For a long time I assumed that eventually things would just make sense.
That one day I’d understand why certain things drained me so much. Why some environments felt overwhelming. Why it took so much effort to tolerate things that seemed easier for everyone else.
Instead, the last couple of years have felt like the opposite.
Since being diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, I sometimes feel like I’m getting worse, not better.
It turns out a lot of what I thought was resilience was actually just endurance.
My tolerance is lower.
Noise irritates me faster.
Situations I used to push through now feel impossible to ignore.
Some days it feels like regression.
Which is strange, because I also still don’t really feel like an adult most of the time.
I have kids. A house. Responsibilities. All the markers that are supposed to signal you’ve arrived somewhere.
And yet a lot of the time I still feel like someone who’s figuring things out as they go.
But I’m starting to wonder if what feels like regression might actually be something else.
For most of my life, I didn’t know there was anything to mask.
I thought the effort it took to keep up socially, regulate my reactions, tolerate noise, and manage overstimulation was just part of being human.
Everyone must feel this tired after interacting with people all day. Everyone must replay conversations afterward. Everyone must feel like they’re constantly adjusting themselves to match whatever environment they’re in.
Now I’m realizing that what I thought was normal functioning was often just… coping.
Masking without knowing I was masking.
And once you see the mask, it’s hard to keep wearing it the same way.
Which is where the irritation comes in.
Because unmasking sounds empowering in theory. In reality, it sometimes just feels like having less patience than you used to.
Less tolerance for noise.
Less tolerance for social games.
Less tolerance for pushing through things that drain you.
I’m not sure I like the unmasked version of myself yet.
She’s less tolerant.
Less willing to push through things that drain her.
Less patient with the noise and chaos that used to feel unavoidable.
But maybe that’s not regression.
Maybe it’s just the first time I’ve stopped pretending those things didn’t cost me anything.
Maybe it’s just me.
But I have a suspicion a lot of people discover this after diagnosis. That what looked like regression is sometimes just awareness.
And awareness has a way of making things harder before they start to make sense.
Talk soon,
Tara
CEO of Chaos & Co.