The Child I Never Outgrew: Living, Creating, and Healing with ADHD

The Child I Never Outgrew: Living, Creating, and Healing with ADHD

There’s a particular ache that comes with being a person like me—a kind of relentless dissonance that screams beneath the surface of daily life, demanding attention even when I try to quiet it.

I feel everything. Deeply. Sometimes overwhelmingly.
Beauty doesn’t just move me—it awakens me. Color feels like breath. Music reaches places words can’t. I light up when I’m allowed to be curious, expressive, free.

And yet, I often find myself holding all of that back.
Like a restless child told to sit still, I try to tuck my wonder and noise into quiet corners. I behave. I wait my turn. I monitor every word, every shift of energy in the room.
In quiet spaces filled with people, I feel uneasy. Not because I can’t be still, but because it doesn’t feel natural to me—like I’m playing a role that someone else wrote. There’s a tension in my body, a buzzing beneath my skin. I become acutely aware of myself, as if I’m under a microscope—and the most critical lens is my own.

I’ve always been this way.
Talkative and sensitive to energy. Emotionally full. Constantly observing, thinking, reaching for something beyond what’s expected. It’s taken me years to realize that this isn’t a flaw—it’s simply how I’m wired.
I live with ADHD. And I carry the weight of trauma.
And trauma doesn’t just sit quietly in the background—it amplifies the restlessness, the self-doubt, the emotional flooding that ADHD already brings. It frays my focus, heightens my sensitivity, and makes me feel like I’m constantly trying to stay upright in a world that was never built with me in mind.

I became skilled at masking. At managing.
But managing isn’t the same as thriving.

For much of my life, I tried to hide the parts of me that didn’t fit neatly into the world around me. I learned to appear composed, to push through discomfort, to “succeed” in the ways people expected—even if it took a profound amount of self-control, coupled with injurious self-deprivation.
Even if it drained me.
Even if I disappeared a little more each time I forced myself to comply.

The truth is, I don’t do well in environments that cage me—emotionally or physically.
Confinement—like sitting at a desk for hours, repeating the same tasks, suppressing emotion in the name of professionalism—makes me anxious and unwell.
My brain isn’t built for monotony.
It craves stimulation, creativity, and meaning. It wants room to stretch and move and explore without limits.

That’s why I create.
That’s why I paint vivid florals and wild, untamed landscapes that feel more like feelings than places. My artwork demands to be seen—even when I don’t. Even when part of me would rather hide.

I often feel like a walking paradox:
Vibrant and expressive on the canvas, but quietly self-conscious in the room.
Longing to connect, but afraid of being scrutinized.
Wanting to bring color into the world—and sometimes unsure how to live in it myself.

So, is this blog about ADHD? Yes.
Is it about trauma? Yes.
But more than anything, it’s about the journey of becoming—a journey that rarely moves in straight lines.

It’s about the inherited shame I’ve had to unlearn.
The rules I’ve had to rewrite.
The parts of myself I’ve had to reintroduce to each other after years of fragmentation.

It’s about learning to Splinter & Bloom—again and again.
To break open. To root. To rise anyway.

And most importantly, it’s about remembering that at the core of ADHD isn’t disorder—it’s brilliance.
A brilliance that struggles to be—not because it’s broken, but because it was never meant to be boxed, silenced, or standardized.
It’s a brilliance that pulses through color, curiosity, and contradiction.
It just needs space to bloom.

If you’ve ever felt like your softness was mistaken for weakness…
If you’ve ever worked twice as hard just to seem “normal”…
If you’ve ever struggled to make peace with the way your mind works…

Then I hope this space offers something gentle and honest—a place where we don’t have to perform.

I don’t have the answers.
But I have lived experience.
I have a heart that feels deeply and a mind that won’t stop blooming.
And I’m learning—every day—how to live with that fully.

Maybe you are too.