Are you a fraud? Or do you have ADHD?

I am 33 years old. And up until my ADHD diagnosis 4 months ago, I thought I was a fraud.

During my childhood, I spent a lot of time in my own head, daydreaming. I found it challenging to fit into a particular group of friends because I could not fit anywhere. I had ‘friends’ but I was always performing, behaving how I thought others wanted me to behave. After my diagnosis, I learned that this behavior had a name – MASKING. 

Oh my god, how I masked! I masked through school and college, but I excelled academically. I even moved to a different country, got my Ph.D. and had a corporate job for 2.5 years. All this time, I had been masking. The emotional toll that it took on me cannot be measured. I did not even know how to describe what I was feeling because I had no words for it. On paper, I was a successful academic scholar, researcher, corporate Scientist but throughout different phases of my life, I felt like a fraud. I felt like an impostor. I felt I didn’t belong here and someone might catch my act anytime. I lived my life in fear, intimated by each and every one I met. It did not matter if they were friends, family, cousins, colleagues, professors. I was intimidated by everyone. And the reason? Low self-esteem from not knowing where I actually belong. Why do I think like I think? Why do I behave like I behave? Why don’t I fit in the world and the system around me? I must just be bad at what I do because I felt like a failure. My success on paper did not reflect how I achieved this success. Sleepless late nights, submission of assignments at the very last minute, knowing what I need to plan and prepare but not being able to do any of it – all of this took away the fun of the process and left me feeling inadequate, incompetent, not good enough for this world – not to mention the emotional dysregulation that came along with it. 

My diagnosis came with relief, but it also brought a lot of grief - the grief of questioning myself my whole life, the grief of not being compassionate and kind to myself, the grief of losing all that time scolding myself for not being good enough, the grief of not knowing what to do next. But at the same time, I was relieved that at least I know now. I can now fully accept myself and give myself the grace that I never did before. 

I said I excelled academically, but it was not easy. I was asked to leave my Ph.D. midway through because I was too distracted for an academic scholar. I was fired from my corporate job because I was disorganized, a poor planner and bad with timely follow ups. My colleagues told me you have what it takes to be here, but you are just lazy and you don’t follow rules. I could not explain to them that I am not intrinsically lazy and I cannot follow a strict routine every day, because even I did not know this about myself.

Today, I am learning about myself bit by bit everyday and trying to start my career from scratch. It is scary because I have failed so many times. But if history provides any evidence, it’s that I have overcome every failure and I can do it again.

Written by Ankita Das