When You’re the One Who’s ”Hard to Love”: ADHD, Labels, and Learning to See Yourself Differently

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In this second part of the series, I take you inside what has been one of the most tender, clarifying, and ultimately empowering chapters of my life: navigating an adult ADHD diagnosis, beginning medication, and reclaiming parts of myself I didn’t know I had lost.

We start with a kind of radical idea—what if knowing yourself deeply, even when it’s painful, is the path to peace? In a time when there’s growing pushback against diagnosis and therapy language, I share a different perspective. One rooted in lived experience. One that says language doesn’t confine us, it frees us. Naming what lives inside us doesn’t shrink our potential, it releases shame.

I talk openly about the emotional process of receiving an ADHD diagnosis and how it allowed me to trace patterns I had never been able to name—patterns that shaped my childhood, my relationship with my mother, my marriage, my nervous system. I share honestly about the grief that surfaced, the beliefs I had to examine, and why, at first, even with a prescription in hand, I couldn’t take the medication.

But then life intervened. A mental and emotional breaking point became the catalyst for finally saying yes to deeper support. I walk you through the realities of what that looked like: the side effects, the scheduling, the slow and steady shifts that began to change everything. This episode holds nothing back. I talk about what has improved and what I miss. What has steadied and what has softened.

And I name the truth that felt like a revelation—this diagnosis didn’t make me feel broken. It made me feel seen. It gave me a new story to tell about myself. One filled with compassion, understanding, and even awe.

I also share the ten “superpowers” I now see in myself—traits I once judged that I now hold with reverence. Empathy. Intuition. Creativity. Justice sensitivity. Risk-taking. Drive. These parts of me didn’t begin with the diagnosis, but they have deepened in how I understand and honor them.

This episode is for every woman who has ever feared that the real problem is her. Who has worried that even if she leaves, the same pain will follow. Who has wondered if she is just too much, too chaotic, too emotional, too different to be fully loved.

I want you to know: there is nothing wrong with you. There are just things you may not yet understand. And when you find the language, the support, and the people who see you as whole and valuable exactly as you are—everything can change.

Whether or not you have ADHD, whether or not you are considering medication, this conversation is about something much bigger. It is about returning to yourself with clarity, with curiosity, and with love. It is about finally naming the truth: that the answers were never out there. They have always been within you.

Show Notes:

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Andrea Andes - Therapist

A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD - Sari Solden and Michelle Frank

ADHD for Smart Ass Women - Tracy Otsuka

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving - Pete Walker

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