ADHD Tools, tips, and dopamine hits.

All neurotypes welcome

Welcome to The Deep End

Why am I here, why now, and what on earth for? On Substack I mean. Not in the Satre-eque sense.

Or do I?

Hello, and welcome to what I'm hoping becomes a warm corner of the internet where people with ADHD brains can rest, rant, reflect, and realise we’re not as alone as it can feel.

I'm hesitating as I write this, fingers hovering over keys that feel weighted with possibility and terror in equal measure. Why, though?

With my flavour of ADHD comes:

• Lots to say

• A sploot of creativity

• Unquenchable NEW THING lust

A recipe for success in some people but not always for people like me.

Why This, Why Now

Two years ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD at 45. Like many of us, it was both a revelation and a reckoning. Suddenly so much of my life made sense, but also… WTAF?

I wrote one Ritalin-powered LinkedIn Newsletter about it, full of optimism about starting a monthly newsletter.

Then I unravelled.

Grief, perimenopause, money worries, and a strangling cognitive fog. The kind that makes stringing a sentence together like threading a needle in oven gloves.

But more humiliating.

More isolating.

The newsletter still sits there. A pauper’s version of that brilliant art installation where the robot’s job is to clean up the fuel it relies on as it spills and pools. Until the machine stutters to a heart shredding halt.

Wait! I promise this isn’t all doom and gloom.

If building the plane while flying it sounds more achievable as a team, you’re in the right place.

But that gap between my first hopeful post and now has been instructive, messy, and absolutely nothing like the neat upward New Me trajectory I expected.

It's real life.

Chaotic and glorious—the kind of reality that I find hard to write about on other platforms.

What this isn’t

Another ADHD influencer promising to ‘fix’ you with the Ultimate ADHD Hacking System. (Though I do have some awesome tools and toys to show you later)

This is about the messy, undulating reality of living with a neurodivergent brain in a neurotypical world.

And selfishly? Finding community in the shared experience of getting it spectacularly wrong sometimes. And celebrating the wins other people don’t even notice.

What I want this to be

This space is for the ADHDers who are tired of being told to "try harder," who've collected more productivity systems than hobby kits, but also, it’s for those of us just finding out now.

Or just beginning to wonder.

It's for those of us who hyperfocus on learning a a whole new topic but forget to eat lunch. Who can write brilliant strategies for other people's businesses but struggle to do the basics for ourselves, who make friends fast and forget their existence even faster.

This is a space for honesty about the hard stuff. But also for celebrating the wins, even the ones so small only we can see them.

I want a community where vulnerability isn't a performative dance for likes and clicks. Where it’s neither shunned nor forcibly extracted.

Where we can admit that some days don't work, the meds aren’t magic, but together, we have thousands of tools, tips and dopamine hits to share with each other.

Most importantly, this is for those of us still figuring things out. Often, the most helpful thing for me, hasn’t been another life hack—it's knowing I’m not the only one feeling at once enlightened and beweildered by the revelation I’ve got ADHD.

Publishing Schedule: Once a week-ish. Might be long. Might be short. Might have tips. Might be funny. MIGHT NOT!

What Free Subscribers Get: Just me, showing up. Sharing stuff I’ve tried. What I’ve heard, and what I’ll probably never try again (ice baths).

The Honest Bit: I'm figuring this out as I go, and I'm committed to transparency about what's working and what isn't.

An Invitation, Not a Promise

I can't promise anything that has worked for me will work for you. I can't promise the format won’t change.

What I can promise is honesty, vulnerability, and to share what I'm learning, celebrate what's working, and admit when things go haywire.

Most of all, I can promise that this will be a space where you are welcomed—quirks, challenges,mood swings and all.

We're in the deep end now. Might as well make it weird together.

Welcome to the community I desperately wanted to find. So I’m starting it here.

So far it’s just me, Edna, and Ingrid the Orca.

I’ll introduce you to them both in a week or two.

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Here, there’s space on this flying carpet for one more.

So hit subscribe and introduce yourself in the comments—I'd love to know what brought you here…

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