Unmasking ADHD – one cupboard at the time.
This afternoon, I sat on the toilet and felt ashamed.
Not of my body, but of the chaotic tangle beneath the bathroom sink. The undersink cupboard I’d built (OK, assembled, from a flat pack) but still not gotten around to trimming the neck so it actually was flush with the sink. Bottles, half-used serums, sprays and contact lenses – neglected – that should have been thrown away two months ago and replaced. That too-familiar “Why can’t I just keep it tidy?” voice had started up again. The kind of shame that creeps in quietly, whispering that you’re failing at adulthood – or that your environment somehow reflects your worth.
It’s a particular kind of shame that many neurodivergent women know intimately. Subtle, persistent, and rooted in a lifetime of trying to meet expectations never designed for our brains.
And then, something shifted.
A Flash of Spirit, A Flood of Truth
As I stared at the cupboard, a vivid vision filled my whole space: my dad’s old shower room. A classic 80’s brown-beige suite. Cluttered. Disorganised. Blue lines and white clouds of stray shaving foam, the upside down dusty bottle of Old Spice that never moved (uncarefully) positioned on the cabinet shelf – an unwanted Christmas gift? Strong musty, smell of damp towels, neglected, juxtaposed against the strong, clean smell of Imperial Leather soap. And strangely… comforting. His mess was bigger than mine. And for the first time, that didn’t feel like a failing. It felt like a connection.
Because here’s the thing: my dad – now in spirit – was a kind, warm, deeply giving man. He also had ADHD, though we never named it that. I now see I inherited it from him – and my grandmother.
He used to have music on all the time – all 80’s, 90’s pop classics, Spice Girls, Madonna, Baby Bird – and would sing and dance through the house while doing the cleaning, shoulders bouncing, vacuuming enthusiastically, voice full of joy. To us kids, he was the optimist. The hero. The energetic life of the family. He brought levity and rhythm into our lives like oxygen. He may have been persistently late for family functions, but he was always on time – without fail – for his job as an outside broadcast engineer with the BBC. Driven by the pressure and consequential dopamine surge from ensuring live news broadcasts went out worldwide – on time.
That bathroom mess? It wasn’t dysfunction. It was neurodivergence in motion. A mirror of my own mind. A glimpse of the blueprint I’d been trying to erase.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel disgusting. I felt seen.
Inherited Shame, Misdiagnosed Struggles
The shame I felt that afternoon didn’t just come from a cupboard. It came from years of delayed diagnosis, being misdiagnosed and misunderstood – both by family, and society at large.
In my twenties, I was prescribed SSRIs under the vague umbrella of “anxiety.” But what was really going on was the hyperactive mind of undiagnosed ADHD – combined type. A perfect score, as my private psychiatrist would later note: “100% on both inattentive and hyperactive scales of the DIVA (the psychometric used).” Within a millisecond, my hyperactive brain had bounced off the afore mentioned “DIVA” and created a bicep workout routine to Beyonce’s song: “Diva”. How creative! Genius.
“100% in a test?” I’d laughed. “I’ll take it.”
My academic success had been fuelled by masking – perfectionism, people pleasing, internalised pressure to achieve. But once I received the correct diagnosis and reached some degree of stability post-titration of ADHD meds, the grief from the severity finally set in. And the impact of nearly four decades of undiagnosed ADHD? Devastating.
Dopamine depleted after coming off SSRIs in 2009 – and again following head trauma in 2014 – I began singing and dancing around constantly. Not for performance. But as a kind of involuntary release. A raw, creative, dopamine-seeking survival instinct.
It reminded me of my dad – who sang, danced, and hoovered with the music turned up, full of joy and kinetic life. He was the soul of the household, his energy celebrated.
Mine? As a woman, it was labelled “too much.” Erratic. Attention-seeking. At times, even mistaken for drug-induced behaviour. Yet, like many women, I was rewarded for sacraficing energy to masking, working myself to the bone and ultimately burning out to prove: “I am enough”. A dangerous message.
The same traits, different gender – radically different readings.
But now, I see the truth: I wasn’t broken. I was unmasking, albeit it involuntarily at times. Returning to something ancestral. Something innate. Something my dad would have recognised.
Why I Created Phoenix Psychologies
Phoenix Psychologies was born out of the ashes of shame, burnout, delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, and years of being misunderstood. It exists because so many of us – especially women with hidden disabilities like ADHD, autism and or PTSD – are still rising from the wreckage of systems that failed to see us.
We’ve been told we are “too much” or “not enough.” We beat ourselves up for the mess, the fatigue, the emotional storms. But what if those traits aren’t faults to fix – what if they are fires to honour?
What if our traits are ancestral, neurobiological, even spiritual truths – waiting to be embraced, not erased?
If You’ve Ever Felt the Shame of the Cupboard…
Let me tell you this: you are not alone.
Your mess doesn’t make you a failure – it tells a story. A story of trying. Of survival. Of masking and unmasking in a world that worships neatness, not nuance.
And maybe – just maybe – there’s an ancestor, a dad, a grandmother, a spirit standing quietly beside you, saying:
“You’re just like me. And I was never ashamed of you.”
Welcome to Phoenix Psychologies
This is a space for the warm, the messy, the sensitive, the strong – for those who burn bright, break down, and rise again.
A space where shame becomes insight, and recognition becomes liberation.
You belong here. All of you.
Click here for more information on the symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD from the NHS.
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