Hello, Ladies of Hive! Today I want to open my heart to share a fundamental part of my life, something that completely changed the way I recognize and embrace myself.
Discovering myself after 40: My son’s mirror
What would you feel discovering, after passing the 40-year threshold, that your mind has always worked differently? It’s a profound impact that makes you look at your entire story through a new lens. The answer came to me in the most beautiful and eye-opening way: through my son. As I walked alongside him in his process and came to understand his ADHD diagnosis, I began to see myself in a direct mirror of my own childhood. Each of his reactions, his struggles, and his ways of processing life brought back a clear echo of the little girl I used to be. Seeing him gave me the strength to seek help for myself, receive support, and understand that it is never too late to heal your own story. If you have ever felt like you don’t quite fit in, or if you grew up hearing that you were the “weird,” “unsettled,” or “absent-minded” one, maybe there is nothing wrong with you: simply, you might be living with a neurodivergence that no one knew how to notice.The silence in which we girls grow up
When I was little, nobody talked about this in girls. If a boy couldn’t sit still at the table, everyone noticed right away, but if a girl stayed quiet in her own world, floating away in her mind, they simply said she was a dreamer. My symptoms didn't make noise on the outside; they remained trapped within. On top of that, two things came together in my life: ADHD and high abilities. My ease in learning and solving things quickly became a sort of perfect disguise. On the outside, it seemed like everything was under control because I managed to fulfill all my responsibilities, but on the inside, my brain was going a thousand miles an hour trying to balance the chaos. My high abilities hid my difficulties, and my difficulties hid my talent.Moving forward as best I could: The weight of guilt
That’s how I grew up, making my way through life on pure willpower, pushing forward as best as I could. I spent years reinventing myself, accepting myself at times only to harshly reproach myself later for not being able to handle routine, organization, or consistency with the same calm I saw in other women. I judged myself time and time again, convinced that the fault was entirely mine, that I lacked character, or that I simply wasn't trying hard enough.
Surviving in a world that doesn't stop to wait
Trying to fit in and move forward in a world built for neurotypical minds is exhausting. It means living with an invisible daily effort to hide the fatigue, putting on a mask of "normalty" to perform at work, take care of the house, and meet social expectations. It’s like trying to keep time to music that everyone else hears clearly, while you have to make twice the effort just not to lose your step.The liberation of understanding my own mind
That’s why reaching this understanding at 44 has been the most liberating embrace I have ever given myself. Realizing that each of my ways of being, my hyperfocus moments, my intensity, and my forgetfulness respond to how my brain is wired lifted all that guilt off my shoulders. There is nothing wrong with me, nor am I weird; it’s not laziness and I am not crazy—I simply have a wonderful mind that works under its own rules. Today I look at myself with so much more compassion, I forgive myself for past missteps, and I celebrate the woman I have managed to become.Sources Image 1 from the web Image 2 from the web Translated with Google translator
