I Told the Doctor I Feel More and More Like My Daughter Every Day

I remember feeling lost. I would walk into a room and not know why I was there, and I couldn't figure out what I'd come in for. This kept happening, over and over.

At the time, I was just starting the journey with my books, spending every waking moment learning new skills on YouTube, teaching myself. My daughter's ADHD was in the thick of it all. Doctors' appointments. School was a nightmare for both of us. I had sleepless nights worrying about her. My finances were tanking. I was a single mom trying to hold it all together, and I would blow all the time, or go into deep places, but never in front of her. I'd have my moment in the shower, or wait until she was fast asleep, or at school, and cry. I was losing control. I was alone in a city without many friends, my family lived somewhere else entirely.

Here's how I work: when I lose control, I need to figure out the why and the what of it. So I started putting the puzzle pieces together. I'd reached the age where I might be going into menopause, I couldn't say for sure, yes I was having the hot flashes and it seemed like menopause, but something still felt off. Not right.

At the same time, in trying to help my daughter, I was doing as much research on ADHD and dyslexia as I could, trying to understand what she was going through.

I avoid doctors at all costs until it's the very last resort. I've spent most of my life in doctors' rooms, operating theatres, therapy. I was all doctored out. But I'd developed an infection, and there was no avoiding it this time. At that consultation, I mentioned a few things, but the one thing I said that still stands out to me to this day is: "Doctor, I feel more and more like my daughter every day." She explained it away as menopause. Go on HRT, she said, and everything would be back to normal. So I accepted it. It was menopause, and I got on with my life, accepting that as a woman at my age, we go through these things. Suck it up.

But as I kept doing more research to help my daughter, I found the first fact that cracked it open: ADHD is hereditary. Even with that sitting right in front of me, I still thought, no, it's stress, I'm not ADHD, it's menopause. Even holding that information in my hands, I told myself, okay, fine, maybe I have ADHD, but I manage it very well, it's not affecting my life. After all the therapy I've been through, I know every skill in the book of life. I am just fine.

But the more I watched her, the more we uncovered together, the more I realised: that's me.

I was, for most of my life, still the "tomboy." I prefer trackpants and takkies because they're comfortable. I don't chase the next trend. I'm comfortable in my own, very quirky skin now, but that wasn't always the case. School was difficult because I didn't fit into a box. I was the one who created the box, and that still isn't accepted in today's society. If you fit into a neat picture, you're easily managed. And I don't want to be managed. So I come off as rude, disrespectful, offhand, because I don't colour between the lines. I never did. What I'm best at, for the most part, is masking. I have a PhD in masking. Not a real one, but that's how good I am at it. My job is to make you feel better about yourself, and so I'm the one being the sacrificial lamb.

Why do I share this? Because I'm trying to help my daughter navigate this world with her ADHD and still come out of every environment feeling good about herself. And the more I connect with my own ADHD moments as a child, the more I can finally recognise that fourteen-year-old girl who woke up one day and decided she was going to be super independent and show the world she could do everything on her own. I can see it now for what it truly was: ADHD and puberty, colliding at once.

As I discover more about myself, I feel like I can help my daughter more as she navigates her own journey.

— Tania, Tansley Express