When in doubt, just work harder – until you no longer can. 

I always thought that work ethic is one thing nobody could take away from me. In graduate school, I admired people – especially women, particularly mothers – who could work reasonable hours and somehow finish their bench work, keep up with current literature, and submit grant applications on time. Meanwhile, I never stopped working, yet everything would be done at the very last minute. Yes, I was bad at time management, constantly making mistakes that forced me to second-guess experimental results. I could, nonetheless, work anyone under the table with my ability to keep going at all hours, all days, with no vacations, no weekends. Academia certainly encouraged it. Senior academics would praise my hard work, marvel at my multitasking skills, at my cheerful spirit. However, those very efficient women whom I admired would frequently ask, “How are you not burned out? How are you holding up?” I would deflect, laugh it off, make a self-deprecating joke. In my own mind, I knew that it was not a sustainable work style. However, the discovery of new data – that moment when you turn on the microscope at the end of a long experiment and see the confirmation of your hypothesis in glorious multicolor – got me through many periods of disinterest and boredom caused by the relentless tedium of everyday bench work.

Fortunately, those dopamine hits of new data in my graduate school research were plentiful, and I was productive by academic standards. For my postdoc training, I wanted to do research that required technical and intellectual prowess well outside of my comfort zone. I figured that, through the combination of relentless work and genuine joy for science, I could level up and further challenge myself.  And so, I got into a dream lab, universally acknowledged for being one of the best in the field, helmed by an advisor lauded for their scientific rigor and keen mentorship. I was warned that projects often took many years before they were up to the lab’s exceedingly high standards for innovation and thoroughness. It is OK, I told myself, shoving the perpetual swarm of highly critical inner voices aside, I would just keep working through all the challenges until I got better, until science would share its wonders with me like it did before.  

At first, the work was astoundingly interesting. I generated novel genetically modified mice and learned how to image brain cells in living animals. Over time, however, the project started to run into endless walls. Newly generated tools experienced months-long setbacks due to poor reproducibility of previously published data. My lack of “good hands” – i.e., general clumsiness, impatience, and poor hand-eye coordination – caused multiple wasted experiments and instilled feelings of great shame over my perpetual incompetence. Then, one by one, every single scientific hypothesis of the project failed. The “IT” factor of a novel discovery that takes a solid research story and turns it into a transcendent one proved to be maddeningly elusive for years.

In the absence of any gratification, immediate or long-term, I found myself more and more going through the motions instead of feeling inspired by the work. Sure, I still worked close to 10 hours almost every single day, but I found my mind drifting, craving reading random Reddit threads instead of research papers. The swarm of ever-doubtful inner voices kept growing louder. I cried internally at every lab meeting after seeing my gifted and efficient lab mates share their glorious projects. Also, I started noticing that, in addition to my usual careless mistakes and perpetual disorganization, new issues started to emerge. I would forget to go over email edits, often sending borderline incoherent correspondence. I would think of something only to forget all about it while opening a new (50th) browser tab. Dr. Google helpfully suggested early onset dementia, stroke, multiple sclerosis, depression, severe burnout, and…ADHD. The burnout as a current state made sense, but the suggestion of ADHD as the root cause made me pause and take a more careful look at my life up until that point. 

What is ADHD, really?
The Internet said many women in their early thirties finally get their ADHD diagnosis due to accumulation of life responsibilities and hormonal changes. Recognizing ADHD in women by current DSM criteria is tricky. It is doubly tricky for bright women and girls. It is nigh impossible for women who, like me, come from countries where mental health just recently became recognized as a legitimate issue culturally and medically.  I learned what ADHD was from a few male friends in the United States, and they certainly fit the description.  They were charming and creative, but flighty, restless, and incapable of sustained attention to anything besides a new interest. They got diagnoses and accommodations, pulled their lives back on track. How could I possibly have anything in common with those folks? Never mind that, my figurative wheels of focus and attention came off around college time. I almost went on an academic probation with only an A+ in independent research pulling my GPA above fail. I overcommitted on responsibilities, daydreamed in lectures, and spent money like it was water. I never felt like I fit in anywhere and never let anyone in. But I didn’t fidget, had great grades during primary schooling, and was “a good kid”, so ADHD didn’t even come to my mind anytime I wondered what was wrong with me. I was just smart but not exceptionally so, and very disorganized and forgetful, as my well-meaning relatives would comment. Only my dad never said anything, probably because he was the exact same way as me, only a lot worse. Some things just run in families, they say. 

Paradoxically, a stressful life event shortly after college had a resoundingly calming and focusing effect on my mind. I became a lot more organized, paid off credit card debt, and got into a great PhD program. Most importantly, I learned how to use work to both escape from personal problems and solve academic ones. Surely, the whole teenage/college collapse was a fluke of an immature fish out of water in a new country.

But here I was in my early 30s, in this dream lab, staring at the screen with a list of ADHD symptoms, ticking off so many boxes. I thought – maybe it is the other way around, during graduate school years I just had enough energy and motivation to brute force any issue, academic or personal, and now I am finally no longer able to outrun my own brain once again?

And so, for the first time ever, I went to seek professional help. It didn’t take long before a doctor said with confidence: “It is highly likely you have ADHD, and you may benefit from either medication and/or cognitive behavior therapy”. Then the double hammer of a worldwide pandemic and pregnancy came down at the same time, and addressing my mental health fell by the wayside in the face of much greater immediate challenges. 

On working motherhood and finally getting actual help 
Motherhood, for all its extraordinary joy, felt like installing an enormous program on my already overloaded computer of a brain. Being a first-time working mom during a pandemic was doubly isolating, as old support networks dissolved, and it was difficult and unsafe to form new ones. Recognizing the enormous privilege I had with a flexible work schedule, remaining gainfully employed, having childcare, and receiving timely medical assistance during a devastating pandemic would only further shove me down the spiral of shame and self-doubt that I couldn’t get anything right. Furthermore, my compensatory mechanisms of working extra hard and calming my mind with exercise disappeared, leading to months going by with little to nothing meaningful accomplished at work and sleepless nights full of relentless negative thoughts and anxieties.

In the meantime, my home country started a brutal war against a neighboring nation, adding a sense of great shame to my identity as a citizen of a murderous state. Overall, I was working so hard every day, yet accomplishing so little, with my meager antiwar contributions, with the stubborn research project remaining stagnant, all at the expense of wasting time away from my family. Unsurprisingly, during a routine weekly meeting after I admitted to struggling with writing a research paper introduction, my co-advisor said in exasperation: “You are struggling with everything”. Without meaning to, they delivered the most devastating criticism a person with ADHD could ever receive – the kind that fully validates the swarm of negative voices living rent-free in your head.

And so, to silence those voices, to fit in, to prove to myself that I am not, in fact, a failure, I went to get help once again. With the pandemic still in full swing, regular cognitive therapy sessions were not a feasible option, so I went with a medication route. For the first time in my life, my mind felt like someone pushed a mute button. The swarm of negative voices was still there, but quieter, their criticism washing over me without leaving a painful mark. Transitioning from task to task became easy instead of impossible. Doing things that were of no immediate interest didn’t fill my soul with dread. Lab meetings were no longer the time for perpetual self-flagellation, but rather brought me moments of creative clarity that helped other lab members with their projects. In my own work, relentless negative data no longer felt like a reflection of my personal failure – instead, a more careful look at what it was trying to tell us led the project in a very different, yet completely novel direction. I no longer felt so overwhelmed by the relentless attention that being a mom demands 24/7.

Unfortunately, physiological and psychological side effects of medication were not trivial, and ultimately, I had to pause the regimen to address those issues more carefully. However, getting diagnosed and receiving appropriate treatment for ADHD allowed me to see myself in a whole new light, utilize skills that I acquired while receiving medical help, and do my best to apply them even without medication. I felt like I was no longer trying to outwork my ADHD, but rather learning to work with it.

If you can’t work your ADHD away, how can you work with it?
Nothing truly beats getting professional medical help and receiving support from your loved ones. There are, however, small practical things that can help change your self-image and work with your brain.

In academic research, we are valued for our ability to be productive, both short- and long-term, with the latter being particularly challenging for people with ADHD. If much of your self-worth is based on your productivity, an easy and truly valuable thing you can do is to step outside your peer bubble and look at yourself through the eyes of someone not steeped in the overachieving culture of academia. To your non-science friend or a loved one, you are a person who got an advanced degree and who spends their days changing the very genetic code of living things, unearthing ancient civilizations, looking at galaxies far, far away. Just think about how truly cool things are that you do every single day and enjoy that small bout of dopamine. Think about how diverse your skills are. You can do experiments, write, mentor, analyze data, think critically, and most importantly, you are open to learning something new every single day.

Poor time management in folks with ADHD stems not only from underestimating how long something takes, but also from the amount of time it would take to switch between tasks. In research speak, it is glaringly obvious when based on your protocol timeline an experiment should take 1.5 hours, but it takes you three because you just couldn’t bring yourself to get up and move on to the next step or you hyper-focused on a more engaging task. Being on medication was profoundly revealing to me in how much time I would waste on initiating and transitioning between tasks, as it made it so much easier. It is certainly a lot more challenging for me while unmedicated, but I find that even awareness of those potential small “time sinks” changes how I approach time management in a positive way. 

Giving your mind rest is a huge challenge, as it is difficult for many people with ADHD to practice meditation conventionally. The relentless whirring of voices in one’s head can feel overwhelming during forced stillness and quiet in their mind. However, exercise can provide the benefits of both physical activity and freeing your mind to focus on things you actually care about. Personally, I do my best thinking while swimming. It should be dreadfully boring to swim back and forth; however, for me, it is the kind of activity that keeps my busy mind successfully distracted by the whole “do not drown” problem, while my creative mind is free to explore and ponder. Finding a similar activity that you enjoy could give you rest that is hard to find elsewhere. 

On being honest with yourself 
Much like fear in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”, negativity can also be a mind killer. In my experience, you can try to outrun the negative voices in your head, outwork them, numb yourself with whatever brings you momentary pleasure, but sooner or later they can take over your mind and paralyze it, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wish I could tell you that facing your restless and critical thoughts and permitting them to pass over you and through you will make your troubles go away, but it is easier said than done.  Am I still too prideful to admit that my shortcomings are associated with an ADHD diagnosis to virtually anyone besides my spouse? I absolutely am. I spent years building the walls and compensatory mechanisms to protect myself from my own brain and from others ever catching on to my inner struggles. In the process, however, I ended up being not honest with myself as well. Under most circumstances, admitting a mental health diagnosis to others is not an obligation. It is, however, an obligation to yourself to recognize your own needs and take steps to improve your quality of life. It is hard to ask for help from others, especially if you often downplay your struggles, but it does help to start by asking for help from yourself. If I could, I hope you can as well.

This contributor currently resides in the United States where she works in a lab and lives with her spouse, a child, and a dog. 

This blog is kindly sponsored by G-Research