THE GRIEF.
There’s a stage that almost no one talks about after a late ADHD realization.
It isn’t relief.
It isn’t motivation.
It isn’t even clarity.
It’s grief.
Not the kind that announces itself loudly. Not regret or sadness in the way we usually think of it. This grief is heavier and quieter. It shows up after the self-blame loosens its grip—when you finally understand that you weren’t lazy, broken, or incapable.
And then a question surfaces:
What was all of that for?
When Awareness Creates Stillness
After my realization, something unexpected happened.
The constant monitoring of myself slowed. The overthinking eased. The need to prove anything dulled.
And in that stillness, grief arrived.
Not over one mistake.
Not over one missed opportunity.
But over patterns.
Years of adapting. Years of contorting myself to meet expectations that were never designed with my brain in mind. Years of functioning inside systems that quietly punished me for traits I couldn’t willpower away.
That didn’t feel like relief.
It felt like loss.
Grieving the Cost of Survival
Grief showed up when I realized how much energy it took just to survive.
Managing my tone.
Managing my reactions.
Managing how much of myself was acceptable in any given space.
I began to see that what I thought were personality traits were actually coping strategies.
Perfectionism wasn’t ambition—it was protection.
Avoidance wasn’t apathy—it was self-preservation.
Keeping my world small wasn’t a lack of curiosity—it was safety.
Seeing that clearly was devastating. Because it revealed just how much I carried in every season of my life.
How Early It Starts
One of the hardest parts of this grief is acknowledging how young I was when it began.
Mistakes weren’t neutral for me.
They weren’t just errors to learn from.
They were exposure.
They felt like confirmation that something was wrong.
So instead of learning through trial and error, I learned through adaptation. I learned which parts of myself drew criticism. Which behaviors drew silence. Which questions made people uncomfortable.
Slowly, unconsciously, I edited myself.
I became skilled at reading rooms. Anticipating reactions. Knowing when to speak and when to disappear. Those skills kept me safe—but they came at a cost.
Grief has shown me how often I chose silence over expression, how many interests I abandoned once they became too intense, how many versions of myself I left behind because staying felt emotionally unbearable.
Being Misunderstood—Not Maliciously, but Deeply
Another layer of grief comes from realizing how misunderstood I’ve been.
Not intentionally.
Not cruelly.
But fundamentally.
My inner experience often didn’t translate. The intensity I felt inside didn’t make sense to others. Comments like “it’s not that big of a deal” or “everyone struggles with that” weren’t meant to hurt—but they were deeply invalidating because they were true for them.
They weren’t true for me.
Living with that disconnect for so long made me doubt my own perception. I wondered if I was exaggerating. If I was weak. If I was imagining the weight of it all.
Grief, strangely, has become a gift. Because it’s helping me see that I wasn’t wrong—I just experience life differently.
The Untethered Middle
This stage feels disorienting.
The old narrative—just try harder—keeps collapsing.
But nothing new has fully formed yet.
I’m doing my best to stop blaming myself, but I’m not yet confident enough to trust myself either. I feel untethered. I’m grieving the version of myself who kept pushing even when it hurt. And I’m grieving the life I imagined I’d have by now.
This grief isn’t dramatic.
It comes in quiet flashes.
Moments where I realize how much time I spent managing fallout instead of building momentum.
But here’s something important: I’m finally allowing myself to feel what I couldn’t afford to feel before.
Because before now, feeling it would have stopped me completely.
So I didn’t. I survived instead.
And that matters.
Meeting Yourself Without Armor
There’s also grief in identity.
When so much of who you thought you were was built around coping—being the capable one, the fun one, the put-together one—it’s unsettling to consider who you are without those defenses.
I feel exposed.
I feel unsure how to show up without the mask.
But I don’t feel like I’ve lost myself.
I feel like I’m meeting myself without armor for the first time.
Staying With the Grief
If you’re in this stage too, I want to say this clearly:
We are not required to rush through grief to get to what’s next.
Our instinct is to treat it like everything else—to optimize it, resolve it, move past it. Instead, I’m sitting with it honestly. Naming what it cost me to survive without understanding my own brain. Mourning the misinterpretations. Letting go of the idea that I should have been different.
I couldn’t have been.
I was doing the best I could with incomplete information.
My nervous system is finally beginning to feel safe enough to stop bracing itself. And that pause—that safety—is what’s allowing me to see that what comes after grief isn’t hustle.
It’s discernment.
It’s choosing environments that don’t require self-betrayal.
It’s learning where my energy actually belongs.
It’s beginning to trust myself again—slowly, quietly, without force.
If this feels raw, tender, or strangely calm and heavy all at once, you’re in good company.
We’re grieving.
And that means something is shifting.
Next time, I’ll talk about what’s beginning to peek through this grief: clarity.
Until then, give yourself grace.