The Real ADHD Conversation: I Still Don't Have a Neat Answer

I am late writing this. Only a couple of days, but I was excited about it, which somehow makes it worse. I had every intention of sitting down and getting it done on time. Then I got sick, got overwhelmed, and fucking moved on. That, in a nutshell, is the story of my life.

My name is Ashlee Richardson, and I am here to tell people how my brain works. Or try to. I still do not have a neat answer.

Quickly, my brain as a kid

I started seeing a psychiatrist when I was very young because of the rituals. I could count into the hundreds before I was five, mostly because I was busy doing things hundreds of times. Toilet seat down, up, down, up. Jumping again and again until I felt the internal lock click and believed everything would be safe. Touching things, tapping, repeating words, praying hard, leaving myself notes to prove I had already done something. My memory is complete dog shit, but I remember that feeling.

At one point a clock radio played beside me all night. As I write this, I am just realizing that may be why I love 1990s alternative rock so much. So at least I got something out of it.

As I got older, the way my mind overwhelmed me changed. The rituals were no longer the whole story. Anxiety, depression, attention, school, pressure: it all became harder to separate. I was also really smart, and I knew it. That was the one part I trusted. Being capable did not stop me from struggling; it just made the struggle more confusing.

Ask me what I wanted to be and the answer could change before I finished the sentence. A cop! A pianist! A tornado chaser! A homicide detective! The FBI! I wanted to save the world. I also could not stand up and speak in front of a crowd without my voice stopping and my breathing going sideways. I could do the work, right up until the work required me to stand there and talk about it. Wild.

Trying to get help

In my twenties, I went through a difficult stretch of psychiatric treatment. I remember one combination leaving me feeling flattened and barely like myself. A later prescription seemed to help me focus and catch up with school for a while. I also remember a frightening period when everything felt far too intense and I needed help. Those are my recollections. They are not proof that one medicine caused everything that happened, and they are not a verdict on anyone else's treatment.

Back then, I changed and stopped medicines on my own. I am not presenting that as brave, clever, or something to copy. Starting, stopping, or changing a medicine should be worked out with the clinician who prescribes it; a pharmacist can help with medicine questions and safe disposal. Unused medicine should be handled according to the label and local take-back or disposal guidance, not flushed as a dramatic exit.

I spent years wanting somebody to explain me to me. Some care felt useful. Some of it felt awful. Every new answer looked like it might finally be the answer. It never was. I can say that without pretending to have solved medicine, psychiatry, or the human brain, and without turning my experience into instructions for somebody else.

The fun stuff, sort of

Restaurant work surprised me. I had spent years imagining jobs with impressive titles and giant purposes, then found that I was good in a place where everything moved. There was always another table, another problem, another thing to make look right. My brain could jump between jobs and, for once, that motion was useful.

Until it wasn't.

Burnout is the other half of being able to do forty-five things at once. For a long time, I noticed only that I could keep going. Then I could not keep up the same way anymore. I am still learning the difference between work that fits my brain and work that eats every bit of it.

I have spent a lot of time looking for explanations: in appointments, labels, routines, food, the internet, and whatever idea had grabbed me that week. I wanted the kind of answer that would gather every strange or painful part of my life into one clean sentence. I do not think I have one. Honestly, I am relieved to stop pretending I do.

What I know is smaller. I talk fast. I am intense. I cannot talk small; it is literally not in me. I make really cool things in spurts. I love cooking and baking. I write. I clean six rooms at once while cooking and writing, which is less of a system than it sounds.

Once, my car had been running outside for two hours because I forgot I was going to get chicken legs for a broth before I sat down and made myself write. That is funny after the car is turned off. It is also a fairly accurate picture of why a tidy daily routine has never been the grand solution people imagine for me.

I am not saying chaos is secretly a gift. Sometimes it is expensive, exhausting, embarrassing, or just a pain in the ass. I am saying I have given up making "change my entire brain" the first item on every list.

I still want work that lets me move and make things. I still need to take burnout seriously. I still start too much, forget ordinary things, get very excited, lose the thread, and find it again somewhere else. I do not know whether any of this adds up to a title or a two-word purpose. I am not sure I need it to.

Maybe I am floating like a feather in the wind. Maybe not. WHO THE FUCK KNOWS. :)

If this brings up thoughts of suicide or you feel you may not be safe, contact local emergency or crisis support now, or reach out to someone you trust who can stay with you while you get help.