Hiking is Harder Barefoot
The more and more I am learning about ADHD, the more my mind is completely blown. There are so many factors to it that just make so much sense for things in my life. To be honest, when I got my official diagnosis I cried for 3 days. I weirdly felt so angry and almost like I was grieving things that I couldn’t explain.
Therapy helped me understand that this reaction is common for late onset diagnoses’ because you start looking back at moments in your life, while growing up, where you just couldn’t quite ever figure out “what was wrong with you”. You start remembering the times you seemed to struggle SO much harder than everyone else around you but could never figure out why. You start going back to all the times you got called “dramatic” or told that you were “just too much” and everything starts to make sense.
You start grieving these things because there WAS something wrong. Things WERE harder than they should’ve been. You weren’t just overreacting about every single effing thing.
Now, I am in no way trying to use ADHD as an excuse, at all. I know there are people out there who don’t even believe in it and think that people are just making it up. And I can honestly understand why people feel that way (because ADHD is the dumbest, most confusing thing ever) but this blog is for anyone out there who has it, thinks they have it, or may be related to or struggling to deal with someone who has it. This is for those of you who are curious about ADHD, who maybe just want to try and understand it more, and who need to know there are other people out there like them.
Most of us, when we think of ADHD, we think of super hyper little boys that just couldn’t ever sit still. Literally. That’s the go-to thought on it. So, it’s been overlooked in girls, for YEARS. I read an article recently that said ADHD in women only started to be studied in the 90s, while ADHD in boys has been studied since the early 60s. Typical.
So now, there’s a HUGE group of women out there that have been late onset diagnosed ADHD. Like the highest boost “they’ve” ever seen.
I do understand why ADHD in girls is harder to understand, and diagnose, than ADHD in boys because they present in totally completely different ways. Like I said before, ADHD in boys is them usually being incredibly hyper, talking too much, can’t wait their turn, can’t sit still, very fidgety, and often labeled as disruptive. We have all heard that. We’ve been taught that. Even when I was going to school to be a teacher, we talked about that often; boys with ADHD will be a challenge and how to manage it. It’s just always been that way.
Well, ADHD presents VERY differently in girls. This is how it usually looks:
they are extremely emotional and cry very easily (and often can’t explain why)
they daydream often or seem to be in a world of their own
they have difficulty maintaining focus and are very easily distracted
they are very disorganized and messy (in both appearance and physical space)
they talk excessively, oftentimes very loudly, and interrupt constantly
they sometimes seem like they are not even trying at anything and don’t seem motivated
they are very forgetful
they are clumsy and don’t know why
This is why this is confusing. Because now, when you look at those symptoms in girls vs the symptoms we automatically associate with ADHD in boys, you realize WHY so many girls (now women) went undiagnosed. The symptoms are nowhere near the same. Girls with ADHD aren’t being disruptive and bouncing off the walls, they are zoning out during class because their mind is going a million miles a minute and their body can’t keep up.
I imagine that some of you are starting to question some things in your own life after reading through that list. You may be looking back on your own life and having a million light bulb moments going on right now. If so, I totally understand. That’s exactly how I responded, too.
When I first started looking into ADHD and the symptoms, I was like…..wait a minute….wait a mother-effing minute….THIS is why ALL OF THOSE THINGS HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!? I HAVE ADHD!?!?!?!?!!
If you need help imagining this feeling, think about the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire” when the mom finds out that it was her husband pretending to be their nanny…the whole time….the whole time?…..THE WHOLE TIME?! hehehehehe I love that movie.
I also hope that some of you are reading through those symptoms and recognizing some of those behaviors in your daughters. Being aware of ADHD will help you understand her better. I promise you. I have my own personal opinions on whether or not children should be medicated, but there are other ways to help. And I believe that by simply understanding it more, helps you to deal with it better.
To help you understand what having ADHD is like (for me), I am going to use a fun little analogy. My spicy brain loves analogies. They help me put the pieces of a concept together which help me understand it by creating a visual picture in my mind. Analogies help me understand things, so I’m hoping my analogy will help someone out there understand what it’s like having ADHD.
Lean into this analogy. Even if you think this whole topic is rubbish. Just try it. Try to really think about how this would feel and how frustrating it is for the people who have it.
So, here is what having ADHD is like, to me….
Imagine life as like a hike. You are in the middle of the woods, barefoot, lost, and trying to find your way out. You find some trails that look worn in, and you hear your friend up ahead, so you follow that trail. As you are hiking, the trail gets rougher than expected and your bare feet begin to blister. You keep going though because there’s no other option. Suck it up, buttercup!
You continue on, and now you find yourself coming across a river you need to cross. The riverbed is covered with sharp rocks that now have cut your feet open and you are bleeding. You can’t take it anymore so you sit down and call a friend.
You: “Hey…so I’m like having a terrible time on this hike. I thought it was going to be fun and easy with beautiful sights. But my feet hurt so bad I’m not even noticing all the beautiful scenery. I’m in so much pain and so tired. I mean, is this what it’s like for you?”
Your friend, who is way ahead of you on the hike: “Well yeah. We’re hiking. Of course I’m tired and my feet hurt, but that’s just part of the experience! You gotta toughen up.”
So, you beat yourself up for not being as tough as everyone else and call yourself a failure, but you DO suck it up and continue on with the hike. By now your feet are blistered and bleeding, but they are starting to callous so it’s bearable. Until you step on a cactus. Now, you have to stop and pull out these thorns, putting you even further behind your friends on the same hike, and you are in excruciating pain.
Again, you need to call your friend.
You: “Bawling hysterically. I just stepped on a cactus. This hurts so bad. I can’t walk. I can’t do this anymore.”
Your friend: “Hey. I stepped on a cactus too but it wasn’t THAT bad. I mean, I barely even felt it. Seriously, quit being so dramatic.”
At this point, you hate hiking. You don’t really see the point of it. You don’t have time to notice any of the good things about it because you are in too much pain and confused as to why no one else seems to be hating hiking as much as you. So, you start the never-ending cycle of “What’s wrong with me?” and “Why is everyone else so much better, tougher, stronger, etc. than me?”
After you have a good hard cry, you “put your big girl panties on” and keep on going. By now you are in so much pain and struggling so bad that you don’t know what to do, but you do know that no one else seems to be struggling so you stop telling them about it. You don’t want to be a bother or seem like a loser, again. So, you lie and tell people the hike is going great, while you cry alone…. a lot.
Finally, by the Grace of God, you see the end of the hike up ahead. You get a huge burst of adrenaline that gives you the ability to forage on. While your feet are tattered and torn, you fight your way out of the woods, and you make it. You finally make it.
When you to come to the clearing, thankfully there’s a medic tent there so you can start stitching up your feet. While you’re doing that, you notice that no one else is in there with you. Like, where is your friend at? Did she already get her stitches done? So, you head outside to see what’s going on.
When you get outside you see your friend from afar. She hollers at you, “Jeeze! It’s about time!!! What the hell took you so long? This wasn’t THAT hard of a hike.”
Once again, you feel embarrassed and like a loser, but you fake a smile and, usually having learned by now how to be funny, you say a witty comeback.
Your friend happily comes walking closer to you, and you cannot…believe…….your…….eyes.
This bitch is wearing hiking boots. She had HIKING BOOTS ON THE WHOLE TIME!!!
THIS IS WHAT IT’S LIKE HAVING ADHD!!!!! hehehehe….won’t don’t have the goddamn hiking boots. So, while “the friend” in the story was saying that she understood being tired on the hike, and her feet were sore too, and when she stepped on the cactus how it barely poke through her boot (while you stepped on the cactus barefoot), she wasn’t really feeling the pain the same way as you were.
Yes, the friend still had to hike the path, and cross the river with the sharp rocks….meaning everyone has their path and their own struggles. BUT, when you have ADHD, the regular things, that shouldn’t be a struggle…like simply going on a hike….are a MAJOR struggle….because we are very forgetful….hence the no shoes.
So, you go through a moment of anger. You get pissed off once you realize that everyone else had shoes on and you didn’t. You go back through so many moments of times you were crying in pain and they were calling you dramatic, but now you realize what was really going on. Ohhhhh those memories come flooding back, I promise you. You just feel so effing mad because you knew it. You knew something was off, and then you finally get proof, and then you kinda wanna punch people in the throat…not gonna lie.
Like, when that bitch who told me to toughen up and quit whining, walked up to me wearing HIKING BOOTS!!!!! As my feet have 17 thousand stitches in them?! Yeah…kinda wanna cut her.
Thankfully, that ADHD rage outburst will pass, and you will move on into acceptance….give it time. (I also recommend therapy…hehe)
Granted, I am not saying that anyone else is responsible for how hard your hike is. We all have our own hike, that no one else can walk. It’s the hike of life, and we are all responsible for it. And we all will come across rough terrain, and hard times. Each and every one of us. So, I am not at all saying ADHD is an excuse for failing, quitting, being a loser, giving up, or playing the victim. I am just trying to say that hiking is harder to do barefoot.
When I got my diagnosis and found a treatment plan, that was when I got "hiking boots”. I take adderall now, and while I am still nervous about side effects and the big farma mob, I can’t even begin to tell you how much it has changed my life. It calmed all the noise in my head and I could just think. I could focus more, complete tasks, keep my house clean, take better care of myself, etc. I could also sit in silence, and literally….my mind would be silent. I also started sleeping. Better than I’ve ever slept before. It was blowing my mind with how much better it made my life. Getting “hiking boots” allowed me to start “enjoying the view”. Because I was no longer in so much pain from hiking barefoot, I began to love hiking again.
What all this means, is that for me finding out I have ADHD and getting help with it allowed me to start being much more productive, organized, and constructive. Life just became so much easier. I still had regular life problems, but EVERY SINGLE THING was no longer a mental struggle. The normal things that used to be so incredibly hard to do, like brushing my teeth (yes this is a thing with ADHD), were now done without me needing any brain power to do it. It’s like the little, simple things were just done on autopilot every day (as it is for people without ADHD). I didn’t have to write “brush your teeth” on my to-do lists every day. And when you no longer have to use so much energy to remember those dumb little things (that your brain SHOULD remember on it’s own but doesn’t…stupid), you now have extra energy to put towards the big things, like paying bills that are behind or getting back to texts messages and friends that you’ve accidentally ignored for weeks because you kind of forgot they existed. (Again, this is another ADHD thing…out of sight out of mind is a very real concept for us divergent creatures.) Getting diagnosed just helped make life a little easier. It gave me hiking boots.
If any of this makes sense to you, I encourage you to begin researching and even talking to your doctor about it. It doesn’t hurt to check. If it doesn’t make sense at all to you, I still appreciate you taking the time to read it and try to understand.
To those of you that are still here after this long post, I hope you are all at a spot on your hike where you still enjoy the view of life. If you find yourself not doing that because those damn feet hurt, maybe it’s time for hiking boots.
Happy Trails,
Em
