ADHD self-help guide

I know I have ADHD. It sucks. But at the same time, when you know you have it, it actually feels better. You can stop toxically blaming yourself for not focusing, for wasting day after day, for being so energetic outside — so hyper in the crowd — and then showing another face to yourself, a lazy one, the one who wastes the whole day on a phone game or TikTok. When the truth is: you don't even like those videos.

But think about the good side. Most ADHD kids are geniuses. Not from any scientific data — totally an instinct, a quote from me, downloaded from the universe.

So before anything starts, if you're trying to get out of the routine painful ADHD day — let me make it easier. Let me be a very ADHD-style professional doctor and help you decide whether this sounds painfully familiar. Here are some symptoms. It may not be a full list, but it's what I've suffered. ADHD shows up differently in an after-youth adult than in a child — shaped by responsibilities, relationships, and work — and it can hit especially hard if you're a freelancer with no routine and no one telling you what to do.

Difficulty with focus and attention

You start one task, then suddenly think about something else, and an hour later you discover yourself lying on the bed, anxiously swiping your phone. You are not alone. Even two hours later, when I catch myself doing something totally irrelevant, I can't stop — I fall into some hopeless abyss, swiping with zero happiness, zero dopamine, only regret and hatred toward myself while my eyes and hands stay on the screen. When "rest" brings nothing but pain, I don't even know if I can call it joy. (And my AD friend — another genius, beautiful startup-founder girl — more than once arrived at the co-working café only to realize she'd forgotten her Mac.)

Disorganization & poor time management

Sometimes you feel like a genius — how did we ever finish a one-month final paper in a day, in ten hours? When I first joined GE, after the first rotation we had to give a performance review presentation; all the new hires were basically competing, because whoever presented best in front of the senior managers got the better next role. Everyone prepared a month ahead. My roommate kept hiding her prep, then a week before the day started worrying about me: "Summer, you really need to prepare." I said OK. Three days passed. The night before, my slides had three words on them: my name, "Summer," and "rotation presentation." I spent that whole night choosing a template. The next morning I signed up to present late — and do you know when I actually started building my pitch? The moment the person before me walked up to begin theirs. (Amazing fact: I got No.1. Credit to personality, I guess. I'm not always that lucky — but most of the time, last-minute me does alright.)

Impulsivity

My parents taught me, by word and example, to save carefully since I was young, so I count every discount on things that don't matter — and then spend impulsively on the expensive ones. I also count myself ENFP, so, bonus impulsivity. January 1st, I was in Melbourne wondering where to go next. Sydney? A second thought said cities are boring, nothing intriguing. Then around noon I realized January is my birthday month — I should treat myself. By the next time I noticed, I was already in Nepal, giving myself a 21-day Ayurveda retreat near the Himalayas. I don't even recall how I finished all the flights, the visa, the hotel, the money, the retreat search and comparison (I even found a coupon on some random website) — all after a night out drinking and dancing on a Melbourne beach. The second day, I was simply somewhere I'd never been.

Hyperactivity, restlessness — and hyperfocus

This is where I sometimes think I'm an alien, or a genius (which I still think I am — the non-AD world may not understand the genius world; that's why they're ordinary, and we're sickly clever, smirk). As a kid, when a book was really good, the whole physical world would disappear — only me and the world the book made. It happened at work too. Doing channel sales at GE, I knew my cities better than anyone. Once I flew five hours to the far north of China to see a long-no-see friend; in the taxi, catching up, a business call came in. The moment I picked up, time flew or stopped. Thirty minutes later I hung up and realized I had completely forgotten I was on vacation, completely forgotten my friend sitting right beside me in the tiny cab. The whole physical world had vanished the second I answered. (Same with a six-hour terrifying mountain climb — I'm scared of heights and barely exercise, yet I summited first, singing and laughing while the most muscular guy sat silent, wrecked. Something did happen: by day three I moved like someone with a broken leg.)

Difficulty starting or finishing things

This one frustrates me the most. No matter how long I give myself for a goal, I fail. I've registered more than 100 courses on Coursera, because I love learning new things — I really do, I always feel excited to start. But in ten years I've never finished a single one. I start so enthusiastically, plant myself in a café chair for ten hours… then the second day, the third day… overdue, never finished. Same with Duolingo. I once had a serious talk with myself: I'm going to learn German in three months, I'll even register for the B1 to force discipline. I studied two to five hours a day, tried to rank on that damn leaderboard — and the duck's face turned sad after 30 days, then sadder, then ugly… and the next thing I knew, I had furiously uninstalled Duolingo, swearing never to let that ugly duck give me a clown face again. I've blamed myself so harshly for not persisting — why do I always burn bright for three minutes and then disappear? — and the blame just digs the hole deeper.

Emotional sensitivity (RSD)

It's a strange, interesting fact that sometimes we refuse to start or finish something because we're so afraid of being rejected. Our mood can be moved by anything. Some mornings it's gloomy out, and my whole brain refuses to function. I know the only thing I need to do is get up from that sad gray bed — but somehow I'm trapped, by the bed, by the room, by this damn weather.

Relationships

This one's tricky. People love to date me — they say I bring a firework-journey, that they never imagined love could be this intriguing. "But life is life, you know, I have to get back to real life." That's one of the most hurting sentences I've ever heard. For a while I doubted whether I could have an ordinary love life like everyone else; I even dated someone I had no interest in, forcing myself to behave like a normal person — nothing too creative, not too much passion or care. I want to hug that me now, because you'll find out it's not a curse but a genuine gift: we're sensitive, and we get to experience so many subtle, beautiful moments.

Memory

The worst one. Before I knew I had ADHD, I thought I might get Alzheimer's when I'm older — I even asked my parents if it was genetic. I find it so hard to remember names, words. On a hyper day I might study a new language six to eight hours, recite the words, and forget them all a week later. It terrifies me — I worried I could never accumulate real expertise in anything, and wondered what on earth lives in my brain's library.

And the rest — emotional eating, self-regulation

I always feel hungry, and eating makes me feel better when I feel I've achieved nothing all day. That numbing is a kind of drug — a short escape from the guilt of not achieving, before it traps me in a deeper remorse for having zero self-control.

Chapters still to come

Understanding ADHD · The Emotional Rollercoaster · The Bright Side of ADHD · Practical Strategies for Everyday Life · ADHD in Relationships · ADHD & Work · Self-Care & Mental Health · Building a Life You Love · Embracing the ADHD Journey. Each chapter will end with a tiny "ADHD in a nutshell" and one action to try this week.

An unfinished draft, in Summer's own words (light typo cleanup only). The book grows one chapter at a time — on purpose.