My ADHD Diagnosis & Shifting Negative Self-Perception

After receiving an official ADHD diagnosis a few months ago, a lot of things have changed in my life. This episode goes through my process for getting diagnosed and what the emotional journey was like. I also share how I’ve perceived myself over the years, unknowingly because of my ADHD symptoms, and how it’s connected to body image.

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Rebecca Sigala 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. This topic is something that I thought I was going to wait a little bit longer to talk about. Just because it feels better to share things that you fully understand. That perhaps you've experienced over and over again and seen from a bunch of different angles. Like for example, when I'm giving advice and sharing things with you on this podcast, most of them are things I've been thinking about for years. That I've experienced, that I've seen my clients experience, and I've been able to really digest and process them and then pass them on from this place of groundedness and a deep understanding. But this, this is something I'm still processing. I'm in the messy middle as Brene Brown says. I think there is still a lot of value in sharing from this place. Part of wanting to share after something happens and you've overcome it, is a little bit of this ego coming in. It's like, Hey, I've gone through that. I've overcome it, and now I can help you. Versus, damn, I'm in the middle. It's messy. I'm struggling, and I don't know what the hell to think about all of this. The value of sharing from this place is helping other people actually not feel alone, for people to feel seen, to normalize what it means to be a human. I think I mentioned this in either the last episode or the episode before. But it's not the actual struggle that is the hardest part about struggling. It's how we meet ourselves there. The hardest part is the shame we feel for struggling, and that just makes everything so much harder when we're beating ourselves up for being human. So from time to time, I do share from this place. I've done it before, and it's more vulnerable than talking about things that happened in the past. And also with this, I'm not even sure where this episode's going to go, but I want to share in hopes that you guys will gain something from all of this. This journey started several months ago when people were periodically telling me about their ADHD, and I was like, oh, yeah, okay. I relate. That sounds familiar. Things like not being able to focus specifically on things that you're not interested in or just having a million thoughts going through your mind all the time. You know, like the basic things we think about when we think of ADHD. I used to even joke, oh, that's just my ADHD brain. But that didn't click for me. I didn't actually think that I had ADHD for real, because when I thought of people who had ADHD, which was probably hyperactive ADHD, my own symptoms did not express themselves in the same way. I was just like, you know, a little overwhelmed with the thoughts in my brain, so I always pushed it to the side, and I never thought that I needed to get a diagnosis. Several months ago I took this like quiz online for ADHD and it said something like, maybe I'm moderately ADHD, and I still did not do anything about it at that point. But then just a few months ago, one by one, probably about five or six people within the span of a couple weeks started telling me about their ADHD diagnosis as an adult. And I got pretty curious because it was weird. There were so many people coming up to me and I felt like God was putting these people in front of me on purpose. So I asked them about their symptoms in more detail. I asked about the medications and about how they're feeling now, and most of them were like, it completely changed my life and I feel so much better and everything makes sense. So that really encouraged me to make an appointment with my psychiatrist and when I walked into her office. At that point, I really did have this underlying feeling that I had ADHD. I told her what I was thinking and I could tell that she was a little bit skeptical. She mentioned that I don't really present as ADHD and hey, look, you run this really successful business and you have a really healthy relationship with your husband, which are things that take organization and attention and things that people who do have ADHD often struggle with. And I can also imagine that she's getting a lot of people coming up to her and asking her about this because of the attention that ADHD has had on social media and specifically on TikTok. But then when she started asking me questions about the more minute details of my life, it became super clear. I am not exactly sure what all of her questions were, but I'll share with you some of the things that I said to her. So I didn't even have the language for this at the time, but I realized that it was very difficult for me to go from task to task. Like if I was cooking, I could only do one thing at a time with a lot of focus, and then by the end of it, I'd turn around and the entire kitchen was like a tornado. And in that way I've always considered myself a bad multitasker. I know that's not very nice, but that's just kind of how I saw myself. And I know that a lot of women consider themselves great multitaskers, and I just never related to that. I also shared how my husband often needed to get my attention, like to tell me things and he would realize often that he'd share a whole story or an idea with me and then, I didn't actually hear any of it, and I would say to him like, okay, I'm really sorry, but I can't focus on this right now. A lot of times it would be like at the end of the day or when other stressful things were going on, so I didn't think about it too much, and it was also something that had become pretty accepted and managed in our relationship, and he accepted it too. Like he knew that there were really some moments when I wasn't going to hear what he was saying and that he would need to tell me later. But then she asked me if I ever lose things and I laughed. I was like, yes, I have lost all of my jewelry. You guys, I'm not even kidding. Like it was the cheap stuff. Of course. And I shared that with her as well. But then I also said, you know, even the stuff that is more important to me, like what my grandmother has given to me, I'm kind of worried about that too. And I was just laughing about that. And of course, this is very classic. I always put my keys down in random places and then I wouldn't be able to find them later. And, my husband is always finding things for me around the house, like I lost this. I lost that. A lot of times my friends would tell me about their husband's doing stuff like that, and I was like, that is me. So in order for me to be organized, I was realizing as I was telling her these things, that it takes a lot of mental effort and I have so much resistance, or I did have so much resistance in my body to cleaning and organization, especially things around the home. It always felt very different with my business. I would become hyper-focused on my business and on my clients. It's something that I love, that I'm interested in. It fulfills me so I am able to put everything into it. And in terms of the organizational stuff, I've created processes and spreadsheets and all of those things that keep me organized and able to run a successful business, even though sometimes those tiny details can still be challenging for me. And it's not that I can't do things at all, it is just that there's so much resistance in my body and it takes so much energy to do those things that I don't want to do, or that it's hard for me to focus on. So I've always had this narrative that has been reflected to me by family members. I'm not gonna out anybody here, but definitely people have said this to me that I'm lazy, that I'm so disorganized, that I'm not capable of X, Y, Z. I was the girl who always had a messy room from the beginning of time. In high school, I never even did my homework unless it was something that I really liked or I was passionate about. And then I would get an A with extra credit. And it wasn't like I didn't care about school. I just literally could not get myself to focus on my homework and actually turn it in. And I did feel a lot of shame about that for a long time. It was a miracle that I graduated high school and my parents just thought I was rebellious and I didn't give a fuck about school, but I did. I just had ADHD. How come no one fucking noticed it? Like I'm still processing that. So back to the session with my psychiatrist. By the end of that session, she was like, yep, so it seems like you have inattentive ADHD. She said that it wasn't the hyperactive kind and that it's not so severe. It's pretty mild, which is why it wasn't as noticeable. And then she asked me if I would like to try medication and I was open to it, for sure I was open to it. And this was only a couple months ago, by the way. It was strange for me to think about taking another medication, like, do I already need this? I already take Wellbutrin for anxiety and depression. Is it actually gonna help? Are there gonna be side effects? But I figured I'd try it out and just because I was trying it out didn't mean that I needed to be on it forever. But within a couple of days, I felt like my whole life changed. One of the biggest changes I noticed right away was that my anxiety went way down. Like way down. I was like, what is this life? Is this what life is supposed to be like? It was such an incredible feeling. And I was also able to go from task to task easier. To transition from work to home, from checking my social media to being with my kids. And right before that, I'd been going through weeks of not really being able to do so much housework, and I immediately felt like there was so much weight lifted off my shoulders and I was able to start doing the housework and pick things off the floor and organize things. I know that not everybody gets this and it sounds a little bit strange, but if you know, you know. Another really big difference I noticed right away was that my energy was a lot higher, obviously because of the Ritalin, but also when I weaned off the medication, like by the end of the day, I was not falling on my face like I usually am. It was like this emotional energy that I was using just to live everyday life was literally draining me, and without having that extra resistance, I had so much more energy and it felt freeing. And I was shocked. I could not stop talking about it, you guys, or thinking about it. And there was that one question which kept coming up, which is, how did nobody notice this? Not my teachers or my high school counselor, not my parents, not my past therapists or even my psychiatrist now. I think I went through this grieving period of like what could have my life been like and why did things have to be so hard for me when they could have been addressed so much earlier, and then it went to disappointment in these people for not catching it, and maybe even a little bit of anger. When I spoke to my mom about this and told her about my symptoms, she's like, oh yeah, you've been like that forever. Like what? I feel like of course it was a different time and now we do have a very different approach and understanding of mental health today, but it was still like this hard feeling to hear that, and I know that I cannot blame her for not knowing what she didn't know. And even as I spoke to other family members, it just didn't seem like such a big deal to them. They're like, oh yeah, cool. You have ADHD. Everybody does. Yeah, lots of people have trouble focusing, oh, this family member takes Adderall. I'm like, okay, it was not a big deal, but it was for me. It was a big deal because I've been living my life with a lot of challenges that I've managed to cope with. Very freaking well, if I might add, but it has been hard. It has held me back and most of all, it has given me this narrative of negative self-talk that I've been working very hard to overcome for years and years. When you're neurodivergent and the world isn't really set up for you to succeed. Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle, and the fact that I was able to create such a successful business, have that healthy relationship with my partner, be a mom, run a home and do all of those things pretty well, is actually incredible. And I do give myself a lot of credit here, and I'm thankful for my grit and my persistence and my passion for what I do. Because honestly, if I didn't have that passion, Rebecca Sigala Boudoir and coaching would've been gone a long time ago, because I have ADHD. So now I'm perceiving myself in this whole new way, which is really cool, and I'm realizing maybe I'm not as anxious and depressed as I thought I was. Which is huge. It's such a weird thing to think about. Dealing with all of these challenges, this resistance in my body. The fact that my business and my marriage were going pretty well, but everything else could be a fucking mess at the same time. And dealing with that persistent lack of focus, the lack of energy and things like that. Would make anybody anxious. And then to add in the negative self-talk and even just a little bit more exhaustion. Boom, you've got yourself depression. Since I've been on the medication for ADHD, I haven't really experienced so much depression and I haven't had a panic attack. My emotional regulation is so much better. Of course, I do other things too. I go to therapy. And I definitely have a lot of tools in my own toolbox that has helped me with my regulation over the years. And the truth is I've been coping and thriving this whole time. So using those things in combination with the medication has been really, really helpful and life changing for me. Another thing that I have really noticed and love is the mental clarity that I've gained. Like when I'm speaking to someone or I go live on social media or I speak here on this podcast, I feel so much more present and confident because I feel like when I'm talking, the chatter in my brain has gone way down, and it's just nice to say goodbye to all that chatter and the inner critic even more than I already have. This whole thing really is a blessing and it's a blessing that I was able to listen to my intuition and that I went to my psychiatrist really knowing in that moment what I needed, and I feel like this is another building block of self-trust for me. I listened to my intuition and it paid off. I don't think I would've been able to come to this place without all the work on myself before this, and specifically on my body image that I've done over the years. Now I'm able to be aware of negative thoughts about myself or my body and realize that they're just thoughts and actually go through a process to shift them while also leaning into what my body is trying to tell me. Our bodies are really smart. They hold emotions in ways that we don't even fully comprehend. So when I think about my intuition, a huge part of that is tuning into my physical body, and perhaps that's also with a combination of a spiritual feeling and then trusting myself to make decisions that are right for me. This whole experience and thinking about the thoughts that I had about myself because of my ADHD is just another example of thoughts that were not actually true, which happens to all of us. And if you have this thought that you are lazy or selfish like I did, you're probably not lazy or selfish. I actually remember one of my first therapy sessions like nine years ago where we were working through that thought, that I'm selfish, and I was really shocked to realize that, oh my God, I'm not selfish. I'm not self-centered. These are my values. This is why I work the way that I do, and this is actually what I want for myself so that I can give it to others and to the world at large. But these thoughts, this lazy, selfish, whatever narrative that we have, they have become so ingrained in us. Especially when we did hear this stuff when we were younger. That stuff sticks. It's just the same thing when we hear you're not pretty, you need to lose weight. You are fat. And do you know what most of those thoughts come down to? I'm not enough. I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough or pretty enough or thin enough or good enough. And that not enoughness bullshit has permeated our society. It has been passed on from generation to generation, and hopefully it can stop here with us. I still know what that feels like. Of course, I know what that feels like, that not enough feeling. For me, it feels like a kick in the gut, that constant need to do more, to be more, to prove myself. To specific people who made me feel like I wasn't enough. And the more I learn about and understand myself, the more I realize that I've always been enough. It's the social constructs that have made me and have made you guys feel otherwise. It's the media, it's my family, it's religion. It's all of these messages that I've internalized about the world and then about myself. That were never even true and they were never even mine. At the end of the day, I know that I'm going to let go of the disappointment and the anger and feeling badly for myself. Because the narrative that I'm creating now is that I am a brilliant, creative, beautiful, successful woman who has beat the odds in so many ways. Firstly, it takes the awareness of these negative thoughts that we have about ourselves, and then the next step is a deep sense of self-compassion in order to shift these things instead of spiraling into shame and self pity. It's something that I'm learning over and over again, and it's so liberating and it's accessible for you too. I always tell my clients if I can change the way I see myself, so can you. Okay beautiful listeners. Thank you for being on this journey. I can't wait to continue to share more with you and see where this all takes us.