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Some ADHD stories come from authors, psychologists, and researchers. This one comes from a 23-year-old ER nurse who learned early that the brain she has is exactly the one she needs.

Nina Padilla spent ten years trying to get someone to take her ADHD symptoms seriously. From age thirteen through twenty-one, she told her pediatrician every year, “I think I have ADHD,” and every year she heard the same dismissal: good grades and good behavior meant she couldn’t possibly have it. It wasn't until her last semester of nursing school, during a three-day panic attack, that she finally found a therapist who listened. At 23, she was formally diagnosed with combined-type ADHD and started on Adderall.

Today Nina works in the pediatric emergency room at the same hospital where she fell in love with the chaos during her final clinical rotation. She calls herself an energizer bunny, moving so fast that a pediatrician once told her, "Nina, don't fix whatever's going on up there." That was the moment she realized her ADHD wasn't a disability. It was her superpower.

In this conversation, Tracy and Nina talk about growing up emotional and misunderstood, finding your people early, seeking rejection on purpose to heal rejection sensitivity, and why the ER is the perfect place for an ADHD brain that never gets bored.

For any listener in their twenties who feels unsure about the future, Nina offers the clarity so many of us need at that age: follow what interests you, work with the brain you have, and stop chasing a version of “productive” that does nothing but make you miserable.

Resources:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nina_izabella

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ADHD isn’t a productivity problem. It’s an identity problem.

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Learn more by connecting with Tracy through Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or visit adhdforsmartwomen.com.

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