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Can You Relate?
Has this ever happened to you?
- You arrive (on time!) for your appointment only to find out it’s next week?
- You lose something (maybe your wallet) and find it in the weirdest place (like the linen closet)?
- You give someone your standard answer (I don’t know) because you’re weren’t listening only to find out the question was, “Where do you live?”?
- You invite a number of people over for Christmas dinner – just like you do every
Brenda Nicholson An ADD Woman
year – but this year you forget to go grocery shopping for like 2 weeks? No? That ones just me then. 😐
In other words, you have ADHD.
Hi. My name is Brenda Nicholson and I write this blog. I have been since 2007.
I do it because I want to help women like me whose lives feel like a constant merry go round with no way off.
That graphic below is one of my favorites because it’s SO true.
The Real Me
I have no idea what people online think of me, but I’m here to tell you about the real me, because I hope that you can see yourself.
If you can relate to the real me, then you’re in the right place, and I can help you get off the merry go round and send the circus out of town permanently.
When I was a kid, I always felt different, like I didn’t quite belong.
Sometimes I didn’t get the jokes the kids would tell, sometimes I felt like I looked different. You know how girls are; you want to look like the cool girls – wear what they are wearing and do your hair like theirs. And I was always falling short. Coming close, but not quite enough.
In middle school. we needed gym shoes. All the girls got white Keds. Mine were bright green. (It’s still one of my favorite colors.)
Trying to Adult
I never had many boyfriends, but I was lucky enough to meet the love of my life and my best friend, Mark. We got married in 1980.
At first, keeping our apartment clean, keeping up with the bills, making dinners, and working a full time job was easy.
We bought a house before we had our first, Sarah, and I quit work to stay home with her. I also started back to college to get my BSBM when she was 5 months old. Because, you know, I didn’t have enough to do.
I don’t remember when things started falling apart, but they did.
Suddenly, keeping up with the house, the baby, the laundry, bills, meals, oh and school was more than I could handle.
It probably didn’t help that Andy came along (by our choice) when Sarah was 16 months old. I finished my summer semester just a few weeks before he was born.
Chaos
The house was a mess from one end to the other.
Laundry was never done – not even close to being caught up – unless my parents came over and did it. Yes, they did. More times than I can count.
Dinner was often something like a can of soup and a sandwich. Maybe.
Sometimes I forgot to pay the bills. Once our phone got shut off and I ran out to pay the bill. In my hurry to get back home, I jumped into someone else’s car (it looked like mine, but neater).
I was embarrassed to have anyone stop by. There was stuff everywhere.
I lost the title to one of our cars. We didn’t find out about it until we sold it and needed it.
I accidentally tore up all of our checks from our new checking account, thinking they were our old ones.
Enough is Enough
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but one day I got fed up. I was tired of the way we were living.
I had always wanted a cute home of my own, and kids, but I never pictured things the way we were living.
Then I found this book:
This book literally changed my life. No lie.
These ladies understood me and they showed me how, little by little, to get my home organized and get myself together.
And it worked!
Sure, I had times when things got bad again. I was never one of those women who could work, manage a home, and raise kids. I salute those of you who do.
But the methods in that book helped me tremendously.
Going Pro
At some point, I found out that all of us in my family of 5 had ADHD, me included. I was 42 when I was diagnosed.
By then, I had been studying ADHD for about 10 years or more.
I had known that my son Andy had ADHD when he was just a toddler, and I needed to know everything in order to be the best mom for him that I could.
In 2000, I completed training to be an ADD Coach, and shortly after started a coaching program for ADHD students at our local community college.
I have a lot more under my professional belt, but the point is this:
I have the experience – the life in the trenches, been there, done that – experience to help you with your ADHD life.
And I have the professional training to back it up.
Please let me know what I can do for you.
