Beyond the Diagnosis

A gentle note: this story contains mention of death, out-of-body experience, virginity, and abortion. Take care of yourself as you read. Pause, breathe, and come back to your body whenever you need.

When I was diagnosed with ADHD at 32, I thought I’d finally found the answer to everything that never made sense.

For a while, that diagnosis felt like oxygen.

It gave language to the chaos — the inconsistency, the intensity, the inability to fit into systems that always felt too small. It explained the 120mph mind that often raced faster than my lips could keep up.

But once the relief settled, a new question emerged:

Now what?

Knowing my brain worked differently didn’t change that my body was still screaming.

My hormones were in turmoil.

My emotions, mostly buried, some blazing, were asking not to be managed, but witnessed.

And that’s when it dawned on me : ADHD wasn’t the whole story. It couldn’t be.

It was one thread in a much larger tapestry, one woven with trauma, ancestry, womanhood, and the nervous system I had long abandoned.

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When I lost my virginity at fifteen, I died [twice] several hours later.

It was consensual, painless and a complete freak accident.

Yes, you read that right.

My virginity ended with massive internal bleeding in a teaching hospital.

During a volleyball game that night, I hemorrhaged in front of a hundred people.

My mom rushed me to the ER. Between the first drop at my volleyball game, humiliatingly in front of so many people to the moment a doctor saw me, I’d bled out six pints within an hour.

Amidst the chaos of doctors and flashing lights, I had my first out-of-body experience.

I watched myself from above, tethered to my body by a bright golden thread.

Later, as my mom whispered positivity into my body, I flatlined for two minutes and experienced what I can only describe as similar to that in-between realm Harry Potter finds in the train station scene with Dumbledore. Except, mine was in a vast upside-down expansive brightness with a single, bare tree ahead of me. I woke up a day later.

At fifteen, I didn’t know what to do with that.

So I laughed it off. I DEFINITELY didn’t tell my parents what really happened.

Out of guilt, fear, shame from all that delicious Catholic upbringing.

No therapy. No processing. Just silence.

Because that’s what girls are taught to do — hold the pain quietly, tuck away the shame, and smile.

EVERYTHING IS FINE!

Years later, I learned I had also lost a twin in the womb.

Another instance of guilt, fear, shame hiding a truth - yet this time, it was Mom’s truth. A painful, daily shame she carried alone as well.

Suddenly, so much made sense.

That constant anxiety, hypervigilance, and guilt — they were rooted in something generational, in my body’s earliest blueprint.

Going back to my maternal great grandmother, there are significant threads of fear, loss, grief, shame, doubt, regret, resentment, guilt. These can become epigenetically hardwired into future generations.

Then, at 28, I experienced another profound feminine trauma: a chaotic abortion abroad.

In a country where it was illegal, I endured the procedure with no anesthesia, no compassion, and no choice but to pay in cash, attend in the cover of night and take a few Advil.

I was left again, with a more pronounced set of dense, dark, feelings about myself and my body.

Again, mostly alone. I’ll always have gratitude for my friend P.S. who was with me from the moment I called her crying to the moment I left the country. I can’t thank her enough for her true feminine, sister-care.

As the months went on, unbeknownst to me, my body continued producing pregnancy hormones. No one had told me that could happen.

Without compassionate medical care, I didn’t know I was producing too much estrogen.

Inevitably, this shame and endless guilt I carried metastasized into chronic inflammation, fatigue, self-blame and real, tangible diagnoses.

When my ADHD diagnosis came at 32, it cracked something open.

It forced me to ask: what else am I missing?

With that diagnosis, I learned I also had PCOS, pre-diabetes, gut dysbiosis, SIBO, MCAS — and a parasite for good measure! My body had been waving the white flag for years, and I kept muscling through. Not listening.

I was inflamed, exhausted, and emotionally repressed.

But I was also high-achieving, perfectionistic, and determined — the classic neurodivergent woman cocktail!

But I wanted to conceive with my man. And it wasn’t…happening.

So, I dove headfirst into the nervous system work.

Because I learned: what we call symptoms are often adaptations.

Chronic cortisol release, emotional repression, people-pleasing - none of these are flaws. They are/were survival strategies.

My humor? A coping mechanism since I died at fifteen.

Deflection? Works with most people.

Emotionless? Keeps things simple.

Yea, right.

I began studying — breathwork, trauma, body and shadow work — and discovered how the body carries stories the mind cannot yet articulate.

When I started regulating my nervous system, everything began to shift. I stopped trying to fix my ADHD and started learning to adventure with it.

Breaking those generational cycles in action!

I’m 35 now. In those three years, everything has changed.

I became a certified PCC-level coach to partner with women like me.

I studied trauma-informed practices, polyvagal theory, and breathwork.

I’ve coached over 600 hours and received coaching myself.

I worked with a functional doctor who’s helping me heal from the inside out.

I’ve reversed my prediabetes.

Balanced my PCOS.

Removed that parasite and drastically improved my gut health; nearly out of the SIBO realm.

My cycles are now around 28 days instead of 22, with regular ovulation.

I no longer feel betrayed by my body, I feel in relationship with it.

And maybe most importantly: my self-compassion deepened.

I am sitting in a different body today than I was when I first learned of that ADHD diagnosis.

Because, as it turns out, not everything can be attributed to that label 😬.

Sometimes, it’s trauma. Sometimes, it’s ancestry. Sometimes, it’s a nervous system just trying to keep us alive. All the time, it’s a fully woven tapestry of the combination.

Now, in my coaching practice, I see the same pattern in nearly every late-diagnosed woman I work with.

They come to me wanting strategies: planners, routines, systems.

But what they really want is safety.

Safety to be complex.

Safety to not explain themselves.

Safety to feel grief, rage, joy, and aliveness without guilt.

Safety in their bodies, and in how they take up space.

When women begin separating who they are from what they’ve adapted to be, they find something sacred: choice.

That’s the work I do now - supporting women to move from tension to intention.

Not managing or optimizing their minds, but partnering with their whole selves: body, story, and spirit.

We are not a collection of acronyms and diagnoses.

We are living ecosystems - shaped by culture, ancestry, trauma, belief, and possibility.

ADHD might describe your wiring, but it does not define your worth.

It does not limit your capacity to live a meaningful life.

You are not broken.

You were disconnected from your rhythm.

When we return to that rhythm, through breath, movement, and presence - we stop surviving and start adventuring.

That’s what healing is: remembering that your body isn’t betraying you.

It’s communicating.

And healing begins when you finally listen.

Slowly. Repeatedly. And ideally, in community.

If this story resonated with you — if you’re tired of being reduced to your diagnosis and ready to reclaim your multidimensional self — this is your invitation to see what’s possible.

Adventure isn’t a destination.

It’s a way of living in relationship with your body, your truth, and your unfolding story.