Maybe I Have ADHD: Learning to Give Myself Grace

A guy friend of mine recently helped me put together a piece of furniture. I had told him I was going to do something afterward, but, of course, I got caught up doing something else entirely. He jokingly—or maybe not so jokingly—mentioned that I might have ADHD. And my first reaction was… what?

At first, I laughed it off. But then I started noticing patterns in my daily life. One day, while cleaning my apartment, I realized I had done all of the following in rapid succession:

• Turned on the water to wash dishes

• Sprayed Windex on the mirrors to wipe them down

• Started vacuuming the living room

…and somewhere in the middle, I completely forgot why I even started washing the dishes in the first place.

It hit me: What in the world is going on?

I set down with my therapist and said out loud, “I think I might have ADHD.”

Here’s the truth: I get everything done. I accomplish my goals. I handle my responsibilities. But the process looks a little chaotic: I start multiple tasks, bounce between them, and sometimes forget what I was doing in the middle. The house is clean. The work is finished. But the journey there? Messy, scattered, and sometimes exhausting.

A Lesson About Grace

What struck me the most as I reflected on this pattern is how often we give other people grace—but don’t offer ourselves the same.

We forgive their mistakes, their forgetfulness, their chaos. We understand when life derails them, when they overcommit, when they juggle too many things at once. But when it’s us? We’re impatient. We’re critical. We call ourselves lazy, unorganized, or scattered.

Recognizing this has been a game-changer. Whether or not I have ADHD, the bigger lesson is about self-compassion. About understanding our patterns, accepting our quirks, and celebrating our strengths instead of shaming ourselves for the chaos in between.

I’m learning that:

• Being “all over the place” doesn’t mean I’m unmotivated.

• Starting multiple things at once doesn’t mean I can’t finish.

• My energy, creativity, and ability to juggle tasks are gifts—even when they look messy.

Some days, I start ten things and finish nine. Other days, I finish every single one. And that’s okay. Because at the end of the day, the important thing isn’t perfection—it’s progress, effort, and self-love.

So here’s my reminder to you—and to myself: We extend grace to others constantly, but we must also offer it to ourselves. Life doesn’t have to be perfectly ordered to be meaningful. Goals don’t have to be completed flawlessly to matter. And our worth isn’t determined by how tidy or linear our process is.

Here’s to giving ourselves grace. Here’s to embracing our chaos, our quirks, and our unique way of getting things done.

And here’s to celebrating ourselves—even when it’s messy.

Talk later,

Shutanda