One of my biggest struggles day to day is facing the reality of what living feels like. Growing up, I struggled immensely with chronic boredom it sent me into unhealthy situations and doing things just for the sake of it. Having ADHD means your body craves stimulation, something exciting, liberating, change, and accomplishments, but outside of my body, all I mentally crave is peace and the ability to have control. The reason why so many people with ADHD end up being misdiagnosed with depression is because peace can often make life feel cyclic, boring and meaningless. So today, I’d like to speak to you about why finding purpose has helped me to escape the chaos that lies at the heart of fuelling my condition.
It’s easy; the body wants a lot of things: comfort, sex, food and rest. But when the body craves dopamine, we spend our lives being led by the need to feel good. What is a life driven solely by our bodies and not our minds? I am my flesh, but I also desire to be patient, compassionate, peaceful, unrushed and unfazed by the world. The literal opposite of the realities of an attention disorder. ADHD isn’t the lack of attention that many like to assume it is; it’s the inability to control your attention, which makes getting work and menial tasks done very hard at times. I’ve often asked myself is this all life is: living, existing, working, attempting to have fun and doing it all over again. That didn’t seem like enough to me, really if I’m being honest, when I left uni I was disappointed, I love my job, my friends and my family. But life had to have more purpose than just simply existing. So there we were, chasing excitement and momentary joys in people and situations, rather than instantiating into something built, long-term, impactful and healthy.
That’s when things finally changed for me, genuinely realising, that although I craved a dopamine rush, I understood the consequences of fuelling it. I finally grasped the realities of what ADHD felt like, it felt like a never-ending rollercoaster that I’d do anything to get off. Things are hard to change especially when forming habits feels like the literally hardest thing ever. But I began to think about what my life truly reflected, and was the asked question what does your life stand for?
When life feels meaningless, think about what your life stands for and STAND FOR IT. If that’s giving to others, if that’s reading, if that’s a physical activity, if that’s teaching. For me, it’s the reminder that it’s always mind over matter and anything is possible; I encourage myself to write and speak about my neurodiversity because I know the realities of being different. Standing for something fuels you to not want to leave this world unchanged, even if that’s just impacting one person. Even if that’s just improving one day in someone’s life, life has meaning. You’ll meet a lot of people in this life just trying to make it through the day, some who live in a bubble and can only see themselves, others who never seem to live for themselves. It’s so easy to get lost in it all, especially when giving into every desire feels so good in the moment and easy. For me, it feels like a train being derailed from its final destination, or as others like to put it, self-sabotage.
With this I say to you, for me some days ADHD feels like a burden, some days it feels like a superpower. But this is your reminder no matter what you are experiencing, or how cyclic life feels there is meaning.
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