I’m trying to build something genuinely useful for ADHD brains in my country — in Czech, not English. Few weeks ago, I put out a survey and offered people the chance to connect with me for one-on-one online conversations about ADHD. Today I had my first call with someone from that survey, and honestly? I loved it. There were so many moments where I completely understood what she meant. She talked about constantly losing and forgetting things — one of those “classic ADHD” struggles that doesn’t hit me as hard personally. But the truth is, I’m aware that in my case it’s probably overcompensation. I check everything seven times: keys in pocket, phone in bag, car lights on. My brain basically runs on manual verification mode. One thing she mentioned really stuck with me though: the lack of understanding from people around her. Even her boyfriend thinks adult ADHD isn’t real. And I run into the same thing online all the time. Whenever I post about ADHD on Threads, there’s usually at least one comment along the lines of: “Yeah right, another person blaming ADHD for everything.” I was also at a lecture recently where the speaker made one of those jokes: “Nowadays everyone has ADHD, right?” And honestly, I couldn’t even tell whether he was mocking people like us… or reacting to the flood of trendy self-diagnosed content where someone jokes about forgetting the trash outside because they saw a squirrel on the way back in. The weird thing is: in the Czech Republic, a book about women with ADHD recently won the biggest and most prestigious literary award in the nonfiction category. Awareness is growing. And yet there are still so many people who think ADHD is either fake, overdiagnosed, or just “little hyper boys climbing chandeliers. ”The rise of “fake ADHD” influencer content really isn’t helping either. Have you experienced this too? How do you deal with being labeled — directly or indirectly — as lazy, irresponsible, or someone who’s “just making excuses”? And honestly… how do we get actual ADHD awareness outside the ADHD bubble? Because even if I start making YouTube videos, the algorithm will mostly push them toward people already interested in ADHD — not the people dismissing it in the first place.

I want to share a bit about what I've learned. - ADHD brains don't track time like neurotypical brains. Time for us is not linear. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄. - 𝗪𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲. What does this mean? We base decisions on how long something will take by the way it makes us feel. If a task 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 hard, we think that it will take a long time. If a task 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 easy, we think we will get it done super fast. This is why we avoid some tasks for extended periods of time, only to do the task and be surprised how fast we got it done. Or the opposite - we dive into the "easy" task and it ends up taking a long time and throws off our whole day. - This makes it hard for us to estimate how long something will take. We either over-estimate or under-estimate. This information has me reflecting on my experience with time over the years. I can see the pattern clearly now that I understand it. 𝗪𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁! I am curious. What are your thoughts and experiences with time?