"No, You Don't Have 'a Bit of ADHD'. And It's Not a Superpower Either."

I've lost count of how many times someone has said it to me.

I'm explaining what ADHD is actually like for me — the forgetting, the chaos, the way my brain decides a conversation is over before I've finished the sentence — and they nod along, looking sympathetic, and then say it:

"Oh yeah, I think I have a bit of ADHD too."

Every. Single. Time.

I know they mean well. I really do. But what they're describing — getting distracted sometimes, feeling scattered on a busy day — that's just being human. What I have is something else entirely.

Here's what my ADHD actually looks like. I make a calendar. I add everything to it. I never open it. Not because I don't care, but because my brain genuinely doesn't register that the calendar exists until it's too late. Then I'm late. Again. And I feel like an idiot. Again.

Or this — I'll get a brilliant idea and I'll plan the whole thing out in my head. Every detail. I'll hyperfocus on it for hours, genuinely excited, completely alive. And then... that's it. The feeling passes. By the time I need to actually do it, the spark is gone. I've already lived it in my mind and my brain has moved on.

That's why school was so hard. That's why saving money is hard. That's why anything that requires you to care about something months from now is nearly impossible when your brain only really believes in right now.

And here's the other thing — the one that really gets me.

People say ADHD is a superpower.

I understand why they say it. I do. They're trying to be positive. But when you're sitting there having forgotten your medication, and you're trying to have a conversation but the words are all arriving at once and coming out in the wrong order, and someone is looking at you like you're a bit strange — it doesn't feel like a superpower.

When I'm unmedicated, you can hear it in the way I speak. When I'm medicated, people who know me well genuinely comment on the difference. That's not a superpower. That's just managing.

I'm not saying this to be miserable about it. I'm saying it because I spent years thinking something was wrong with me before I was finally diagnosed. And if I'd read something honest — not inspiring, just honest — maybe I would have found help sooner.

So if you're reading this and you recognize yourself in any of this — the planning that never starts, the conversations that get tangled, the constant sense of being slightly out of step with everyone else — I want you to know that I see it. I've lived it.

And that's exactly why I do what I do.

— Rogerio