Matt Klein thought he was dealing with depression. After a job change and the arrival of a new baby, he found himself in a fog. Listless. Unmotivated. And vaguely “off.” He just didn’t want to do anything. His wife noticed the shift, too. But the depression diagnosis never fully explained it. It wasn’t until he was evaluated as an adult that inattentive ADHD and slow processing speed brought his story into focus.

Matt, a software engineer, shares a story about a door that hung slightly askew — and how intensely it bothered him. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. That crooked door became a metaphor for his experience with undiagnosed ADHD: the mental friction, the fixation, the sense that something was out of alignment. 

For more on this topic 

For a transcript and more resources, visit ADHD Aha! on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected]

.

Listen to Everyone Gets a Juice Box, a new podcast from Understood.org where host Jessica Shaw has honest talks with parents raising kids who learn and think differently.

Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.