Life after ADHD diagnosis

After diagnosis, there’s often a second phase that catches people off guard. The appointment is over, the relief is real, and then the dust settles. What you’re left with isn’t just information — it’s a new element of identity that has to be integrated.

Some people can take that in their stride. They can accept the diagnosis, make a few adjustments, and get on with life. If that’s you, it usually suggests you’re already secure in yourself and don’t need the label to grant you permission to exist as you are.

That wasn’t my experience. It was probably not an accident that I was already reading about self-acceptance when all this happened. One thing that surprised me was how stable the early relief felt. I half-expected the pride to fade and for my mind to start looping through implications and “what now?” questions in its usual way.

It didn’t and I think that was partly down to how the psychiatrist framed ADHD: not as a deficit, but as a set of traits with real upsides — even using the language of a superpower. That framing mattered because it gave me a stance. I felt determined to be positive about it. Not everyone likes the superpower framing, by the way, but it worked for me.

There was another knock-on effect, too. If you’re someone with relatively low filters, people can usually tell when you’re genuinely happy. My sense is that my immediate family felt relief simply from seeing me lighter.

A few months later, I caught up with an old mate from work. My diagnosis was one of the first things he asked about, and afterwards he messaged to say how good it was to see me looking so happy.

Boundaries

A formal diagnosis can also change the internal permission structure. It can make it easier to name a need without feeling as though you’re making excuses, and to own accommodations without apologising for them.

The first new feeling for me was exactly that: I felt more able to be assertive about my needs and to state them plainly.

There was an early, small example that mattered. I was preparing for a meeting where I was struggling to hold all the words for a speech in my head. I told the organiser that I would be referring to my script as a prompt. It felt scary in that anticipatory way — a cocktail of apprehension, excitement, pride, and relief — but the person was absolutely fine and supportive. Afterwards, it felt good. Not because it was dramatic, but because it was honest.

Visibility

Another decision point after diagnosis is whether to be open about it. Some people choose privacy. Some choose selective disclosure. Some choose openness. I decided I was going to be open about my ADHD professionally.

Part of that was practical as I already had a platform. Part of it was my values as I wanted to use that platform for good. But underneath that was a deeper shift that I didn’t fully understand until after the fact.

Shame

Before diagnosis, many people with ADHD carry a particular kind of shame. I’d read Brené Brown on shame and understood it intellectually, but I don’t think I connected with it viscerally. It was like knowing the words to a song but not the tune.

As my diagnosis began to sink in, I noticed that the relief felt like something had slipped away. What I eventually realised was that the thing slipping away was shame.

It’s the feeling that you find something really hard that everyone else seems to do easily — and you conclude, quietly, that you are wrong inside. A bad person. A bad professional. Less-than.

Diagnosis didn’t magically fix the effort required to function. But it changed what that effort meant. It stopped being “evidence that I’m flawed” and became “evidence that I’ve been coping”.

Models

Work culture can intensify that shame because of the kinds of role models it implicitly rewards. Over a long career, you can end up surrounded by people who look like planning and efficiency personified.

I’ve spent nearly twenty-eight years working for technology companies and, objectively, I’ve had a really good career. But the corporate role models you’re typically shown are what I’d call brushed-aluminium cyber professionals — miracles of planning and efficiency.

I always looked at those people and felt a bit inadequate by comparison, even when my own career eventually overtook theirs. The people who inspired me were usually the outliers: the mavericks who reached the upper echelons despite not being quite like everyone else. They gave me hope that being different didn’t preclude building a strong career.

Movement

Another common theme in corporate life is a quiet suspicion of variety-seeking. Wanting change can be framed as a lack of commitment, rather than a genuine need for stimulation and challenge.

I’ve been made to feel a few times over the years that getting professionally “itchy feet” — wanting variety — was a bad thing. I can see how, from a management perspective, there’s pressure to coax people into similarly shaped roles and keep things stable.

But in large multinationals, I often felt like a square peg in a round hole. I tended to do slightly anomalous roles that needed a different kind of thinking or focus. I also moved around because once the initial breakthrough had been made, the steady state could leave me cold. One manager accused me of “flitting” when I said I needed a change after nearly three years.

Expression

Once diagnosis gave me a clearer framework, it also gave me a direction for expression. If you’re creative by inclination, it’s natural to turn experience into something structured and shareable.

Writing has always been an outlet for me, so I announced my ADHD via a blog on Medium and shared it on LinkedIn. I didn’t feel frightened in the moment. I’m not sure whether that was because I’d committed to the cause and didn’t give myself time to dwell, or because I genuinely felt sure. I wrote, published, shared, and let it be known.

The motivation wasn’t just self-expression. It was also the idea that if I could be a visible example, it might relieve a bit of shame for other people. I can’t lie, there is a bit of me inside also that likes to challenge people and see if they would walk the talk about diversity and inclusion.

Impact

One of the unexpected things about speaking openly is that you receive evidence, almost immediately, of how many people are carrying similar feelings privately.

After that first post, someone messaged me with a highlighted screenshot from something I’d written about shame and simply said: “that’s me”. They also sent me a poem they’d written about themselves but hadn’t shared with anyone. To say I felt humbled would be an understatement.

In typical ADHD fashion, that initial reward triggered more. I experimented with short reels on my Instagram and Facebook pages (which I already run through my DJing). I enjoyed making them because it felt like being able to speak and get things out of my head without regret. I also made short videos about common ADHD terms and ways of thinking about ADHD.

What surprised me was the range of people who got in touch. One person contacted me to say their eight-year-old had just been diagnosed, and they’d shown him my videos to help him understand. That absolutely blew my mind.

Momentum

Whatever you choose to do with diagnosis ultimately is about you and what your motivation was behind it. You may choose to do nothing with it, use it quietly to develop yourself and your confidence, or it might be a catalyst for a new pursuit.

People’s reactions, in general, were amazing. There are some unhelpful things you realise that people say, but by and large people understand a lot more than I expected in my case.

Diagnosis didn’t just change how I saw myself. It changed what I felt able to do with my voice. This is part of what led me here: to this podcast, and to talking about this in a more structured way.