Feeling Lost and ADHD
As I approach 38, I thought I’d have a better sense of where I’m headed in life. You know, like one of those road trips where you actually have a map (or at least a reliable GPS—no more “recalculating” nonsense). By now, I imagined I’d be cruising down a well-paved road toward success: a career, savings, a house, maybe even a family—basically, adulting like a pro. But instead, here I am, a month away from my 38th birthday, feeling like I’m stuck in traffic on a road that leads to nowhere.
It’s like I’m floating in the vast ocean of life—without a paddle, no less. The fog’s rolled in, and I can't even see the shore. So, here I am, just drifting.
In my 20s, getting lost was kind of the point, right? I was supposed to wander aimlessly through life like a tourist, soaking in all the experiences that would eventually lead to…something. I treated every misstep as a lesson, a kind of “oops, that didn’t work” that would guide me to the next stage. You know, like trying to find your way through a maze without a map but telling yourself it’s character-building.
My 30s, though, were supposed to be different. This was supposed to be the decade where I put down roots, built a foundation, and became a fully-fledged adult. Instead, I find myself standing outside the exhibit of adulthood, watching as my peers seem to glide through life like they were born with a 401k and a five-year plan. How did they figure it out? Meanwhile, I’m over here like, “Do I need an app for this?”
And then, I would like to apply the lens of adult ADHD to it all.
Remember the hope for a reliable GPS to help navigate? Well life with ADHD can feel like trying to follow that GPS but it does in fact keep glitching—constantly rerouting, missing turns, or just shutting down when the overwhelm hits.
Time blindness makes it feel like the years have slipped away, like I blinked and somehow landed in a foreign land. The expectation that I should have built a solid foundation by now clashes with the reality of nonlinear progress, hyperfixation rabbit holes, and executive dysfunction making “adulting” feel like trying to juggle while riding a unicycle on a tightrope.
There is maybe some comfort in knowing my feeling of being lost is not just existential—it’s neurological. Knowing that a traditional career path and long-term planning doesn’t always click the way they seem to for neurotypical folks. My brain is just seeking novelty, searching for that dopamine hit, and trying to carve out a path that actually fits instead of just following the expected route. Which is just very hard at times.
Don’t even get me started on decision paralysis—which feels like wandering through a toy store, with so many possibilities, so much potential, but decision-making feels like trying to pick a single toy from an entire aisle of options. The fear of choosing "wrong" is so real and can be paralyzing, which is why starting anything at all feels like a monumental task.
But the pressure to make decisions is real. The looming questions of What is my purpose? and How will I make money so I can eat and maybe buy yarn to knit a nice sweater? are hanging over me. I need some sense of security—preferably in the form of a steady paycheck and the knowledge that I won’t be living off cereal for the rest of my life.
Despite all this, I’m not hopeless. I’ve got a toolbox full of skills and wisdom (somewhere at the bottom of a very messy drawer, but it’s there). I know I can build something. But right now, I’m just not sure how to use any of it. It’s like owning a hammer but not remembering what to do with it.
There is a light with me in the raft —my curiosity is my superpower. My willingness to embrace the unknown, experiment with new passions, and challenge the idea that there’s only one right way to be an adult? That’s something a lot of people never allow themselves to do. The world (and my brain at times) may try to convince me that the winding road is flawed, but it’s just the way I’m wired to navigate life.
So, maybe my path isn’t linear, and I don’t have a five-year plan. But maybe that doesn’t mean I’m lost—it just means I’m creating a different kind of map, one that makes sense for me. A map to keep following what lights you up. Hopefully the destination might surprise me.
Can you relate to this journey, I’d love to hear from you. How do you navigate the uncertainty of life with ADHD? Let’s start a conversation—drop a comment, share your story, or just let me know I’m not the only one figuring it out one step at a time (and if there is in fact an app for this).
