A Story of Resilience and Reinvention
In This Article
- The Lows of ADHD
- I Thought I Hated My ADHD
- Life with ADHD: Next Steps
Sometimes I really hate my ADHD. I hate how it makes me perfectionistic, stubborn, and inattentive. Or how it makes me unable to sit still and prone to attempt too many things at once.
Yet sometimes (and more often than not) I love my ADHD and all it’s given me in my 77 years. (I was diagnosed in my 60s.) I love how it makes me creative and an out-of-the-box thinker. I love that it gives me hyperfocus, boundless energy, and tenacity.
But on January 2, 2026, I really hated my ADHD.
The Lows of ADHD
On that day, I tripped on my morning walk and faceplanted onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t stop my momentum and fell into a terrifying plunge that was over before I knew what hit me. There I was, sprawled out on the sidewalk like a snow angel face down, arms and legs outstretched. Tears rolled down my face. I was in shock, stunned and confused and, for one of the few times in my ADHD life, speechless.
My phone, the main reason for the mess I was in, was lying on the sidewalk just out of my reach. My earbuds, the other reason for my mess, were still sitting in my ears with Grupo Bip’s high-energy song “Azucar” blasting through.
[Read: The Transformative Power of an ADHD Diagnosis for Older Women]
I had become a certified Zumba instructor at 71 — thanks, ADHD — and was mentally choreographing a routine for my class later that morning. At the same time, and in my typical ADHD fashion, I was reading about an upcoming ADHD conference that had popped up on my phone. (A fact that makes my trip even more delicious.) I was lost in conference twaddle and minutia. I didn’t stand a chance.
I had been walking Maddie, my dog, like I did every morning. Now she was leaning over me, panting nervously, showering my left arm with drools and occasional wet kisses. With the help of two landscapers, who had witnessed the whole calamity, I righted myself, grabbed Maddie’s leash and made my way back home, unaware of the limp in my gait and the swelling that was growing in my knee.
It was obvious that I had messed up as soon as I walked into my living room — my knee now the size of a grapefruit — my face painted with dark red, blue, purple, and black shadows getting deeper by the moment, a testament to the severity of my collision with the sidewalk.
So it was off to the nearest urgent care center. The verdict: All the marbles in my head were intact but I had fractured my patella. The next thing I knew, my left leg was in a full knee brace. The good news was that it wouldn’t be forever – just eight weeks. The bad news — no doing anything that involves knees, legs, or movement. Yikes!
I had been sidelined, forced to corral my excess energy, my impatience, and my restlessness. The worst of all of it was no Zumba, my indispensable go-to for managing my ADHD. Now what?
I Thought I Hated My ADHD
I thought I hated my ADHD until I realized I didn’t. It only took me 10 weeks after my fall to come to this realization. More precisely, it was on Friday, March 13. My lucky day. It was the day I was set to be freed from my knee brace and crutches. That same day, I acknowledged that, while my ADHD got me into this mess, it also helped me endure it.
You see, for the last couple of months, while my body healed, I had rediscovered and leaned into another passion: writing. Like Zumba, it helps keep my ADHD challenges in check. It’s an activity where my creativity, hyperfocus, and the best parts of me come through.
[Read: Creative Thinking Is an ADHD Specialty]
ADHD creative juices flowing, my tenacity in charge, I would start writing in the morning, before the sun came up, and late into the night, long after the sun set. What was I working on? The final draft of my memoir I had started over a year ago: Embracing you Rollercoaster: Navigating ADHD Across a Lifetime—Challenges and Triumphs.
At the direction of my editor, I filled my final draft with “emotional resonance.” Sitting at my desk, my left leg with its knee brace propped up on a footstool, Maddie laying at my feet, I hyperfocused and wrote. In many ways, my fall — the ADHD-ness of it — had opened the floodgates of vulnerability, the kind my memoir needed. It made it easier to revisit some of the moments in my past that I might rather have forgotten. But I relived them, and I credited my ADHD for giving me the drive and determination to do so.
Like I have done so many times throughout my life, I rewrote the script. While an ADHD moment had slowed me down, it didn’t stop me. In fact, it gave me an opportunity to keep going in a different direction that allowed me to tell my story.
Over the years, I’ve learned to embrace ADHD’s “pain in the ass” and “amazing” moments. They both make up all of me, after all. I am the girl, now the older woman, who strives for flawlessness, who is persistently restless, and who burns the candle at both ends. The same person who always tilts the box to see what’s underneath, who can disappear into a task, who is curious enough to take risks, and who’s spontaneous with a crackle of energy, and a spark that refuses to dim.
Life with ADHD: Next Steps
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