The following piece is something I wrote a while ago. I have, unfortunately left it on the backburner since 2021. As life begin to life-ing it became something not short of "out of sight out of mind". I am on a journey to do the things that brings me joy so here goes something.
In psychology, we learn that people seek help when the coping methods they’ve been using stop working — when whatever is troubling them starts interfering with their life.
For a long time, I thought I was just lazy. If I put my mind to something, it should happen. My limbs work, so why can’t I? There are days I can’t make it out of bed in the morning. The only reason I get up is because I have to go relieve myself.
We’ve been living in a pandemic hell for almost 24 months. And yet, 2020 was a great year for me. I finally became bachiller en psicología, suma cum laude probate. I worked so hard for that, and still I feel undeserving of the title. It’s like I’m missing pieces — like I still don’t know enough. There’s no way I could have pulled that off. Unreal. But it’s mine. That’s my name on that piece of paper.
When nothing seemed to be changing, I packed up and came home, planning to return a later date. That’s where I made my first mistake: I bought a one-way ticket. Meaning I’m still on the island. From the moment I arrived, I blew through my savings and was left with nothing. There was always something — always something to be fixed. And since I was here, why not try to fix it? But that came at the expense of my finances and mental health. The compulsive need to make things right.
I felt guilty saying, “No, I can’t spend this,” so I said nothing. Before I knew it, I was jobless and cashless.
Coming home after years abroad comes with its own challenges. Reverse culture shock is a real phenomenon. You have to go through the process of getting to know your family all over again. It’s especially difficult when your family is challenging. When you live in the same town your whole life, it’s easy to forget there’s a bigger world out there.
It became harder to hold myself together. I had been on my own for a long time, and suddenly I was expected to do things that weren’t normal to me. So I kept forgetting. I wanted to do them — I really did — but adapting takes time. My relatives couldn’t understand that, and we kept clashing. I couldn’t disagree with them without it turning into a complete disaster. I developed anxiety — the kind I hadn’t felt in years. To avoid conflict, I tried to keep to myself, but I kept getting yelled at. I was already dealing with so much in my head. I didn’t need the yelling. On the outside it looked like I was being lazy and refusing to help share the load.
I felt a sensory overload — I don’t know how else to describe it. Eventually, even lashing out took too much mental energy. I would remove myself physically from the situation, but I couldn’t take the situation out of my head. I replayed every argument over and over, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Even when I looked calm on the outside, my mind was flipping through different scenarios, making me more upset.
We don’t talk about feelings. We avoid each other until one of us offers the other food. Toxic, but somehow functional.
After a few months, I felt it in my throat — that tightness you get right before you cry. I was fuzzy, constantly on alert, like I was holding back a panic attack. I went to get a referral so I could make an appointment with a therapist. I put it off for so long that the referral expired. I procrastinated so much that I made first contact and never followed through.
I’m not lazy. I might have ADHD.
A couple of weeks ago on TikTok, someone mentioned the word “fixation,” and I immediately recognized it in myself. A small light went on. Oh, I know this pattern. I do this a lot. Then I stumbled upon Jessica McCabe — her TED Talk about adulting with ADHD. A bigger light went on. So many of the symptoms I’ve been experiencing could be explained by this.
It felt impossible, though. My best friend has been diagnosed for years, and I’m the total opposite of her. She’s loud and impulsive; I’m clumsy but organized, soft-spoken, and put together. So no way I could have ADHD. Or so I thought.
Well, right after I finished that sentence, I forgot what I was going to say.
So now I need to make an appointment to get evaluated. I keep forgetting because I’m embarrassed. And disappointed. How did I fly under the radar for so long in environments full of mental health and education professionals? Is it because I’m Black? Because I’m a woman? Or both? And yes, I’m playing the gender card and the race card.
This diagnosis could explain so much:
Why it takes so much for me to get going.
Magical thinking when it comes to time.
Procrastination.
Sensory sensitivity.
Social awkwardness.
Tardiness.
Rejection anxiety.
Emotional fatigue
Hyperfixation.
Bad financial habits.
Daydreaming
I went back to Jessica’s videos and checked more boxes. I ended up in the Berkeley research database. I asked myself: how could I, a psychologist my self, not notice these symptoms? I spent so many years studying from the clinical point of view instead of the patient’s.
It’s not clear to me why this is called “attention deficit disorder.” It should be named something else. I don’t have an attention deficit. I sat at this table in an obsessive burst and wrote not one but three blogs without sleeping — pulling all-nighters — because I knew I’d put it off and forget.
19th of November 2021
Future me here, 3th of August 2026. I did put it off and forgot about it. It is now 5 years later. If you made it this far, thank you so much for being here. A lot has happened in these past years and I can't wait to tell you about it. See you next time. xo Leyla.
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