My Career with Undiagnosed ADHD

I was recently diagnosed with the inattentive type of ADHD, and a lot of things make a lot more sense now. My career has overall been pretty successful, and I love where I'm at in my journey. Direction has been a challenge, and it's interesting reflecting back on the coping mechanisms I've unintentionally developed along the way.

My mom often talks about how I used to surround myself with stacks of papers and random projects I was working on. I would sit on the floor in the middle of a large circle of organized chaos that was often started but rarely completed. I excelled in elementary school and was named student of the year in the fifth grade. I also skipped second grade after getting a perfect score on the first-grade EOG tests.

Once I started sixth grade, though, things started to unravel. Social situations were awkward, and I had so much trouble navigating the new social environment. I couldn't keep up with conversations and was pretty lost. I went to an academically gifted school and went from excelling to becoming a fairly average student. Homework was a lot tougher, and I remember staying up many nights until 3 AM trying to stay on top of things. I made ends meet, and I don't think anyone ever suspected ADHD since my grades were solid and I wasn't hyperactive. I've always been a bit of a space cadet, though, and also have periods of hyper-focus (which I now recognize as key signs of inattentive ADHD). Middle school overall sucked, but I found solace in music...chorus gave me community and something where I felt special. I also met my husband of 18 years, Noah, in high school chorus...he's the best gift music ever gave me.

So, what I really wanted to talk about is how all of this has factored into my career. It's been a fun, but kind of weird journey.

Musical Pursuits

After high school, I pursued a career in music as a singer/songwriter. I recorded a couple of albums, got to sing backup for Foreigner's Lou Gramm on a demo album he recorded, and performed at a variety of festivals and showcases with an incredible group of musicians. I worked with a manager in Rochester, NY, and was making good progress.

It was a lot of pressure too, though. My husband and I had just gotten married, and I was in talks with Greg Lake from ELP about going overseas for a tour. I was also having some health issues and eventually went into panic mode. I withdrew. I was young and didn't know what I wanted. It was a really confusing time, and I felt like I let a lot of people down.

It's taken a long time to process this one...doing something in music was my childhood dream, and I never really had thought about many career alternatives at the time. Looking back, I think it worked out for the best, though. I still love music. Now I get to pursue it as an outlet...something that's purely for enjoyment and the sake of creativity.

One of the best things that came out of this journey was meeting one of my friends and mentors, Teresa Spangler. Teresa founded a series of benefit concerts called Night of Dreams. It was an incredible experience, and I met so many talented performing and visual artists in the Raleigh, NC area. We played music while dancers performed routines that perfectly matched the songs. Painters created exquisite masterpieces in real-time on the stage, inspired by the surrounding performances. It was amazing to be a part of something so special and to know that it was doing good for the community.

The Start of My Career

My first job was as a part-time transcriptionist. I've always been a fast typer, and it was a fun job. I did struggle with listening to the audio for extended periods and sometimes found myself having to repeat certain sections if I started to zone out.

I was only getting in about 10 hours a week and needed to bring in some additional income. I looked for another part-time job and was hired at Hallmark. I had always loved going into Hallmark stores and browsing all of the pretty gifts and funny cards. Visiting a Hallmark store and working at a Hallmark store are two very different things. My Hallmark career was short-lived...as in one-day long short-lived. I was bored out of my mind, and the cash register completely freaked me out. I bowed out after the first day. I still feel bad about that one, but I'm glad I didn't take too much of their time with training. It was also helpful getting a better idea of what I did and didn't want in a career.

Since Hallmark didn't work out (or I didn't work out for Hallmark), I decided to try and find my first full-time job. I went to a staffing agency and told them that I wanted a data entry job. Data entry seemed safe. I was good with computers and wouldn't have to interact with a lot of people (I was super shy). Fortunately, they talked me into applying for a role as a receptionist at an engineering firm. The thought scared me, but it was solid money, and I thought it would be good to get outside of my comfort zone.

My First Full-Time Job

One of my first assignments at CRB Consulting Engineers was creating employee files with labels. Our office manager asked me to create labels for each with the employee's name and date of employment (preceded with DOE:). I don't always hear the right thing and somehow switched out the E for an A. I made around 80 file folders that were labeled DOA, which I learned actually means dead on arrival. Not quite what I intended. I was really lucky that my boss had a good sense of humor.

CRB was an amazing environment to learn. Engineering and architecture were both fascinating. I honed my administrative skills, learned SharePoint, became a Microsoft Office whiz, and learned some of the CAD programs. Working as a receptionist had its advantages. There were often lulls in between calls and work assignments where I was able to work on college classes and other studies. While I was at CRB, I completed two associate's degrees and a bachelor's in business management, mostly online. One of the associate's degrees was in Web Technologies. I'm still not sure why I pursued an additional associate's degree, but it was fascinating and has served me well. I also became certified as a Microsoft Office Expert.

It was a really neat group of people at CRB. I wish that I hadn't been so shy at the time and had the confidence in myself that I do today so that I could have built some longer-lasting relationships with the team. I questioned myself a lot at the time and questioned what it meant to be a "professional" in regards to assertiveness, communicating, etc. I guess questioning yourself and trying to figure out who you are is often part of growing up, though.

The Next Chapter

I spent about six years at CRB in different administrative roles. I started looking for new opportunities once I completed my bachelor's degree and shortly after the birth of my son, Kimble. While I enjoyed CRB, I didn't have a skill set in engineering or architecture and wasn't sure what a career path looked like within the company.

After submitting many resumes and multiple interviews that didn't pan out, I was hired as a marketing administrative assistant within the retirement and institutional services department of BB&T. Marketing has always been fascinating to me. It's such a cool blend of technology, psychology, communication, and design. There's experimentation with trying to understand what works and what doesn't with different audiences. There's so much to learn. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about working in a marketing environment.

I've always been of the mindset of working smarter, not harder (sorry if that's cliche, but I'm not the most patient person). I started getting more into working with Excel spreadsheets and mapping massive amounts of 401k data against the sales team's territories for an initiative. I think this is one of the times when my ADHD was very helpful. After getting annoyed with how long it took to manually map over some 250,000 401k records against territories, I started going down the Google rabbit hole trying to figure out a more efficient way to do the data mapping. That's when I learned about VLOOKUPs, which ended up turning a several-week job into something that took about 15 minutes. It was amazing. After that, I was constantly looking for ways to make things more efficient. The Google machine became one of my best friends.

I became an avid notetaker at BB&T and took notes in every meeting I was in, whether I was the official meeting minutes taker or not. I've found that copious notetaking has been one of my random coping mechanisms. I'm a horrid listener, even though I really do want to pay attention and remember things. Taking notes keeps me focused on the conversation, and I think the kinetic motion involved with typing or writing as well as being able to visually see information on a page helps me retain and process information. At one of my later jobs, I had a manager ask me to stop taking notes during an in-person meeting and just be a part of the conversation. I felt so lost. I tried to participate like a normal person (it shouldn't be that hard just to be part of a conversation, right?), but I couldn't remember anything that took place for the rest of that meeting.

After a year or so in marketing, I was transferred over to the sales team as an admin assistant and later became a sales support analyst. I enjoyed data mining and supporting the sales team. Mining data was one of those things you could just get lost in (in a good way), where 8 hours goes by really fast. I also migrated all of the department's files over from Outlook public folders to a new SharePoint site and created a pretty cool SharePoint tool that the department could use within about a week's time. When I got started on a project that was really interesting, I could fly through it; however, if there was something that was more complicated (usually more people-focused with more decision points) or tedious, I used to procrastinate. These types of projects used to feel really overwhelming. Since then, I've learned to break them up into micro-tasks where I still feel productive and can continue to make progress.

Working From Home & New Horizons

After a few years at BB&T with another group of amazing co-workers, I started to get burnt out from really long commutes. Noah and I had bought our first home in Sanford, which was about a 40-minute commute each day. Staying focused for long periods of time in the car wasn't very easy. I hated traffic, especially after having been in a really bad car accident when I was pregnant with Kimble. On a whim, I signed up for a work-from-home jobs site called FlexJobs.com. I applied for a job that I didn't think I stood a chance at getting, but that looked really interesting for a Solutions Consultant role at Randstad Technologies. Danielle Watson, who later became my manager at multiple companies and a wonderful friend and mentor, called me the next day. After a several-month interview process, I got the job and a considerable pay raise (it's interesting how much easier it is to get higher compensation when changing companies, but I didn't proactively pursue raises or promotions either at previous companies).

Working from home has had many advantages. Taking crazy amounts of notes in a non-administrative position was a little weird, but fortunately, I could sit behind a computer when working from home where it wasn't as obvious. I could also move around or go get a cup of coffee during meetings or in between projects...I don't like sitting still for long periods of time. I have a tendency to work in bursts of crazy productivity and then need a short break. Working from home lets me do this.

Being at home all the time also had disadvantages. It was easy to blur the line between work time and home time, and I often found myself working later than what was ideal or staying up late once everyone was in bed to finish one more project. I wanted to do well, and my perfectionist traits started surfacing. You're less connected working from home. Even though I was getting positive feedback, I was often telling myself that I wasn't doing enough or my quality of work wasn't as good as it could be. The impostor syndrome was bad, and trying to overachieve hurt my work/life balance.

While at Randstad, I got my MBA. Being able to work from home offered extra flexibility...I was able to use what was previously commuting time as study time. I started out pursuing a master's degree in software engineering but quickly realized that I didn't have a solid enough programming background to support this pursuit. The MBA has served me better anyway, though, with the direction my career has taken. I was also able to get a master's certificate in management information systems, which helped support some of my more technical interests. This was another area I kind of fell into, but I'm really happy I did.

My new role was much more project-oriented. This was where breaking up projects into micro-tasks became a lifesaver. It took me awhile to figure out the best tracking mechanism. I would jump between Excel, mobile apps, and various project management solutions. Every few months I would end up clearing 40-50 apps off my phone that I randomly downloaded for organization or project tracking, but only used a few times. I finally settled on Excel...it's something that I can easily add fields to, access from my mobile device, and collaborate on through Office 365. Simple solution, but does the job. Prioritizing projects was a challenge, but I found openly communicating with leadership and my team around their priorities made a big difference.

During my time at Randstad, my fascination with marketing continued to grow. In my role, I interacted some with marketing, but marketing wasn't really in my arena. I did get to help create some animated videos and did a lot with presentations. I started gaining clarity that marketing was an area I wanted to grow in. When Danielle, who had hired me at Randstad, moved on to be the VP of Marketing and Sales Operations at ROI Healthcare Solutions, I started doing some creative consulting for them. I loved the work and asked about joining the marketing team at ROI full-time. Once again, it was a hard move from such a great team at Randstad, but the move has been better aligned with my skill set.

Arriving at Now

So, that brings us to the present. Taking on a role at ROI has been one of the best decisions of my career. I love the work that I do and am really happy that I finally recognized that marketing was such a great intersection for my passion for technology, design, and driving creative solutions. I get to be a professional dabbler, and there is always something interesting to learn.

ROI is another company where I've gotten to work from home, which has been a god-send with some of the changes our family has gone through over the past few years. While I was at Randstad, Noah and I started the journey of becoming licensed as foster/adoptive parents. Shortly after starting at ROI, four amazing kids (Josh, Joseph, Jewel, and Joey) came into our lives. Working from home and having overwhelming support from ROI made all the logistical challenges and our overall transition so much easier.

Focusing during the pandemic has been challenging. Noah and I ended up homeschooling four of the kiddos once the adoption was finalized. It was easier logistically with being able to meet their needs and keep the kids safer, but finding quiet time to focus was really hard. I ended up working a lot of weird hours to stay caught up on projects, etc., but it all worked out well in the end.

At ROI, we've had several books that the whole company reads and discusses in groups. The latest one was Dare To Lead by Brene Brown. I got so much out of this book. I now recognize the power of vulnerability and that being human is a good thing. We aren't perfect. So much of the beauty of humanity is in our ability to grow. It also helped me realize that I avoid seeking help and, in asking for help, we can actually deepen relationships and trust. I reflected a lot on my own challenges, the false perceptions that I built about myself over time, and began to recognize the armor that I had created to protect myself like being overly nice.

Reading this book was one of the drivers that encouraged me to start seeking answers. I've had off and on health issues for a long time ranging from chronic sinusitis to arthritis in my back to migraines. I even randomly broke my clavicle in high school just rotating my arm. Last year, I was finally diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disease called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. A common co-existing condition seen in the EDS population is ADHD, which is one of the other conditions my doctors diagnosed me with during this search for answers. It's crazy after so many years to just recently discover that this has been a part of my life and impacted so many different areas. It's also really reassuring to know that so many of the things that I've seen as personality flaws in myself are actually symptoms. My confidence has also increased ten-fold. Medication has helped significantly. I'm able to focus better during conversations and am no longer losing 20 minutes each day looking for my phone. It feels good getting help. It feels good getting healthier. And it feels good sharing.

To wrap things up, ADHD has had an interesting impact on my life and career. While there have definitely been challenges and I'm excited to find ways to focus more, get more done, and be more present, I'm also thankful for where it's led me. Thanks for taking the time to listen :)