The Day the World Stopped, and Mine Started Falling Apart and Making Sense (My ADHD Perimenopause Journey)

The Day the World Stopped, and Mine Started Falling Apart

My ADHD-Perimenopause Journey

On March 11, 2020, I turned 45. That same day, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. I remember standing in that strange, suspended moment, blowing out candles while the world outside braced for something none of us understood, and thinking: we are about to live through something significant. If we survive it.

I had no idea I was also about to discover something significant happening inside my own body and mind. Something that would end up explaining a lifetime of who I was. Some of it had been there all along, quietly shaping me in ways I'd simply come to accept as normal; that was the ADHD. And some of it was new, arriving with the changes of midlife; that was the perimenopause.

In the years that followed, I began connecting pieces I had never realized belonged together: ADHD, perimenopause, communication struggles, exhaustion, masking, and the constant feeling that I was working twice as hard just to keep up. This is the story of how I finally began understanding those patterns and what changed once I did.

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The Real Story You Probably Never Heard

I was spiraling. I didn't have the words for it yet, but I was unraveling in ways I couldn't explain, physically, mentally, emotionally. It wasn't a sudden, dramatic shift. It was a slow, steady rollercoaster build-up. I had no idea what perimenopause was. I had no idea I had ADHD. All I knew was that I couldn't focus, couldn't stay organized, couldn't manage time, and could never seem to stop procrastinating on the things that mattered most.

Anything new or interesting could grab my attention immediately. I'd pick it up eagerly, only to lose interest when it became boring, challenging, or tedious. I felt constantly exhausted and overwhelmed. And underneath all of it was a lifetime of being a people pleaser, someone who never learned how to set a boundary, protect my peace, or communicate in a way that felt authentic and true to myself.

None of this happened in isolation. Throughout my adult life, I was married, then divorced, a single mom, and at times caught in toxic, unhealthy relationships that inevitably failed. After the divorce, I became and remained the breadwinner, the one managing the household, working a night shift job in a casino, and trying, usually failing, to carve out time for a business I was building on the side. Something was always sacrificed. I could never be everything to everyone, and I lived in a near-constant state of trying to stay above water. Add in the sleep deprivation of night shift work, and the ADHD and perimenopause weren't just present; they were compounding each other, making everything harder than it needed to be.

Not Your Ears, Your Brain

One of the strangest, most isolating symptoms is something I genuinely thought was hearing loss. In conversations, I would often have to ask people to repeat themselves. I found myself saying "huh" or "what did you say?" more times a day than I could count. It happened constantly and could be quite embarrassing. I'd misunderstand what people said, mix up words entirely, or struggle to follow multi-step instructions, needing them repeated over and over just to keep up. My own kids thought I was ignoring them, insisting I just couldn't be bothered to respond.

The truth was so much more complicated. I wasn't ignoring them. My brain needed more time to process what they'd said, and by the time I caught up, the moment had moved on without me.

Eventually, convinced something was actually wrong with my hearing, I scheduled a hearing test. The results came back normal. That helped me understand that what I was experiencing wasn't necessarily difficulty hearing sounds, but difficulty processing spoken information, especially in noisy or distracting environments. My brain sometimes needs extra time to separate a voice from background noise, hold onto what was said, make sense of it, and figure out how to respond. I now think of these as auditory processing difficulties rather than a problem with my ears. As I moved through perimenopause, I noticed these difficulties becoming even more pronounced. Processing conversations felt harder, my focus felt less reliable, and the mental exhaustion became more difficult to manage.

Research into ADHD and perimenopause is still developing, but emerging evidence suggests that hormonal changes across a woman's life may influence ADHD symptoms. Some studies have also found that women with ADHD report a greater burden of perimenopausal symptoms. More research is needed to fully understand the relationship.

For 21 years, I worked in an environment that was loud, chaotic, and constantly demanding, with multiple conversations and multiple things happening at once. Now imagine trying to keep up with that while your brain is already working overtime just to process what's being said. I'd walk away from conversations feeling mentally wrung out, having heard every word and somehow still missing the meaning. It was never really about hearing. It was about the sheer effort it takes an ADHD brain to actively listen, effort that most neurotypical people never have to think about at all.

And yet, almost no one could tell.

That's the part that still gets me. From the outside, I looked like I had it together. I was efficient. Dependable. The one who showed up early, remembered the details, and juggled a night-shift job, a household, and a business on the side without ever dropping a ball. People called me high-functioning. They had no idea I was barely holding on.

Masking became second nature long before I had a word for it. I learned to nod at the right moments even when I hadn't fully caught what someone said. I learned to laugh a beat late and make it look intentional. I got good at asking clarifying questions that sounded thoughtful, when really I was just buying myself time to catch up. I rehearsed conversations in my head before I ever had them, trying to predict every way they could go wrong so I wouldn't be caught off guard. I smiled through exhaustion. I said "I'm fine" more times than I can count when I was anything but.

It takes an enormous amount of energy to look effortless. Every day I was running two systems at once: the actual task in front of me, and the constant background performance of appearing like it wasn't hard. Nobody claps for that. Nobody even sees it. And that's exactly the problem with masking: it protects you from judgment in the moment, but it also means the people around you have no idea how much you're carrying, which means no one knows to ask if you're okay.

Looking back, I wasn't thriving. I was performing thriving, while quietly falling apart behind it.

Finding a New Way to Show Up

I survived COVID by dedicating myself to completing my yoga teacher training, diving deep into the principles of yoga, not just the physical practice, but the philosophy behind it. Slowly, I adapted a new way of showing up in the world. This was also the start of my teaching journey. I became a teacher, a coach, a woman on a mission not only to change my own path, but to help change the path of other women like myself.

While yoga helped ease the mental and psychological weight of the pandemic, my body was fighting a different battle. Sleepless nights. Mood swings. Fatigue. Hot flashes. Night sweats. Brain fog. Forgetfulness. Symptom after symptom of hormone fluctuations I didn't yet have a name for. I would continue to suffer through this for a couple more years before finally getting medical attention and having my hormones tested.

After finishing my yoga teacher training and keeping up with my personal training certifications, I decided it was time to go back to school to finish my degree, a goal that had been on pause for 20 years. I enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to pursue a degree in Kinesiology. But after two semesters, I realized something. I didn't need more science of human movement. I needed communication. I had spent a lifetime struggling to understand myself, to be understood, to navigate conversations and relationships without constantly feeling like I was falling short. So I changed course and enrolled in communications instead, determined to finally learn what I needed most: how to communicate with myself and the world around me.

The Diagnosis That Explained Everything

Under the weight of these constant hormonal shifts, a family member pointed something out. How forgetful I'd become. How absentminded. The procrastination. The way I'd abandon one task for another before ever finishing it. They suspected ADHD, since it's known to run in families, and something about the way they said it stuck with me.

So I started investigating on my own. I began reading everything I could find. One book changed my entire trajectory: Tracy Otsuka's ADHD for Smart Ass Women. Nearly every page felt like it was describing my own life back to me. So many things I'd spent a lifetime blaming myself for finally made sense. That was the moment I knew I needed to get tested, and it eventually led to my late diagnosis of ADHD.

But knowing its name was only the beginning. The harder part was realizing how much of my life, especially my relationships, had been shaped by a brain that processes the world differently, and how much of that had nothing to do with who I was as a person, and everything to do with how I was wired.

How ADHD Shapes the Way I Communicate

Communication had always felt like something I had to work harder at than everyone else. Not because I didn't care; I cared too much, but because the mechanics of it- speaking, listening, reading a room, staying present in a conversation- all worked differently in my brain than they seemed to for other people. For years I thought this meant something was wrong with me, or that I just wasn't smart enough. Now I understand it was never a flaw. It was a different operating system, and nobody had ever handed me the manual.

Take listening. Most people assume listening is passive; you just receive the words. For me, and for so many women with ADHD, listening is an active, effortful process. Those auditory processing difficulties don't just show up as misheard words in daily life; they shape how I experience conversations. My brain needs extra time to isolate a voice from background noise, hold onto the words long enough to make sense of them, and then figure out how to respond, all while the conversation keeps moving without waiting for me to catch up. That delay is invisible to everyone else. All they see is someone who didn't answer right away, who asked "what?" for the third time, who seems distracted or uninterested. What they don't see is a brain working overtime just to keep pace with something that should be effortless.

Then there's speaking. My ADHD brain doesn't hold thoughts quietly. It generates them fast, often several at once, and the impulse to say them out loud before they disappear is strong, sometimes stronger than my ability to wait my turn. I've interrupted people my whole life, not out of rudeness, but because if I didn't say the thought in that moment, it would be gone, replaced by the next one already crowding in behind it. I know now this is common in ADHD women. At the time, I only knew it made people uncomfortable and made me feel like I was constantly apologizing for how my mind worked.

And underneath both of those was an intense sensitivity to rejection and criticism. I later came across the term rejection sensitive dysphoria, or RSD, which is often used to describe an intense emotional response to perceived rejection or disapproval. Although RSD isn't a formal medical diagnosis, the concept helped me put words to something I had experienced for years. Every conversation seemed to come with an aftershock. I'd leave interactions replaying them like a highlight reel of everything that could have gone wrong. Did I talk too much? Did I miss something they said? Did they think I was ignoring them? Are they annoyed with me now? This wasn't garden-variety self-doubt. It was an intense, physical, almost visceral fear of having disappointed someone, or of being seen as too much, or not enough.

It shaped how I showed up in every interaction, personal and professional. And underneath both of those was an intense sensitivity to rejection and criticism. I said yes when I meant no. I stayed quiet when I needed to speak up. I absorbed other people's moods and needs before I ever checked in with my own.

Looking back, I can see how these pieces- the delayed processing, the impulsive speech, the RSD, the people-pleasing- all fed into each other, compounding the way ADHD and perimenopause were already compounding each other. It's no wonder I felt like I was constantly translating myself for a world that was moving at a different speed than my brain was built for. That's exactly what led me to change how I move through relationships, listen, speak, and protect my own peace.

You Don't Have to Keep Figuring This Out Alone

Getting to where I am today didn't happen quickly, and it definitely wasn't easy. Learning how my ADHD brain works while navigating the changes of midlife has taught me that I don't need another rigid plan. I need realistic systems that work with my brain, my body, and my life.

That's part of why I created the ADHD Perimenopause Fitness Reset, a 90-day program designed to help women build realistic routines around movement, strength training, nutrition, mindset, and accountability without constantly feeling like they're starting over.

Learn more about the ADHD Perimenopause Fitness Reset.

I'm still on this road. But now, at least, I know its name.

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Now I want to hear from you

Have you had a moment where a diagnosis, a book, or an offhand comment from someone finally explained a lifetime of things you'd quietly blamed yourself for? Drop it in the comments. I read every single one, and you never know who else needs to hear that they're not alone in this.

Sources & Further Reading

This article shares my personal experience with ADHD and perimenopause. For additional information and research, visit:

National Institute of Mental Health: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

National Institute on Aging: What Is Menopause?

PubMed: Research on ADHD, hormonal changes, and women's health