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The ADHD Circle, Melksham (2026)

24/01/2026

🙌🏼

23/01/2026

MYTH:
“If she was really struggling, someone would’ve noticed.”

REALITY:
They did notice.
They just misread what they were seeing.

Many women labelled as “high-functioning” weren’t functioning better, they were compensating harder.

Here’s what often gets missed 👇

• Over-preparing isn’t organisation, it’s anxiety-driven survival
• Perfectionism isn’t a personality trait, it’s a buffer against being exposed
• People-pleasing isn’t kindness, it’s a regulation strategy
• Being “good at coping” often means burning out quietly

From the outside, it looks like:
✔ reliable
✔ capable
✔ successful
✔ emotionally “together”

On the inside, it often feels like:
✖ constant mental overload
✖ chronic exhaustion
✖ fear of dropping the ball
✖ shame when the system finally breaks

Girls are praised for being:
• compliant
• helpful
• adaptable
• emotionally aware

So they learn early to mask, not because they’re thriving, but because being “difficult” isn’t safe.

By the time ADHD is considered, it’s often after:
– anxiety diagnoses
– depression labels
– burnout
– motherhood
– career collapse
– or complete nervous system overload

And then people ask:
“But you’ve managed this far…?”

Yes.
At enormous cost.

This is the masking paradox:
The better you adapt to survive,
the less likely anyone is to recognise you needed support in the first place.

If this reframes how you understand yourself, or someone you love, you’re not imagining it.
You were never “too functional” to need help.
You were just very, very good at hiding the impact.

(And no, this post isn’t about resilience.
It’s about the systems that reward self-erasure.)

23/01/2026

My ADHD was hiding in plain sight, behind perfectionism

For years, my ADHD went unnoticed, not because it wasn’t there,
but because I became very, very good at compensating for it.

Not in messy, chaotic ways people expect ADHD to show up…
but in ways that looked like:
• perfectionism
• over-preparation
• relentless standards
• always being “the reliable one”
• never letting anything slip (publicly)

From the outside, I looked organised, capable, high-achieving.
From the inside, everything was held together with effort, fear & constant self-monitoring.

What no one saw was:
How much energy it took to appear effortless.
How many systems I built just to survive my own brain.
How many nights I lay awake replaying mistakes no one else even noticed.

I wasn’t driven by ambition.
I was driven by compensation.

Perfectionism wasn’t a personality trait, it was a strategy.
A way to make sure no one saw the chaos I was working so hard to contain.

And because it worked…
No one thought to ask why it was so hard in the first place.

Not teachers.
Not clinicians.
Not even me.

I went through three psychology degrees, worked in mental health, supported others
& still didn’t recognise my own ADHD.

Because I didn’t look like the stereotype.
I looked like someone who was coping.

But “coping” is not the same as thriving.

Late diagnosis didn’t suddenly give me a new brain.
It gave me a new lens.

One that allowed me to see:
I wasn’t failing at being disciplined enough.
I was surviving in systems not built for how my mind works.

And suddenly, all that perfectionism made sense, not as strength or flaw, but as adaptation.

If this sounds familiar, let me say this clearly:
You don’t have to fall apart to deserve support.
You don’t have to be visibly struggling for your experience to be real.
And looking like you’re coping doesn’t mean it isn’t costing you.

At The ADHD Circle, this is what we mean by flipping the script:
Not asking “why can’t you cope like everyone else?”
But asking “what have you been doing just to survive this far?”

22/01/2026

The relief & the grief of a late ADHD diagnosis

No one warned me that getting a late ADHD diagnosis would feel like this.

Yes, there was relief.
Relief that I wasn’t broken.
Relief that there was a name for what I’d been carrying.
Relief that there was finally a lens that made my life make sense.

But there was grief too.
And it hit just as hard.

Grief for:
• the child who thought she was “too much”
• the teenager who learned to mask instead of ask for help
• the adult who blamed herself for burnout
• the years spent forcing myself into shapes that hurt

Because once you know…
You can’t unknow.

You start seeing your past through a different lens:
That wasn’t laziness.
That wasn’t a character flaw.
That wasn’t a lack of discipline.

That was a nervous system surviving in a world that didn’t speak its language.

And that realisation is both freeing and devastating.

There’s also anger.
Anger at the systems that missed it.
At the stereotypes that hid it.
At the research that didn’t look like me.
At the quiet expectation that women should just cope better.

Late diagnosis doesn’t just give you answers.
It asks you to mourn the cost of not having them sooner.

And yet…
There is something gentle growing alongside the grief.

Self-compassion.
Permission.
A softer way of relating to myself.
A life that no longer has to be built on shame.

Both can be true:
You can be grateful for clarity & heartbroken for what it took to get here.

If you’re in this place too, feeling relieved & sad at the same time, you’re not doing diagnosis “wrong.”

You’re finally seeing the full picture.

And that changes everything.

22/01/2026

Why I had to unlearn what I learned about ADHD

I have three psychology degrees.
I trained in mental health.
I was taught how to assess, diagnose, formulate & treat.

And yet…
I still didn’t recognise my own ADHD.

That’s not because I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s because the version of ADHD I was taught didn’t look like me.

I learned ADHD as:
• a list of symptoms
• a disorder to be managed
• a problem located in the individual
• something you treat so the person can fit the system

What I wasn’t taught nearly enough about was:
• how ADHD adapts
• how it masks
• how it hides behind competence
• how it shows up in women
• how trauma, culture & context shape it
• how much suffering comes from the environment, not the brain

So when I struggled, I didn’t think:
“This might be ADHD.”

I thought:
“I’m not coping properly.”
“I should manage this better.”
“I must be failing at being disciplined.”

Professional training gave me language.
But lived experience gave me truth.

It was only when I was diagnosed later in life that everything shifted.

Not because I suddenly “had” ADHD…
But because I finally had a framework that explained why living felt so hard in ways no model had ever captured for me before.

I realised something uncomfortable:
Much of what I’d been taught was useful, but incomplete.

Because traditional models often ask:
“What’s wrong with you?”

But lived experience demands a different question:
“What happened to you & what are you navigating daily in a world not built for you?”

This is why at The ADHD Circle we don’t centre fixing brains.
We centre understanding contexts, nervous systems, power & meaning.

I didn’t reject my education.
I expanded it.

By letting lived experience challenge theory.
By letting compassion outrank compliance.
By letting people be experts in themselves.

And honestly?
That’s where the real learning began.

If you’ve ever felt unseen by the version of ADHD you were taught, you’re not imagining it.
You’re noticing the limits of a system that was never designed to hold the full truth.

21/01/2026

CBT told you to change your thoughts, but what about changing your environment?

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy taught many of us something important:
That thoughts affect feelings.
That patterns can be questioned.
That not every belief deserves to run the show.

All true.

But here’s the mistake that happens far too often with neurodivergent people:

We’re taught to fix our thinking…
while nothing else is allowed to change.

So when you’re exhausted, overwhelmed, burnt out, struggling to function in systems not built for your brain, the focus becomes:
• “reframe it”
• “challenge the thought”
• “be more flexible”
• “try harder to cope”

And suddenly distress is treated as a cognitive error, rather than a contextual response.

But not everything is a thinking problem.

If you’re drowning in sensory overload, no thought record will lower the volume.
If your job structure contradicts how your brain works, no amount of reframing will make it sustainable.
If your needs are repeatedly ignored, that isn’t a distorted belief, that’s information.

Traditional therapy often asks:
“What’s wrong with the way you’re thinking?”

Neurodivergent-affirming work asks:
“What’s happening around you that makes these thoughts & feelings make sense?”

This is where frameworks like:
• the social model of disability
• the neurodiversity paradigm
• and the Power Threat Meaning Framework
change everything.

They don’t ask how to help you tolerate the intolerable.
They ask why you’re being asked to.

This doesn’t mean CBT is useless.
It means CBT on its own, without environment, power, access, safety & sensory reality, is incomplete.

Because the goal isn’t to help you survive broken systems more quietly.
It’s to stop treating broken systems as neutral.

21/01/2026

The mistake of trying to be neurotypical

One of the most damaging mistakes many neurodivergent people are taught to make is this:

Trying to become neurotypical.

Not consciously, perhaps.
But through years of subtle (and not-so-subtle) messaging:
• “tone it down”
• “just focus”
• “be more consistent”
• “don’t be so sensitive”
• “why can’t you just…?”

So we adapt.
We perform.
We mask.

We learn how to:
• hide our confusion
• suppress our needs
• mimic acceptable behaviour
• smile through overload
• push past limits quietly

And from the outside, it can look like success.

But inside?
It often feels like:
• constant tension
• chronic exhaustion
• identity confusion
• burnout that doesn’t make sense
• the sense that rest must be earned

Masking isn’t strength.
It’s survival in environments that don’t feel safe enough for authenticity.

And here’s the mistake:
When support tries to help you “blend in better” instead of live better.

Because the goal was never to become more neurotypical.
The goal was always to become more supported, more understood, more sustainable.

Letting go of the mask isn’t about becoming careless or uncontained.
It’s about stopping the daily act of self-erasure.

It’s about asking different questions:
Not:
“How do I look normal enough?”
But:
“How do I live in a way that doesn’t cost me my nervous system?”

You don’t need to become less like you.
You need environments, expectations & support that stop asking you to disappear.

And that’s what we’re working toward inside The ADHD Circle:
Not helping people pass…
but helping people breathe.

21/01/2026

Why time management tips don’t fix time blindness?

One of the most common mistakes people with ADHD are taught to make is this:

Trying to solve a neurological difference with a skill-based solution.

If you’ve ever been told:
• use a better planner
• try a different app
• be more disciplined
• just prioritise properly
• get better at time management

…you’ve probably also noticed something uncomfortable.

It doesn’t really fix the problem.
It just adds another layer of pressure.

Because time blindness isn’t a lack of effort.
It’s not a failure of motivation.
And it’s not because you haven’t found the right system yet.

It’s a difference in how your brain perceives & experiences time.

Time management is a skill.
Time blindness is neurological.

You can’t “skill your way out” of a brain that:
• struggles to feel time passing
• underestimates how long things take
• has difficulty holding future consequences in mind
• experiences “now” & “not now” more than a smooth timeline

So when support focuses only on skills, what people with ADHD often hear is:
“You’re failing at something you should be able to do.”

But that framing is the mistake.

It turns a difference into a deficit.
And a neurological reality into a personal failing.

The more compassionate & effective question isn’t:
“How do we make you manage time better?”

It’s:
“How do we build support around a brain that experiences time differently?”

That might look like:
• externalising time instead of trying to ‘feel’ it
• building in buffers instead of assuming precision
• changing expectations instead of forcing performance
• adapting environments, not just behaviour

You don’t need to become better at being neurotypical.
You need support that actually matches your nervous system.

And that’s exactly what we’re about inside The ADHD Circle:
Stop asking people to override their brains…
& start building lives that work with them.

20/01/2026

MYTH:
“If it was really ADHD, someone would’ve spotted it earlier.”

REALITY:
Many people weren’t missed because the signs weren’t there, they were missed because the system wasn’t looking for them.

Late diagnosis often follows a familiar path:
– you coped (until you couldn’t)
– you adapted (at a cost)
– you were praised for resilience
– you were treated for the fallout, not the cause

And when the label finally appears, it’s tempting to ask:
“How did no one notice?”
“Why didn’t I push harder?”
“Why didn’t I know sooner?”

But here’s the context that rarely gets named 👇

ADHD systems were built around:
• children, not adults
• boys, not girls
• behaviour, not internal experience
• disruption, not distress

They reward:
– masking
– compliance
– self-sacrifice
– over-functioning

And they penalise:
– collapse
– emotional expression
– inconsistency
– visible struggle

So many people, especially women, marginalised genders & high-masking individuals, were routed into labels like:
• anxiety
• depression
• burnout
• “stress”
• “coping difficulties”

Not because those experiences weren’t real, but because ADHD wasn’t considered first.

Late diagnosis isn’t a personal failure of insight.
It’s the predictable outcome of a system with blind spots.

You didn’t “miss” ADHD in yourself.
You were navigating life with limited information & no framework that fit.

And the moment your coping strategies stopped working?
That wasn’t you getting worse.
That was the system running out of places to hide the mismatch.

If this reframes your story, let it.
You weren’t late to the truth.
The truth arrived late to you.

20/01/2026

MYTH:
“ADHD is basically energetic little boys who can’t sit still.”

REALITY:
That image didn’t come from nature, it came from research bias.

When ADHD was first studied & defined, researchers mostly observed:
• young boys
• in classrooms
• whose behaviour disrupted others

That mattered.

Because what gets studied is what gets named.

Hyperactivity that:
– was loud
– external
– disruptive
– visible to adults

was flagged as a problem.

Meanwhile, children who:
– daydreamed
– internalised distress
– masked
– over-complied
– worked twice as hard to appear “good”

were largely invisible.

Not because they weren’t struggling, but because they weren’t causing trouble.

Early diagnostic criteria followed the data available at the time.
And that data came from a very narrow group.

So ADHD became associated with:
✔ boys
✔ chaos
✔ impulsivity
✔ disruption

And anything that didn’t match that picture was filtered out.

Girls were described as:
• anxious
• sensitive
• emotional
• distracted
• perfectionistic

Not “neurodivergent.”

Adults were described as:
• stressed
• lazy
• burnt out
• unmotivated

Not “neurodivergent.”

The stereotype stuck, even as research slowly caught up.

Today we know ADHD includes:
– inattentive profiles
– internal hyperactivity
– emotional dysregulation
– sensory sensitivity
– burnout & masking

But systems still screen for the version of ADHD that bothered teachers in the 1980s.

That’s not a failure of individuals.
It’s a lag between science & practice.

If you never saw yourself in the ADHD stereotype, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
It means the research didn’t look like you.

And we’re still undoing the consequences of that.

20/01/2026

MYTH:
“People with ADHD are messy, chaotic & disorganised.”

REALITY:
Many people with ADHD are organised because they have to be.

What gets misunderstood 👇

• Rigid systems aren’t evidence of ease, they’re scaffolding
• Lists, planners, colour-coding & alarms aren’t personality quirks, they’re survival tools
• Over-organisation often comes from years of being told to “try harder”
• Control is sometimes the only way to stay regulated

From the outside, it looks like:
✔ tidy
✔ prepared
✔ punctual
✔ on top of things

On the inside, it often feels like:
✖ constant effort
✖ fear of forgetting something critical
✖ panic if the system breaks
✖ exhaustion from maintaining it all

ADHD doesn’t have one look.

Some people externalise chaos.
Others internalise it.

Some lose things daily.
Others grip tightly to structure because losing things once cost them trust, safety, or belonging.

Stereotypes focus on what’s visible, not on the cognitive load required to keep it together.

So when someone says:
“But you’re so organised…”

What they often mean is:
“I can’t see the work it takes for you to function.”

This is why so many people:
– aren’t believed
– delay assessment
– doubt themselves
– minimise their struggles

Not because they don’t have ADHD, but because they don’t match a narrow, outdated picture of it.

If this challenges what you’ve been told ADHD looks like, that’s the point.
ADHD isn’t defined by how messy your desk is.
It’s defined by how much energy it takes to exist in systems not built for you.

The ADHD Circle

24/01/2026

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