I was always the One with the answers to the Big Problems

The one who worked harder. Stayed later. Made it happen. This became part of my definition of Success.

Still—somehow—it always felt like everything might fall apart at any moment. I had to maintain this frantic pace, not just doing my job, but also taking on 2 or 3 other jobs to ensure mine was done.

Sound familiar? Welcome to My World.

You watch everyone else chill while you break a sweat. Well, why wouldn't they? You all but push them out of the way to get your work finished faster. No. I did not say better. At this pace, mistakes will inevitably be made. You will do more work to repair those. And this is how the first 52 years of my life went, more or less.

When Everything Finally Fell Apart (aka My Burnout Wake-Up Call)

At 52, I was working seven days a week, 16 hours a day. Pushing through, holding everything together. In fact, I was pretty sure I was crushing it! Or so I thought..
Until one day, my body just… stopped cooperating.

Chest pain. ER visit. “Is this a heart attack?” Nope—it was a panic attack.

(We can talk later about how these two things get easily confused. I suspect many of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Am I right?)
That panic attack blew the lid off a whole box of dysfunction.

I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t remember things. Couldn’t finish what I started. Truth be told, these problems weren't new; they were amplified due to the unrelenting stress I was putting my body and mind through. All the systems I'd put in place to compensate were no longer working.
My doctor gently suggested I might have ADHD.
A specialist confirmed it.

I never once suspected the possibility.
ADHD at 53.
And suddenly, my entire life had a backstory I didn’t know was being written.

ADHD in Adults Doesn’t Always Look Like ADHD

(Especially if you’re a high-achieving woman)

1. The Diagnostic System Was Built for Boys
ADHD criteria focused on hyperactive kids—mostly boys who couldn’t sit still.
Girls? We internalized. We masked. We daydreamed. We were silent and got ignored.

2. We Get Misdiagnosed Instead
Overwhelmed? Emotional? Distracted?
They called it anxiety. Depression. "Being too sensitive."
Meanwhile, we lived with executive dysfunction in disguise.

3. We Mastered the Mask
We become perfectionists, people-pleasers, and overachievers.
We hold it together—until we don’t.
And when we break, we think we’ve failed.

We don't fail.
Our Coping Mechanisms do.

Unexpected Gifts of Late ADHD Diagnosis

The first thing I felt was a sense of relief.
Then came grief. Rage. Heartbreak.

There really is a mourning period.

I started seeing the cost:

• The burnout I called ambition

• The friendships that slipped through the cracks

• The missed opportunities I blamed on myself

• The endless, exhausting compensating

You start thinking about your life. The frustrations, the missteps,
you wonder how it all might have been different, or better, if someone had intervened when you were a kid.

I realized, I'd been running uphill my entire life with bricks in my backpack—while everyone else cruised by on the escalator!

You can spend the next half of your life angry and complaining about everything that went wrong. The reality is that won't change a thing about your past or your future. Trust me. It's worth pulling up your granny panties and getting into action.

How I Started Rebuilding

Not overnight. Not perfectly. But intentionally.

Here’s what helped:
✅ Medication that quieted the internal storm
✅ Letting go of routines that never ever worked for me in the first place
✅ Learning to manage my energy, not just my time
✅ Following what lights me up
✅ Finally, forgiving myself for not being “perfect”

And most importantly?
I stopped trying to fix myself.

When I finally decided to pull my own granny panties up, I promised myself these two things:

• Every night before I fall asleep, I forgive myself for the things I didn't accomplish, and I let go of everything I can't control. (Truth: I'll probably pick that one up first thing in the morning, but that's for another day.)

• I will never quit. No matter what. Every day is a new opportunity for me to try again. I may not get it right, in fact, I probably won't. But I'll never stop trying.

Today, I live my life with a newly discovered grace and integrity. It feels pretty awesome, and I'm never turning back!

If you're just starting out on your journey with a late ADHD diagnosis -- stay strong! There's a lot of good stuff in store for you now!

At Hyper Refinery™, we specialize in coaching high-performance adults who’ve been masking, pushing, and outperforming, sometimes for decades, without the clarity or tools that make life worth living.

We don’t do cookie-cutter.
We don’t chase “normal.”
We build strategies around you—because you’re the blueprint.

Predict the future by creating it

You didn’t come this far to stop