Why a Crisis Feels Easier Than an Email

You're not bad at concentrating. In fact, after some procrastination, you can find yourself surprisingly engrossed for hours, only to find the cats staring at you as you leave your study to nip for a pee because you've missed their feeding time.

You can research a subject to PhD level simply because it piques your interest. There is no prize at the end. It has just become a sudden fascination.

Washing your bedding, watering the plants or replying to emails can all take up space in your head for days before they get actioned. A full on crisis? You're there. You're clear headed and know exactly what needs to happen. You are the person everybody wants in a crisis.

You're great at storytelling and can open four threads within one story, then land them all by the end. You've just got to hold on through the twisty path until it all makes sense.

You're great at puttering. A new word I discovered that describes the ability to go from room to room as a new task pops into your mind. You get to the next room to collect the thing you needed for the first task, only to be reminded of something else you want to do. On a mentally challenging day, it can feel overwhelming. On a good day, it feels like fun as you eventually close each loop and discover you got a shitload done by the end of the day, although definitely in a quirky, skipping about order.

On a random Tuesday morning, you remember the exact expression on someone's face during a conversation fifteen years ago and wonder whether they were being unkind.

Your gut feeling solves true crime dramas ten minutes in. It has you withdrawing from inauthentic people or solve a friend's business problem in two minutes, all before any of it makes intellectual sense.

A conversation about sleep reminds you of something you read about hormones, which connects to a client's digestive symptoms and suddenly explains a problem you have been quietly turning over for weeks.

You finish watching a documentary, only to spend the next two weeks reading, watching and researching everything and everyone in it until you've formed your own view. You want the whole goddamn pie, not just a slice.

Life throws up a curveball and your brain comes alive as you see a whole new pathway appears. You often see exciting possibilities where other people feel stuck.

You might be an adult like me who recognises yourself in these habits long before you recognise yourself in the usual descriptions of ADHD.

Particularly if you're a woman.

Particularly if you're a woman in your forties or fifties with changing hormone levels and the scaffolding that once helped mask the somewhat chaotic way your brain loves to function is suddenly falling away.

You might be like me, in that your mind and creativity are the things that need exercising and wearing out each day. You don't fit the very limited characterisation of ADHD as the child who runs around the classroom, climbs everything in sight and is completely unable to sit still.

My mind can't be still.

If I haven't started a new book, research project, interest or hobby within the last six months, I feel listless, flat and uninspired by life.

No matter how tired I am, you can guarantee I'll feel even more tired if I don't engage with life. More rest is rarely the whole answer, even in burnout, which is incredibly common in neurodivergence. Living in curiosity with something meaningful or interesting to chew on helps the more mundane day to day stuff get done with enthusiasm too!