Am I using ADHD as a crutch? (Jiyoung An’s story)

For most of her life, Jiyoung An believed her struggles came down to laziness or lack of effort. Even after her ADHD diagnosis less than a year ago, she questioned whether she was just making excuses and using ADHD “as a crutch.”

In this week’s episode, Jiyoung shares how her perspective has changed. She’s unlearning internalized shame and now sees her brain for what it truly is: different, not broken. 

• What is growth mindset?

• What does thriving with ADHD actually look like?

(00:00) Intro

(00:46) What was happening before Jiyoung sought out an ADHD evaluation this year?

(03:00) Jiyoung’s 3 different psychiatrists’ opinions

(04:24) Falling into hustle culture before diagnosis, and being hard on herself

(07:24) Jiyoung’s journey to accepting her ADHD label

(11:07) How frustrating it can be to not have solutions to all of her ADHD challenges

(13:08) Perfectionism and comparing yourself to others

(16:50) Jiyoung’s experience growing up with undiagnosed ADHD

(19:25) Noticing ADHD in her little sister

(21:22) What ADHD traits Jiyoung struggles with the most

(25:08) Credits

We love hearing from our listeners! Email us at adhdaha@understood.org or record a message for us here. 

Jiyoung: I don't think I was ever nice to myself, whether it was my physical looks, my weight, my job, my, back then, I would say lack of social skill, lack of everything. It was, I've always been hard on myself. And I think it really does have to do with the fact that I always think, well, everyone else can do it. Why can't I? 

Laura: This is "ADHD Aha!," a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at Understood.org. And as someone who's had my own ADHD "aha" moment, I'll be your host. I'm here today with Jiyoung An. Jiyoung is a UX designer and a listener who wrote in. Jiyoung, thanks for listening to the show. Thank you for writing in, and welcome. 

Jiyoung: Thanks, I'm so happy to be here. 

Laura: So, you were diagnosed this year. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, early this year. 

Laura: You were 35. Tell me what was happening right before you decided to seek out an evaluation. What led you to that? 

Jiyoung: Yeah. So, I found this new job. I'm brand new into UX design, great paying job. It's work from home. I get to change my schedule the way I want to. Amazing bosses, amazing co-workers. And I was just having a lot of trouble. I had a lot trouble starting the work. I had a lot of trouble focusing on meetings and I would just miss like little details. And this was going on about, I would say like a good year. And it got to the point where I was having anxiety, like that I'm going to get fired. And I was like "I need to figure something out because they're going to find out that I don't do work until like 6 PM and in the last three hours, I freak out and I like, you know, bang everything out."

So, I was looking for answers, and the first thing I typed was, why do I lose focus? And one of the things that popped up was ADHD. And at the time, I only knew like the stigma behind it, like hyperactive boys. So, as a pure joke, I clicked into it. And then I started reading more about like inattentive, and I was like, hold up. And then from there on, I just kept digging and digging. 

Laura: The joke being that you had this image of what it meant to have ADHD, and you're like, "No way, that's not me." 

Jiyoung: I was like, "Could you imagine?" And I just clicked on it. Then the first couple of things that you find are people with symptoms of ADHD. And most of it are very high-level or very surface-level symptoms, but it was enough for me to look at all the symptoms and be like, "Wait a minute. That's my life. That was my childhood. That was in my college. Everything from executive function to you have a graveyard of hobbies to just everything." And then so, yeah, I looked at it and I was like, maybe I do have. 

Laura: Wait, what's in your graveyard of hobbies? 

Jiyoung: Oh, everything. I went from bookmaking to puzzles to I'm in like the diamond painting to like epoxy and resin, woodworking, everything! 

Laura: Sounds fun. All right, so you sought out an evaluation. What happened in your evaluation? 

Jiyoung: I actually went to three different psychiatrists. One of them told me I wasn't a jumping-around around hyperactive boy, so I don't have ADD. 

Laura: Oh, a little short-sighted, but yeah. 

Jiyoung: I was a little bit surprised just cause like my five minutes of research told me one, it's not called ADD anymore. It's ADHD. So, a professional to call it a old name, I was like, "All right, that's not it." So, then I went to the second one and he only asked me very surface-level. Like, "Do you have trouble focusing? Are you, you know, X, Y, Z?" And then he was like, "Oh, you have ADHD. And he just started prescribing me medicine." And I was like I don't, like, especially as a late diagnosis, I think it's way more than that. Especially like, you don't probably 30 some years of masking. 

And so, I didn't believe him. So, then I sought out another person and he was, like really in-depth describing me the difference between other types of symptoms that have the lack of focus. A lot of the symptoms I've been having like the executive dysfunction, and why he thinks is ADHD, so that I trusted his judgment. And one of the things he said was, "Medication, you'll see. If there's no difference, then it's probably not ADHD." And man, the first time, like I sat down, it was 11 in the morning, I got coffee, and I just started working. And like three hours later, I was like, wait, what is happening right now? Yeah, and then I texted all my sisters, like, "I'm working." 

Laura: This is what work is. 

Jiyoung: Yeah. 

Laura: But you are getting work done. You've had a successful career, right? 

Jiyoung: Yeah, prior to this job, I was in the fashion industry. So, I think it was a little bit of luck that the fashion industry has very hard deadlines. And if we miss the deadlines, forget it. It's the last like six months of work is done. You can't sell it. So, I think it worked for me. 

Laura: And you were in fashion before, how cool is that? Like the design element of the fashion world related to the UX design? 

Jiyoung: Actually, it was fun, but I guess I would describe it more as interesting. It's definitely toxic. That's why I left the industry. I was like, "I can't do this." 

Laura: I got the sense from our pre-interview that you also are pretty hard on yourself when it comes to work and the standards that you set for yourself. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, for sure.

Laura: Tell me about that. 

Jiyoung: I think it started when I was like early twenties. I had this job that I didn't like, and I started trying to get a job in Manhattan, which was very competitive. And then from there on, I think I came across like a YouTuber and the whole like hustle culture at the time. I didn't t know it was hustle culture. So then I fell into that and it was the usual, like, if you're hanging out with friends, you're not growing. If you're, you know, watching TV, then you're just wasting away. And then I really, you know, believed that. So, then for the next, I would say eight years, I've just been hustling. Like I've worked 130 hours, I worked 100 hours, lost all my hobbies, lost all of my personality. 

So, after hustling, I think there was a part of me that grew a lot. And yet there was part of that is very toxic to myself now. Like when I am sitting down like watching TV with my boyfriend, I'm like, what are you doing? You're wasting away. And then I guess where like the undiagnosed ADHD comes in is I always used to tell myself, like, everyone else does it. Like I have really successful, they're successful in my eyes, friends around me. And they seem to do it very easily. I can't explain it. I can put a finger on it. Not that, not that like it was easy for them. It's just that when they said that they were going to do something, they just did it. 

And then, so my brain would tell me like, you're not doing it because you're hungry enough, you not doing because you're lazy, you are not doing it because of like XYZ, but then also the other part of the brain always knew that I was talented. So, it was just a constant fight of like, "You can do it. You're talented, but you're just lazy and that's why you're not there yet." 

Laura: You were probably struggling with task initiation and all those executive function skills, right? Analysis paralysis, I have a feeling. 

Jiyoung: Oh, yeah, for sure. 

Laura: Jiyoung, do you think that your job was ever truly at risk? 

Jiyoung: If you were just to ask my brain, it would say yes. But looking out, I don't think so, cause I used to get a lot of praise. 

Laura: I just get the sense in the brief encounters that you and I have had that that just wasn't going to happen probably. So, this was a pressure that you were putting on yourself. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, I never miss a deadline or miss such a big detail enough to mess anything up. 

Laura: So, after you got diagnosed with ADHD, how did the label of ADHD sit with you? 

Jiyoung: I went through a lot of phases with the label. At first, I thought I was supposed to be sad. So, I was sad. And then after a while, I realized that I'm not sad because I like who I am. A lot of things was difficult. School was so difficult. Friends were difficult, but there were a lot things that made me successful today that I am proud of, that I couldn't have done without ADHD. Things like the hyperfocusing, the ability to take in, you know, a massive amount of information, rabbit-holing, I love. And a lot of like my creative hobbies that led me to have such a vast like variety of skills. And then after that, I went through a phase of, "No, you don't have ADHD, you're just lying to yourself." 

Laura: Yeah, tell me about that. 

Jiyoung: I think this goes back to being hard on myself. I think this was like two or three months into my first medication. And yeah, my brain was just so mean to me. It was like, "You don't have ADHD. You're just trying to find excuses of why you are not doing better, of why you're not having like, you know, a better career, you want it to be at this age." That lasted probably for like a good two months. And then I went back into the phase of like, no, maybe I need to like, keep reading about ADHD and figure out where it stops and where laziness starts so that I can maybe delineate it. Yeah, it was, it, was a lot. 

Laura: I think that's a really important conversation. I still grapple with that in my own life. I will have days where I'm like, "Was this all an excuse?" I mean, for me, maybe it's that like Midwestern upbringing. I'm, like, "Nah, no, I'm fine. I'm just gonna, I'll go exercise, and everything will be fine. I don't have ADHD, there's no way." But I do. 

Jiyoung: In the beginning, I was reading a lot about ADHD. I would say like maybe for the first three months-ish. And then I noticed myself talking about it a lot, but not in the sense of like, "Hey, this is what I learned" more like, "Oh, I didn't do this because I have executive dysfunction because of my ADHD." Or after I come out of a meeting, I would tell myself, "Wow, you lost focus and I have no idea what was going on, but that's cause you have ADHD." And I would say this so often, my sisters started saying like, "I am tired of listening about ADHD, like I don't care. They're like I care, but I'm tired of listening about it."

So, then I think that made me think like, when I look back at all the accomplishment I had in the recent, like couple of months, there was none. Again, this is me being hard on myself. And so, I started connecting the dots of like, "Maybe I'm not pushing myself because now I'm using ADHD as a crutch," like, "Oh, I can't do that because I have ADHD." And so, I decided to not research ADHD at all. And then that led to the two months of being really mean to myself, cause there was no more niceness. There was no, more like, "No, today's just a bad brain day. Like you're fine. You'll do better tomorrow." That all disappeared. 

And so, after two months. And also like talking with therapists really helps. That's what got me out of that stage. I think this is when it finally hit me. Like you have ADHD. And life is going to be different now that you know that, but life is going to good in a different way. And so, what I decided to do was there is a very subconscious side of me that uses ADHD as a crutch for sure. And I want to try and reroute that by learning about the triggers, but not in a very like surface way. So, for example, like I have a very hard time with routines I've always had. 

And now I tie it back to ADHD, but that was, that's not quite enough for me. Like why executive dysfunction? OK. But what about it? And like really digging it and to figure it out so that I know when it's just me being lazy or I know, when my mind is just like, no, I'm having trouble starting it, so that could be nice to myself, and that's the goal. 

Laura: The fact that you think about it so much, this, like, am I being lazy or am I using ADHD as a crutch, or is this truly my ADHD? It tells me that it's something that really gets under your skin. It really bothers you. 

Jiyoung: Oh, it does, yeah. 

Laura: Like this is the thing for you. I can tell. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, I think it bothers me because no matter how much research I do, I can't find what I'm what I'm looking for. 

Laura: What are you looking for? 

Jiyoung: So, to use the routine as an example, I can't come up with a compensation if I don't know what the actual problem is and just calling it executive dysfunction doesn't help me out. So, then what I started to do was the times that I don't do my routines, try and figure out like why. So, some of the things that I picked out was one, I, sometimes I just forget that I wanted to do that. So, then that's very specific and that's like the core of the problem, so then I could compensate for that. So, I put whiteboards in my bathroom, whiteboards in the kitchen. 

Another thing I noticed about routines is that sometimes I get overwhelmed. So, then my compensation for that is I need to be nicer to myself. It's OK if I don't wash my face every single night. It's OK if I don't make my YouTube coffee, like with the pretty mugs and the beautiful... It's OK. And like being nice to myself is the compensation. And that's what I mean by like, I need to figure out exactly what I'm trying to solve for in order for me to have any other processes or systems in place. And online, I haven't been able to. Everything just comes back to a very surface-level executive dysfunction, very surface-level working memory. And I think that's why I'm frustrated. 

Laura: You're very logical in the way that you approach this. Even I think one of the things you just said is like, when do I actually deserve to just say, "Yeah, that was my ADHD and it's okay to not do X, Y or Z every night." I think the example you gave was washing your face. Very, very mathematical. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, I can't say I'm good at it. I'm struggling, I'm struggling to be nice to myself. But like, logically, I know, like, that's the answer. 

Laura: Did you have any other way of being kind to yourself prior to your ADHD diagnosis? 

Jiyoung: I would say honestly, no, it's a really big topic for me and my therapist that we're figuring out right now. But I don't think I was ever nice to myself, whether it was my physical looks, my weight, my job, my, back then I would lack of social skills, lack of everything, I've always been hard on myself. And I think it really does have to do with the fact that I always think, well, everyone else can do it, everyone else did it, why can't I? 

Laura: Perfectionism is hard. I'm a perfectionist, like through and through. I talk about it all the time. It's a really hard thing to get through, and it can be so tempting to just try to find boxes to put everything in. 

Jiyoung: Yeah. 

Laura: Emotionally, physically, like literally put all your things in certain boxes. But it will never be enough. 

Jiyoung: No, it's never enough. And if you do find a perfect one, chances are I would want to change it or something. 

Laura: Where are you today with this ADHD label? 

Jiyoung: I think I'm in the process of trying to delineate like when I'm using ADHD as a crutch and when I should be nice to myself. And I think that would help me out the most in terms of like really being hard on myself and not burning out at the same time. I think what's difficult is with the whole like hustle culture, I proved to my brain that if I hustle, I will grow. And so, my brain now thinks like, "Yeah, TV is bad." Then, after like the diagnosis, after I noticed I was using ADHD as a crutch, my brain went back to like, "Well, you did everything. You got to where you are, but I'd have been knowing that you have ADHD. So it doesn't really matter." 

But then I forget about the deep burnout I had for three years that like I wasn't myself. So, I'm trying to find the balance between both. I'm not there yet, but I think I'm getting closer. 

Laura: You're really early. You were just diagnosed this year. 

Jiyoung: Yeah. 

Laura: I think the dual option that you laid out there a minute ago was when it's OK to use ADHD as a crutch and when it is OK to be nice to yourself. I wanna just say to you, you can always be nice yourself. Because even when you're using it as a crunch, which you may very well maybe, I definitely do sometimes, you can still say to yourself, "Oh, I just noticed I'm doing this. OK, well, I'm gonna get up off the couch now, but it's OK, I know that I do that and I'm going to move on now. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, yeah, now I just have to figure out how to make my brain understand that. 

Laura: It's so hard. And I know I can see that this ADHD diagnosis is, number one, it seems to be accurate, and number two has created a lot of, it's really stirred up your brain and your emotions. But the best thing, it sounds like, that came out of it for you was you didn't really have any reason to be kind to yourself in the past, and now this gives you some sort of reason to be kind to yourself. And even that is creating a stir for you, but I'm glad that you at least now have a piece of that. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, for sure. Just having some answers of why I struggled a lot. I think it's really nice. Also just knowing that like, it's OK if it looks like it's easy for my friends. One, I don't, I'm not saying it's. I'm sure it's not, but that's OK cause you have X, Y, Z, like lack of, you know, um, short-term memories, it is a crazy thing for me. And yeah, it does give me like a road to being nice to myself and that I'm working on for sure. 

Laura: Do you think that your friends ever look at you and think that it's so easy for you? 

Jiyoung: You know, I don't know, I never asked them that. 

Laura: That'd be interesting. It might be an interesting exercise. 

Jiyoung: Yeah. 

Laura: What do you remember about growing up with undiagnosed ADHD? 

Jiyoung: I remember getting in trouble a lot in school. 

Laura: Really? 

Jiyoung: I wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't a loud kid. It was either I would doodle a lot or like I put glue in all of like flat surfaces and I'll let it dry and peel it off and, and then I would have the friend next to me do it, so I got her in trouble, so her stuff got taken away. Or I remember daydreaming a lot. I didn't notice then because like I also hated school. So, I always also thought like, "I don't like school. So, I don't care. I'm gonna daydream." 

Laura: Why did you hate school? 

Jiyoung: It was so boring. It was so boring. And I didn't understand. I was like, I don't need chemistry. Like I'm going to fashion. I don't even need math. 

Laura: So, what was it like at home? That was what it was like at school. How was it at home?

Jiyoung: Always getting in trouble for a messy room. But then when I cleaned it was spotless and my mom always have mentioned that. Always late. I was always late in everything up until like maybe even three years ago, four years ago, and I think like just the other common things you hear about. Everyone says like, oh, she's so bright, but she doesn't apply herself and things like that. 

Laura: How did your parents react to all of this? 

Jiyoung: Honestly, I think my older sister set the way because my oldest was a really bad student. 

Laura:  Buffer. 

Jiyoung: Exactly. So, I used to be like maybe a 70 student. So, when I get like a 75 or 80, my parents would be happy. I definitely got lucky in a lot of ways with my parents. They never made me feel less than. 

Laura: Do your parents know that you have ADHD now? 

Jiyoung: I told my mom, and I don't know if she read into it herself, but you know, also she always thought it was like hyperactive jumping boys. And the first thing she said was, "Oh man, I thought my daughters are healthy." She was like, "I know your point of view of mental illness is different from mine." And she was like "I know that it's not bad, but because I grew up on the fact that in Korea in her time, if you had any type of... Didn't have names for it, But if you were any type of like ADHD, like autistic, depressed, you would- considered crippled and broken and that's, it's just kind of lingers." But she doesn't really talk about it much. 

Laura: I mean, I don't really talk about it that much with my family, either, if I'm being honest, and it's not even really a shame thing. It just doesn't come up. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, exactly, because like whether or not I have a label, my mom knows what I am. My mom knows who I am, my tendencies. So, she knows that I have, you know, lack of memory. She knows that, I'm like a tornado, and things get messy. So, she loves everything about me. She just doesn't care for the title. 

Laura: So, tell me about your sister, your little sister noticed something. 

Jiyoung: Once I got diagnosed, and I was just like, looking at the symptoms, I looked at my little sister, and I'm like, "There's something there." She also struggled quite a bit, and I feel like her struggles were very similar to mine when we talk. So, I told my little sister, I was like, I think it should get checked out. And so, she did. And yeah, she was diagnosed with ADHD and now she's in stims. 

Laura: Oh, really?

Jiyoung: It's crazy. 

Laura: So, it does run in the family. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, but I look at my parents and I'm like, who has it? And I don't think I know if my parents have it. So, it definitely skipped a generation. I think it's hilarious.

Laura: What advice did you give your little sister about ADHD? 

Jiyoung: Honestly, we're both like figuring it out. And sometimes we laugh about it for like hours, and we don't make fun of ourselves in like a kind way. But the thing is that I didn't really give her much advice because I was struggling with it. She's always struggled with depression and anxiety. And she got to the point where she's very self-aware and she knows how to deal with a diagnosis and things like that. So, it was actually her helping me through it. 

Laura:  Oh, that's nice. How did she help you through it? 

Jiyoung:  At first, especially when I was like in the phase of, "Oh, I don't have ADHD. I'm just using it as like, you know, an excuse." She was talking me through like, she had the same phase, like, "I don't have depression. I'm just using it as an excuse," and she said that she got off of her meds to figure out what she felt and then get back on her med to really like compare the two. And then now she's so self-aware that when some of the symptoms come up, she doesn't react to it. She goes, "Oh, it's just depression. Like, that's fine. Like I'll ignore it and let it pass." And so, yeah, it's little like tips like that that she helped me with. 

Laura: Oh, that's interesting. ADHD, similar to depression, is not something that you can physically see, right? It's not like having a broken leg. So, it's a bit, this is a little bit of a stretch, but somewhat of a similar journey in terms of having to maybe convince yourself that it's real. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, yeah, for sure. 

Laura: What ADHD behaviors, characteristics do you struggle with the most?

Jiyoung: For sure, task initiation, that can go from my job to anything, to brushing teeth, to laundry, oh, laundry is the worst. It's the worst. My attention span for sure, like my ability to focus when I'm like really engaged, like right now I'm very engaged, I'm fine, but like some meetings, oh my goodness. 

Laura: Totally. 

Jiyoung: I would say working memory is a really big thing, mostly with like my job. So, I would have to write everything down. And so, you know, I have one, two, three, four, five, six, six types of notebooks in front of me with post-its. Yeah.

Laura:  Do you ever even look at them after you write stuff down? 

Jiyoung:  No. I forget that's there and then, emotional dysregulation, which is something I found out very recently. I was very upset in my relationship for reasons where it's like, I felt it was stagnant, the usual, you know, common reasons, and instead of going to like the area of, I should talk about it with my boyfriend, my brain went, "No, we should break up." And then, of course, my brain being my brain, very strong emotions, I brought it up to him, and like, you know, he fought for the relationship. I really appreciated him. I told him like, "Thank you." 

And once I came down, I was like, the feeling of wanting to break up with him is gone, and I was, like, where did it come from? And then I was thinking about it. I'm like, I think I can't regulate my emotions. Cause if I think about it, I feel everything so strongly. My brain goes from zero to 100. And then once I come down, it's just gone. So, for sure, emotional dysregulation, 100%. 

Laura: So, that showed up in that example with your ex-boyfriend, still ex-boyfriend. My current boyfriend. Current boyfriend. Oh, OK, so you got back together? 

Jiyoung: Yeah, yeah, he didn't let me break up with him. Another emotion that I feel very strongly is sympathy or empathy. I always forget like, what's the difference between those two? Like if I found out, you know, one of my not-quite-close friends, mom died. It's sad. It is, of course it's sad, but then I would be like bawling, like as if it was my own mom or like I got off at an airport. And when I got to the taxi place, if you know a bunch of guys are like "Taxi, taxi!" And then they get everyone says no to them, like in their face. 

And then I saw a man, he looked Asian, I don't know if he's Korean, maybe like in the 40s. And I just like, I don't know, for the next like 30-some hours, it like heartwrenched me. I was like, at 40 something, you're standing and you're trying to get people into your taxi because you're tryna support your family, and you know, everyone's saying no to you. And like, it's just so, I dunno, things like that. 

Laura: I think we can call that, you know, intense empathy. And honestly, I'm not sure if that's related to emotional regulation and ADHD, but yeah, I guess managing the emotions after they come up, right? Yeah. I think that that's a very nice trait to have Jiyoung, really deep feeling, deep well. 

Jiyoung: I wouldn't say anything about it, it hurts me for sure, yeah. 

Laura: It's been really great to talk with you, Jiyoung. I'm so grateful that you're a listener of the show and that you decided to write in. You're on your way. 

Jiyoung: Yeah. 

Laura: You're on your journey. 

Jiyoung: I appreciate for the response back and I'm happy to appear because like, I think the more I talk about it, the more, I become self-aware, but also like, you know, if anybody is listening to this and they can relate and like, try and be nice to themselves, like that'd be amazing. 

Laura: I think a lot of people are gonna relate to your story, especially people who were recently diagnosed and are trying to make sense of, you know, what does this mean? So, thank you again for being here. This was great. You did it. You got here on time. Did you have your coffee? 

Jiyoung: I haven't taken a single sip because I forgot. 

Laura: But you put it in the cup. 

Jiyoung: Yeah, I forgot it was there. 

Laura: Thanks for listening today. As always, if you want to share your own "aha" moment, email us at adhdaha@understood.org or send a message to our voicemail inbox. You'll find a link in the show notes along with resources and links to anything we mentioned in the episode. 

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give. 

"ADHD Aha!" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli. Say hi, Jessamine! 

Jessamine: Hi, everyone. 

Laura: And Margie DeSantis. 

Margie: Hey, hey!

Laura: Samiah Adams is our supervising producer. Video is produced by Calvin Knie and edited by Alyssa Shea. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. From Understood.org, our executive directors are Scott Cocchiere, Seth Melnick, and Jordan Davidson. And I'm your host, Laura Key.