A late ADHD diagnosis can be both a relief and a bereavement. Aneta Korycińska, a Polish philologist and author of the book "Radio in My Head. Stories About ADHD," devoted to living with ADHD, knows this from her own experience. The diagnosis allowed her to understand her many years of struggles with depression, impulsivity and difficulties concentrating—and to look back at an entire life that had previously seemed like an unending series of failures.
“Understanding your own neurology is the key to accepting yourself,” emphasizes Aneta Korycińska. “Without this knowledge, everyday mishaps, absent-mindedness, losing things and tripping reinforce the false feeling of being a ‘hopeless mess’ or a ‘broken’ person,” the author adds.
ADHD is not just a noisy boy
The first and most persistent stereotype concerning people with ADHD is social, because such people are automatically associated with boys, their physical hyperactivity, running and loud behavior—behavior that boys are more often allowed. Girls, meanwhile, are expected to be calm, well-mannered and obedient.
“Women with ADHD develop strong compensatory mechanisms, which makes their difficulties invisible to those around them,” Korycińska explains.
Meticulously planning everything in a calendar and the habit of making the bed, brought from her family home, meant that the stereotypical image of “messiness and a lack of organization” did not fit the reality of a woman diagnosed with ADHD at all.
The author of "Radio in My Head" openly shared her thoughts on fear.
“What was I really afraid of?” Korycińska says. “That if people found out that I was a person diagnosed with ADHD, they would stop entrusting their children to me, because they would think stereotypically: some kind of lunatic, some unstable woman, so they simply would not leave their children in my care, and the bubble they had created around me by watching my videos online, for example, would burst. But I had such a strong need to talk about it too, because I think everyone who receives a diagnosis has that need. Because it changes your life. It is as if a new life simply begins,” the Polish philologist added.
“Masking is living on an energy loan”
Social pressure causes girls and women to learn to hide their symptoms and adapt to their surroundings. This masking—constant self-control—requires a tremendous amount of energy.
“Masking is living on an energy loan,” the author says. “But it is a more complex process, because while we say that masking is bad today and that society must accept difference, on the other hand I believe that we all have to learn somehow to live in society. Learning the pattern of how society functions—when you can speak up and when it is better to keep what you think to yourself—allows us to survive in the world. If every time we tell our directors what we think, we will not keep that job for very long. And it is good to have something to live on. That is why it is also a difficult lesson, and it is not a black-and-white issue. In my opinion, it is good to be aware that we need to know how to behave in a given environment, because otherwise we will face social ostracism. Masking exists, and you need to know that it exists, but you must also be able to sense when we can finally say ‘enough’ if we feel bad in a given space. It is a difficult issue, because many young people who receive a diagnosis certainly feel like aliens. This is often connected with a lack of self-acceptance of life with a diagnosis, because it is as if we were marked,” Korycińska adds.
Hormones, hyperfocus and forgotten needs
The functioning of women with ADHD is closely linked to hormonal balance. Mood swings, problems concentrating, episodes of brain fog and a sense of being lost intensify during the menstrual cycle, the postpartum period and menopause.
Another phenomenon is hyperfocus—a state of deep concentration in which one can forget to drink water, eat, use the bathroom or sleep.
“In hyperfocus, the body ceases to exist,” the writer describes the state. “On the other hand, it is probably the biggest bonus, if we are talking about the advantages of ADHD. It is amazing. It is some kind of magical state that you can enter. For example, if a major interest takes off at night, a person can write, I don’t know, half a book. Or learn perfectly for an exam in a single night, after doing nothing the whole time except living in stress. There are disadvantages too. If you live with someone—for example, if you have a partner with ADHD—and you ask them for something while they are in such a state, nothing gets through to them. That was a standard sentence my mother always said to me when I was a teenager. I hated it. She would say: ‘When you have a child, you will forget about it.’” The author recalls and adds that when she was walking with her newborn in a stroller shortly after giving birth, she experienced brain fog, which is one of the symptoms of ADHD.
“I was walking with the child in the stroller when suddenly I did not know where I was and felt afraid. What should I do? The child was in the stroller, and I did not know how to get home. I looked at my phone but could not see anything. It was as if there were an eclipse. I cried and called my partner. He said: ‘Go up to a building and tell me what number is on it.’ I stood in front of that building, saw the number, but could not read it,” she shares.
Diagnoses are expensive and often superficial
Korycińska believes that an ADHD diagnosis in adulthood brings relief, but is also accompanied by grief over years lived without understanding one’s own brain. She calls it a kind of mourning for lost years, when the lack of a diagnosis meant a lack of appropriate help.
“Poland lacks appropriate systemic support in educational institutions,” the author points out. “Diagnosing adults entails the need for costly private appointments, and a further barrier is the recurring difficulty of accessing appropriate medication in pharmacies. To properly diagnose a person with ADHD, you need to speak to someone who has known that person since childhood—a parent, friend or sibling—because many other personality disorders can look like ADHD. This is extremely important, and it cannot be done during a single diagnostic appointment. It has to take time, and when it takes time, it is a nuisance. Sorry for the word, but I do not know whether there is anything people with ADHD dislike more than paperwork. Many private practices simply see an opportunity to make money in this. You pay 2,000 zlotys for an hour-long appointment and it is done.
Poland does not see people with ADHD
“When it comes to an autism spectrum disability certificate, once you have the certificate and submit it to the school, the child receives funding from the ministry for corrective-compensatory and rehabilitation classes,” the Polish philologist says. “You can work with that child. When it comes to ADHD, there is nothing. For years I have attended meetings with the constantly changing heads of our state. And everyone only makes promises. Extra time on the matura exam is needed, but there is no decision. You bring a diagnosis to the school and there is nothing. There is no therapy, not even classes teaching social skills, because people with ADHD need those too, just like people on the autism spectrum. So what happens? The pathology of Polish education happens, which is unfortunately also devised by support teachers. I am guilty too. And the parents. We have too many autism-spectrum diagnoses and too few ADHD diagnoses. Because if ADHD provides nothing, we ask for a child to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition, and thanks to that the child may, for example, receive extra time during exams. As a result, the child receives support both in education and in psychological matters. If the system cannot be changed, we somehow have to work around it to make things work. And because of this, we also do not have real figures showing how many of these diagnoses are justified. We are dealing with another kind of systemic pathology, because that is what I think it has to be called,” Korycińska says.
Aneta Korycińska’s honest, autobiographical book was written out of a deep need to describe what happens in the life of a woman who receives an ADHD diagnosis. As the author herself said, despite fearing embarrassment, after telling the truth about her life she felt freer both in her choices and in her own life.
The book "Radio in My Head" is a powerful voice on behalf of people with ADHD in Poland and an interesting collection of their experiences. It is written with flair, engagingly and with great passion.
The meeting with Aneta Korycińska was organized by the Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna – Centrum Wiedzy in Bolesławiec.