often feel that I am different. It’s my normal, and I just thought it was one of those things. Then I had children who ended up being diagnosed with ADHD, ASD and dyslexia and I started to wonder. Both of them are now seeking adult diagnoses for other conditions, and I felt that, ever so slowly, that maybe, just maybe, there was a reason that I felt how I felt.

I read lots of articles, looked into the epigenetic basis for neurodivergences, and so I started saying ‘I think I have ADHD’. That felt ok, I didn’t feel like a fraud, so then I said I was self diagnosed with ADHD. Again, it felt ok. However, it still didn’t feel enough. Some people raised an eyebrow, but I am my own worst critic. On dark days, I doubted self diagnosing. I felt I was just making excuses for a messy house, for not completing tasks, for feeling overwhelmed with life, for having a burn out day. Self diagnosis wasn’t enough. I needed to do more.

Inspired by my children, I did a few more online assessments, and then I emailed the GP. I had a phone consultation with the mental health nurse, and then through NHS Right to Choose, I was referred to Psychiatry UK back in January.

I heard nothing, so my self doubt came back. Maybe I didn’t have enough symptoms to be referred, maybe it was all just in my head and I was just a very a scatty messy person. I messaged the GP admin people who said they would look into it, and still I heard nothing.

And then today, I had several emails, one of which contained the following sentence:

Great news! We have reviewed and accepted your referral for your ADHD assessment.

I almost cried. My referral has been accepted. I am going to get an ADHD assessment. I am not broken. I am finally going to get an answer.

I read the following poem recently on Insta, it’s by Jessica Jocelyn (letters.to.anna on Insta), and it sums it all up so well.

behind every late diagnosed woman

is a little girl

who knew this world

was never made for her

but could never explain why.

I have supported my children through their battles, and I will continue to do so, but now it’s my turn. I need to support myself, I need to be kind to myself, and I need to battle for myself as I have battled for everyone else.

It’s my turn now.