How I’m learning to navigate academia as someone with ADHD

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Some years ago, an advert caught my eye: “become a bus driver”. I felt tempted. I was in my second postdoctoral programme, juggling several projects, my first supervision duties and teaching — all on top of adjusting to a new country and managing a long-distance relationship. I was exhausted. I told my doctor that my deepest wish was to fall asleep and never wake up. They said this wasn’t good news.

I had been depressed before, so I knew I needed professional help. What I didn’t know was that there was a deeper reason for my permanent anxiety, troubled sleep and frequent cycles of feeling overworked and burnt out. I would find out only years later that these were signs of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

This one piece of information changed everything for me, and helped me to see myself through the lens of neurodiversity: not as an outsider, but as someone whose mental make-up is different from that of many other people.

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