Christine J GoldOwner, Soul Healers Sanctuary · ADHD Burnout Recovery Coach

I Masked My ADHD for 30 Years. Here's What It Cost Me. #adhdwomen

25 May 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:49

In this reflective monologue, the speaker discusses the deep emotional toll of spending three decades masking her ADHD, describing how the process involved hiding her true self behind a performance that protected her but also limited her life choices. She emphasizes that unmasking is not easy; it requires grieving the years lost, the relationships altered, and the opportunities missed. Using the Japanese art of kintsugi as a metaphor, she frames her broken yet beautiful self as something to be celebrated rather than repaired. The speaker urges listeners to stop seeking a better mask and instead create environments—"rooms" and "tables"—that are designed for neurodivergent individuals, allowing their authentic selves, empathic nervous systems, spiritual gifts, and varied career experiences to thrive.

Chapters

You can't unmask without grieving the years, the relationships, the paths not taken. And then you come through this, you will come through this. So I'm not gonna tell you unmasking is easy, it isn't. What I will tell you is that it's real and that it's yours and you're still here and you're still listening. The woman underneath the performance, the one with the ADHD brain, the empathic nervous system, the spiritual gifts, the 30 jobs, the parking garage moment. She was never broken. It's like that Japanese art, those broken pieces with the gold. She was just surviving in the wrong rooms, wrong rooms, wrong table. How about this? Build your own table. You don't need a better mask. You need a room and a table that's built for you.