Don't let ADHD steal the love for yourself

it's so easy to lose love for ourselves when we have ADHD, but we don't need to.

We are a community about ADHD. That's pretty obvious, after all, ADHD International Alliance means nothing less than an attempt to unite all people with ADHD around the world.

In the most expected style of someone with ADHD, I sensed that I needed to do something to raise awareness and help build a sense of belonging: a community where people from all over the world could share their experiences and help each other. After a long period of procrastination and self-sabotage, I put all my effort into creating this strange logo, setting up social media profiles, and creating this Substack full of articles and resources about ADHD.

But I couldn't think clearly about the goals. What's the purpose of all of that? What are we doing here? What am I proposing by establishing this connection between you, me, and our lives with ADHD?

What are we all doing here?

I still don't know, and I deeply apologize for not knowing that. My intentions are the most honorable ones, and my dreams are the highest. But let's try to find them together.

We can start examining what is NOT among our goals.

First, this community is NOT here to teach you to be more productive, to make you work more hours, to help you generate more wealth, or boost your social media presence.

This is also NOT meant to be your resource for medications or treatments. We will never claim to be substitutes for health practitioners, and we will never offer medical advice. You won't even find discussions about medications here, because we believe it's something that must be strictly discussed with a doctor, and never beyond that.

Additionally, this is not your go-to resource if you're looking for the best apps to manage your ADHD or make the most perfect to-do lists of your life. We simply believe that this is a very personal choice, and what works for one person is not guaranteed to work for another.

Just because there's no exactly similar ADHD between people.

Your ADHD is unique to you. Only you have the specific basket of symptoms that makes you singular, unique, and, for that same reason, very special in your own way. By the way, you are, without anything else.

With your own particular set of challenges to deal with, true. So particular that you don't deserve to be flooded with information that you never know for sure if it will really work for you.

Our focus here is to understand what our common challenges are. Common among all of us, or at least a significant part of us. To tackle those constraints that are similarly part of lives with ADHD, which makes our feature a shared experience and brings similar challenges to all of us. No matter how much impact ADHD has on our lives, and regardless of where we are or where we live.

So, we reach the point where we can sketch a goal. Finding what we aren't is important because it helps us understand what we are. What is our mission, our so-dreamed goal?

And I think our final goal, my friends, is to make you understand that ADHD does not make you any different from anyone else without ADHD.

As a perfectly ADHD person, of course, I will set several goals. But our most important one is to spread the knowledge that we must be proud of ourselves above everything else. Proud of who we are, the way we see the world, the way we interact with the world and our society.

Understand that our value is not based on how much we are able to produce, earn, remember tasks, or stay organized. Our value is what we carry inside our hearts. Our ability to be kind, to be generous, to help others, and to exercise healthy habits, especially in our minds.

While ADHD brings us those real challenges that we know so well, we will always try to understand this journey from the inside, from our life stories, from the experiences that form who we really are. Not just from the apparent symptoms of forgetfulness, lack of focus, or distractions.

These symptoms don’t remove the necessity to address them or to adapt. We need to, and we will, but not by importing methods that only frame ourselves into selected boxes and don’t really improve our lives.

The journey starts by accepting who we are, unique as we are. Exercising kindness with ourselves, even when we fall into that deep frustration of missing deadlines or procrastinating on everything that is important to us.

We all want and need to evolve, but we will only be able to evolve when we learn how to love ourselves for what we are.

Because it's very easy to lose love for ourselves when we have ADHD. I know that firsthand, for the most part of my life. But we are here to tell you that you are extremely deserving of loving yourself.

If you need a reason to love yourself, as if you needed someone to tell you that, just think about the fact that there is absolutely no one like you in the world. With your own set of skills, feelings, challenges, everything. In all of human history, there has never been anyone like you, and there will never be anyone like you in the future. Now or never.

You are so special to the world that no one will ever be able to substitute you. And you more than deserve to feel loved. Above all, by yourself.

With love, everything is manageable. With self-love, you don’t need to fear anything.

Neither the constraints that ADHD brings to you.

💚 If you really liked, I’d be grateful if you share this with friends or family!

💚 And if you feel the urge to leave a comment, do it immediately, even if you completely dislilke what you just read (I promise I won’t take that personally!)