A Year of "ADHD Made Me Do It"

reflecting on the year so far and revisiting how and why it all started

Hello fellow cultivator,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a relaxing and restful end of the year and that your 2024 is off to a lovely start!

A year ago, I started this Substack to cultivate a space where I could share my neurodivergent experience as I try my very best to make sense of my ADHD and C-PTSD diagnosis. I wrote about Masking, My Journey with RSD, and my Struggles with Decision-Making, among other topics, hoping to make others with a similar-ish experience feel seen, heard, and validated. I know from personal experience that it is always nice to know that you are not alone.

Another reason for this Substack, which I never said aloud to anyone, including myself, is/was slightly convoluted. You see, at the beginning of last year, I made a choice to figure out who I am or who I want to be outside of my career. It is hard to put it in a single sentence, but I was raised to believe that what you do for work and your financial stability is everything. Consequently, I spent most of my life focusing on school, followed by working hard to further my career. In fact, I built my life around my job. I used to define work as the most basic foundation of my being - YEP! If something slightly annoying or terrible happened at work, I would be devastated for days/months. In fact, until a few years ago, a bad meeting or critical feedback would leave me feeling like a failure.

This little Substack, along with multiple other projects, was a part of my attempt at redefining myself without my career as a software engineer at the center of it all. I signed up for multiple gardening workshops and started growing my own food. I started painting again, on a regular basis, after putting down my paintbrushes for more than 15 years (and now you can see a glimpse of my artwork in this space). I even started a podcast. I went mushroom foraging, finally! And now, hiking is a whole other adventure because I have to stop and capture all those pretty fungi.

Side note: last night, I wanted a salad with my meal, so I just walked to my vegetable garden, grabbed a couple of Swiss chard leaves, carrots, and cilantro, and made myself a salad! ALL FROM MY BACKYARD! Not bad, right? It makes me so happy; I am smiling even now as I write about it.

These projects were all in addition to my regular 9 to 5 (I got bills to pay!). Long story short, in classic ADHD fashion, I signed up for too much, which led to some burnout and unplanned breaks from this Substack. Moreover, I completely forgot why I was doing all these things to begin with. However, that didn’t stop me from signing up for more - workshops, classes, projects, DIYs, etc. I would like to blame it on executive dysfunction and impulsivity. Honestly, I am not even sure if I was actively processing my mental state as I was signing up for all these things. 

Now, this isn’t to say that I am done with the self-discovery process or that I can clearly define myself without my career now. Nope, and heck no! I mean, I still have to work on that series on executive dysfunction - the one that I have been promising for half a year now, LOL. 

I am sharing this because the new year and my first Substack anniversary is an ideal time to revisit my intentions behind ADHD Made Me Do It. It is also an excellent time to thank all 405(!!!!) of you, including my dear friends and family (most of whom were added without a choice), for your time and attention. I am so glad you decided to join and stick around this dopamine-seeking corner of my world. Your support means more than you can imagine. I don’t have a content plan for the year or fully flushed-out strategies to avoid burnout (I am working on it, receiving suggestions, though). However, I can promise to share my new (and old) hyperfixations, whatever is consuming my neurospicy brain, and always ALWAYS share pictures of my goofy dogs.

Speaking of goofy dogs, here’s a snapshot of my December break.

December with these goofballs!