Perhaps not surprisingly, I wasn’t a popular kid. The simple truth is that other kids didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them. It seemed to me that everyone had been given a user guide to life, except for me. I was fortunate not to get bullied. I did, however, feel excruciatingly invisible. I am not writing this to inspire pity. My journey through life has simply had its unique obstacles, as so many others have experienced to a lesser or greater extent.

Looking back, it would have been helpful to that little girl if someone had noticed my “differences”. Apart from being labeled gifted and being allowed to work through the school’s curriculum independently and my parents being encouraged to let me skip a grade, no other support was given, no diagnosis was ever sought. After all, my grades were excellent, and I was not disruptive in class. In hindsight, I also had all the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and neurodivergence.

At the end of 2021, shortly after moving back to my hometown after a decade of living abroad, I got my ADHD diagnosis. It set in motion a period of mourning, mourning the life that could have been. I went through the 5 stages of grief and then finally, I started my journey to living with purpose. I slowly discovered and rediscovered parts of who I am. I could never have predicted how the diagnosis would end up impacting every area of my life. It has certainly been eventful, painful at times but always liberating.