Amanda – Tiny Hands Big Adventures – April 2026
I don’t usually share things like this. You might even be thinking… why bother? Why does she need to say this? But I think sometimes the most useful thing I can do for myself is be honest. About who I am, how my brain works, and why that shapes everything I do at Tiny Hands Big Adventures.
So this one’s a bit raw. It’s personal. But if it helps even one person feel less alone or understand themselves a little better, it’s worth it.
I spent most of my life not trusting my brain.
Not in a dramatic way. I wasn’t falling apart. I was managing at life… muddling through, getting things done, functioning. But there was always this something in the background… the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with me. That I was a bit lazy. A bit messy. A bit all over the place. That I had to work harder than everyone else just to stay afloat… but then often I still felt like I was sinking. And I didn’t know why… I just accepted it as who I was.
Then perimenopause hit.
And every tool I’d quietly and unconsciously built over a lifetime to help me ‘adult’, every workaround, every habit, every way I’d learned to function… just stopped working. I was a mess, and I couldn’t understand why the things that had always just held me together were suddenly falling apart completely.
Then I received my ADHD diagnosis. Late. As a woman. As so many of us do… It didn’t change everything overnight… But it changed everything.
The diagnosis itself didn’t fix me, because I don’t actually need fixing.
It didn’t bring me a brain that suddenly became organised. My motivation didn’t magically arrive. I still lose things daily… many, many times a day. I still forget things daily, again many, many times a day… I still have days where doing the simplest task feels inexplicably hard.
I still speak before I think on occasions and I still have days where that thing I see online that I want, but don’t need gets bought and never to be used.
But I finally understood why.
And that understanding… that moment of oh, this is why, was one of the most quietly significant things that has ever happened to me.
I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t unorganised because I didn’t care. My brain just works differently. It always had. And suddenly 48 years of life suddenly made sense. I cut myself some slack. Maybe for the first time ever.
On to my best ADHD bits… although it can be complicated at times, and I want to be honest about that too…
I love intensely and I will walk to the end of the earth for those I care about. I feel things deeply, I show up fiercely, and I wouldn’t change that passion for the people I love for anything.
And hyperfocus… that’s real and it’s a positive… with a cheeky side of not… at times.
When my brain locks onto something it cares about, it goes all in. That’s a big part of how Tiny Hands Big Adventures came to exist… I had an idea I was passionate about and my brain just committed to it completely.
But on the flip side I can’t dress it up as a superpower, because it isn’t. Not for me… it’s more super crap than superpower some days. That same hyperfocus that makes me insanely productive and sees me smashing out content and blogs like this by the tram load…. it sometimes means I can forget to eat. Forget to drink. Lose hours. Lose sleep… a lot of sleep.
It’s not a gift with a neatly tied bow on it… sometimes it really really works for me… until it doesn’t.
I want to be honest about the harder side too… because I think that matters.
The disorganisation can still be there. The impulsiveness still rears its head. My motivation still dips and I still overshare… ironically, possibly in this very blog post.
And then there’s RSD. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s common in people with ADHD, and it is, for me at least… the hardest part of all of this.
RSD is the way criticism lands. It doesn’t just land… it crashes. It’s the intense shame and guilt that follows, even when the criticism is minor. Even when it’s imagined criticism… born from a call that’s not returned, a text that’s not answered.
Even when logically I know everything is fine, my brain is already convinced it isn’t, already spiralling, I’m already 100% certain I’ve got it wrong or upset someone… or that I’ve said too much.
And it’s not just emotional. It’s physical too. It’s a weight, a feeling in my body that is genuinely hard to describe… but that anyone who struggles with RSD will probably recognise immediately.
It hurts.
Knowing what it is doesn’t stop it happening… but it does mean I can name it now. And there’s something in that… being able to say “that’s my RSD” or “that’s just the way my brain works” rather than internally berating myself and just feeling like I’m falling apart for no reason… it actually helps.
There’s the racing brain. The internal rumination that never quite switches off. Overthinking every conversation I’ve ever had, replaying what I said, second guessing how it landed, convincing myself I’ve upset someone or said the wrong thing. My brain just doesn’t stop.
And to make it stop… I speak. I say the thing. Which sometimes leads to oversharing. My brain is already one step behind my mouth, and the words are out before I’ve thought about how they might land… not because they’re unkind or harmful, just unconsidered in that moment. And then the regret kicks in. And the rumination starts all over again… It’s a vicious circle.
And it’s exhausting.
So why am I sharing this? I’m not sharing it for sympathy. Because I don’t need or want it… I am at peace with my ADHD, even if it’s tough at times.. I’m sharing it because I know I’m not the only one. And actually… even if the negatives outweigh the positives at times I’m still thankful for my diagnosis.
For a long time I didn’t understand myself. I just thought I was a bit of a mess really, not quite enough.
And then I did understand, and everything changed.
Like I said earlier… it didn’t change overnight, and life didn’t suddenly become perfect, but it shifted. That understanding is what gave me the courage to build Tiny Hands Big Adventures. To back myself. To trust myself and that what I have to offer matters, even on the days my brain tells me otherwise.
So if this resonates with you… whether it’s your own experience or someone you love, I just hope it helps you feel a little less alone. That’s really all this is.
Much love, A xx
If you’d like to read more:
ADHD UK
ADHD in Women – The British Psychological Society
Five ways ADHD shows up in women – and why we keep missing it | BPS
ADHD & RSD