This is another great article from the Facebook group ADHD Explained. It really hit home and summarises how my own mind thinks, and how I am working on accepting myself the way I am.
For years, I genuinely believed everyone lived the way I did.
I thought everyone replayed the same seven seconds of a song in their head for hours. I thought everyone could listen to someone talk while mentally planning dinner, reorganizing their entire future, and wondering if they locked the door — all at the same time. I thought everyone walked into a room and immediately forgot why they were there.
It felt normal because it was my normal.
No one hands you a comparison chart for how other brains operate. You assume your internal chaos is universal. So when people said, “Just focus,” I assumed they were working with the same noise level I was. I thought they were just better at handling it.
I didn’t know their brains were quieter.
I used to think procrastinating until the last possible second was just a personality flaw. I told myself I “worked better under pressure.” And technically, I did. But what I didn’t understand was that urgency was the only thing strong enough to cut through the mental static. Without pressure, my brain didn’t wake up. With pressure, it snapped into clarity.
I thought that was discipline.
It wasn’t.
I thought constantly overexplaining myself was maturity. I believed if I just added more detail, more context, more reassurance, people would finally understand me. What I didn’t realize was that I was trying to prevent rejection before it could happen. My brain was scanning for social threats long before they existed.
I thought that was being thoughtful.
It was anxiety mixed with emotional dysregulation.
I thought zoning out mid-conversation meant I didn’t care enough. So I would nod, smile, try to piece together what I missed from context clues. I felt guilty about it. I never considered that my attention didn’t disappear because I was rude. It disappeared because my brain filtered stimulation differently.
I thought everyone felt physically restless even when sitting still. I thought everyone needed to move their legs, tap their fingers, shift in their chair. I thought everyone felt exhausted from thinking all the time.
Turns out… not everyone does.
The hardest realization wasn’t learning I had ADHD.
It was realizing how long I blamed myself for things that were neurological patterns.
I blamed myself for being “too sensitive.”
For being “too intense.”
For starting projects with explosive excitement and abandoning them halfway.
For needing interest to function.
For struggling with “simple” tasks that seemed effortless to others.
I thought I lacked willpower.
What I lacked was understanding.
When you grow up undiagnosed, you build an identity around coping. You become the overachiever, the funny one, the chaotic creative, the last-minute miracle worker. You don’t see symptoms. You see personality.
Until one day, something clicks.
You read a description.
You hear someone explain executive dysfunction.
You learn about dopamine and interest-based motivation.
You hear someone describe rejection sensitivity so precisely it feels uncomfortable.
And suddenly the puzzle pieces rearrange.
It’s not that you were broken.
It’s that your brain was wired differently the entire time.
And maybe the most emotional part of all is this: you weren’t failing at being normal. You were surviving in a system that wasn’t built for how you function.
So I’ll ask you the same question this image asks:
What’s something you used to think was “normal”… until you realized it was your ADHD?
The song loops?
The screenshot graveyard?
The all-or-nothing productivity?
The doorframe collisions?
The constant mental commentary?
You’re not alone in it.
Sometimes the most powerful moment isn’t the diagnosis.
It’s the recognition.
Because recognition turns shame into context.
