I have been depressed and anxious for most of my life. I also have ADHD. It’s a fairly new discovery that I have chanced upon. This diagnosis was an eye opener for me because I just thought I had no hope, and was filled with very many ugly feelings that I wanted to desperately get rid of, but couldn’t.

I have tried therapy multiple times and obviously felt like a big faker, making a big deal out of nothing.

Thinking to myself, ‘I’m just lazy.’

‘I’m a failure.’

‘I cannot do this anymore.’

‘there is so much to do, I don’t even know where to begin.’

‘I’m too late.’

We say such things and much worse to ourselves. We’re the same people who would never say this kind of thing to our friends or anyone in our family.

There is so much stigma around mental health. I have trivialised my own mental health so many times. How do we handle this?

I think the very first step is identifying that something is not right. If we are repeatedly doing something that we don’t want to do, then we would have normalized it to a certain degree. Its very difficult to identify that particular trait because its what you think is normal. Let me give you a few examples of behaviour I had not given a second thought, but turned out to be one of the symptoms of my ADHD. (ADHD presents itself it many different ways in different people, NO WAY should the below be considered as a diagnosis for YOUR mental health). Since this is a personal finance website, I will focus on stories that impacted me money-wise.

I try to be as financially diligent as possible but there are times wherein I have made purchases that make no sense to me. I have made a lot of impulse buys thinking that this is something new that I will start.

I got interested in origami one day and bought paper worth 600 bucks the same day, and after that never did anything with origami ever again.

I started therapy and needed to take notes, so I bought the most beautiful notebook for it. And never used it. And bought more notebooks. And never used them either. I continued to use whatever random piece of paper was available near me.

I looked at a few instagram videos of people cooking and bought fancy utensils worth around 1000 and barely used them for a week.

I bought a boatload of home decor items worth upwards of 10,000 that have just been abandoned.

I also think of myself as some big bookworm, so I buy a lot of books which I never even bother opening.

For all the gardening that I do, I have let at least a hundred plants die because I just couldn’t care for them properly.

I buy fancy alcohol thinking I’m a fancy person, when that’s just not true.

I exercised once and bought a fitbit because I thought I will make it a habit for life, even though I have ‘started’ exercising many times and never really persisted.

Everywhere I look in my home I see several different hobbies that I started with great enthusiasm but failed to sustain interest for. I had been looking at them and myself as a huge imposter. This great enthusiasm to buy and start something is so humongous but once I get it I am so exhausted just thinking about the different possibilities that the hobby could have, I have no motivation to take it forward. There are so many different paths that present themselves to me, and I put so much pressure on myself to ensure everything is perfect from the beginning till the end, that I don’t even get started.

After a very long time, I have tried to be kind and forgiving with myself instead of being harsh and demeaning, and this has made all the difference.

Please be kind to yourselves and understand that you are human and you WILL make mistakes. Whether its with money or otherwise. If I could turn it around, you can too!