25/07/2026
I think as women, and especially as mums, we carry this unspoken guilt whenever we choose ourselves.
HEARD. For women diagnosed with ADHD later In Life.
We tell ourselves we should be doing the washing, answering messages, making dinner, sorting the house, looking after everyone else…
And for so many of us with ADHD, there’s another layer to it.
We’ve spent decades masking.
People-pleasing.
Over-explaining.
Saying yes when we desperately wanted to say no.
Putting everyone else’s needs before our own because somewhere along the way we learned that our worth came from being useful.
After 41 years of living that way, those patterns don’t disappear overnight. They become second nature. Undoing them takes time, patience and a whole lot of self-compassion.
So today I chose to do something different.
I took a couple of intentional hours just for me.
No shopping.
No errands.
No productivity.
No expectations.
I simply came and sat amongst the trees, listened to the birds, watched the world carry on around me and let myself just… be.
Since March, life has felt like hospital and home, home and hospital. Somewhere along the way I’d forgotten what it feels like to simply exist without rushing to the next thing.
Everything else could wait for a couple of hours.
The washing will still be there.
The emails can wait.
The jobs around the house aren’t going anywhere.
But I needed to check in with me.
For years, I never really sat with my emotions. I distracted myself from them. I drank to quiet my mind. I kept myself busy because silence felt uncomfortable.
Now I’m learning something completely different.
That it’s okay to sit with your feelings.
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
It’s okay to not have all the answers today.
The emotion won’t last forever.
Sometimes healing isn’t about fixing anything at all. Sometimes it’s simply giving yourself permission to stop running long enough to hear what your heart has been trying to tell you.
Rest isn’t lazy.
Rest is productive.
Rest is necessary.
You don’t have to burn yourself out before you’re allowed to pause.
So if you’ve needed permission today to take a couple of hours for yourself, this is it.
Go and sit in the sunshine.
Take yourself for a coffee.
Read a book.
Listen to the birds.
Cry if you need to.
Smile if you can.
Just spend a little time with the person who has carried you through every single hard day…
You.
And if that little voice in your head starts telling you that you’re being selfish, remind it of this:
You cannot pour into everyone else if you never refill yourself. 🤍
