ADHD Meds Made Me Efficient. They Also Made Me Boring

There's a version of "success" that looks incredible from the outside.

You're getting stuff done. You're organized. You're productive. You're checking boxes like an absolute machine.

And yet… something feels off.

Not wrong in a dramatic, everything-is-on-fire way. Wrong in a quiet, low-key, where did I go? kind of way.

That's what I'm talking about today.

Because ADHD meds made me efficient. They also made me… boring.

Not in a "my personality sucks" way — in a my spark dimmed way.

And that's a tradeoff I didn't see coming.

Quick note: this is my personal experience, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor about what's right for you.

The "ideal entrepreneur" is basically a straight line

For years, I held this vision of what successful entrepreneurship required you to be: extremely disciplined, extremely organized, extremely consistent, extremely systematic, extremely strategic, extremely logical.

Straight line. Perfect execution. Never deviate.

And if you're neurodivergent — if your brain is more spiral than straight — this standard can mess with you in a deep way.

Because you start thinking: Why can't I just do it like them? Why can't I just execute the way this person is telling me to execute? What's wrong with me? Why is this so hard?

And here's the thing nobody tells you: that internal soundtrack doesn't create motivation. It creates shame. And shame is a brutal foundation for building anything.

The shame loop is exhausting (and it's tanking your business)

I lived in that loop for a long time.

Beating myself up. Judging myself. Stuck in this constant state of embarrassment and guilt and distress and regret. Just this ongoing dislike for myself.

And if you're building a personal brand while secretly feeling like you're a mess behind the scenes… it's a brutal internal polarity:

I suck. And I know I'm amazing. How do I marry these two ideas about myself?

You can't feel confident and creative when your baseline emotional state is shame. You can't show up as yourself when you're busy trying to prove you're not a problem.

When I thought it was depression (but that wasn't the full story)

A couple years ago — maybe three at this point, I'm terrible with timelines — I was in a heavy season. I'd just had a miscarriage that completely rocked my world.

I went to my doctor. Depression was the first route we explored. She checked the boxes, put me on an antidepressant.

I was a little resistant, but honestly? At that point I felt like I had lost so much of my light and my spark that I was like, okay, I'm willing to try the medication. Let's go for it.

And I immediately hated it. My body didn't like it. My gut was like nope. It was extremely short-lived.

But I still knew something was going on.

And at the exact same time, I started reading Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté.

Here's the thing: I was reading it because I thought one of my daughters might have ADHD. I was reading it through the lens of a mom.

Within the first few pages I looked at my husband and was like… Oh my God. This is not about our daughter. This is me.

No one had ever described me to me before. I had literally never felt so seen in my whole entire life.

The diagnosis changed how I understood myself

I went through the full ADHD testing (which takes forever, because Canada).

When they finally called and said, "Yeah, you have ADHD," I was basically like: Uh-huh. Yeah. You think? Thank you so much. I know. Now what do we do about it?

Because the diagnosis didn't change who I was. It changed how I understood who I was.

And it gave me something I didn't expect: permission to stop shapeshifting into someone else's version of a successful entrepreneur. I could finally stop trying to beat the spiral into a straight line with a hammer.

The medication chapter: productivity went through the roof

I decided to try ADHD meds.

Like a lot of people, I went through the process of titrating — trying different types and amounts until something clicked. This took almost a year. There were months where I'd try something, realize it didn't feel good, go off it, take a break, try another type at a lower amount.

When I finally found my flow with it?

My productivity was through the roof. I was laser-focused. I could complete projects in three days that would've taken me a month. I felt proud of myself in a way I hadn't in a long time.

And for a while, it felt like: Thank God. I fit in. I can stay here. I can manage here. I got this.

And then I realized I was losing parts of myself

This is the part nobody warns you about.

I was so caught up in the heightened pride of finally being productive that I didn't notice what was happening to my personality.

It wasn't until probably close to a year in that I started asking myself: Wait. How do I actually feel? Do I really feel like myself?

There were things I started noticing weren't happening anymore.

I wasn't dancing in the kitchen. I wasn't having those yummy, insightful creative ideas come in the way they normally would. I wasn't spontaneously laughing at funny things. I couldn't drop into my feelings the way I used to. I felt less able to deeply relate or have extreme compassion for another human being at any given time.

And it was confusing because — on paper — things looked great.

But what I felt was robot mode.

All I wanted to do was produce. Work. Check boxes. Output.

My brain went from one extreme to the other:

The feeler / impulsive / spontaneous / creative / empathetic / compassionate / vulnerable goof who has so much energy and nowhere to put it became the highly functional, high-velocity, productive machine who looks like the all-star, feels proud to be the all-star, but is missing out on the whole magic side of being human.

And I had to admit something that surprised me: I missed my magic.

These parts of me that I'd always called disruptive? That I'd been embarrassed about? That I thought were the reason I wasn't able to be who I needed to be to succeed?

They were actually the most magical parts of who I am. And I didn't see it until they started going away.

The tradeoff question: what's the cost of "normal"?

I ended up taking a break from meds. It's been over two months now.

Not because meds are bad. Not because anyone "should" do what I did. But because for me, in this season, the cost felt too high.

And having both perspectives — medicated me and unmedicated me — gave me this clarity:

I can be that person if I want to be. I can normalize the things about myself I've always deemed disruptive. I can take a pill that makes it all go away.

But what's the actual result?

For me, the result was efficiency without aliveness.

And that goes against everything I believe about personal branding and entrepreneurship. Because who you are is the whole point. Your ideas. Your stories. Your intuitive nudges. Your creative inspiration. Your ability to relate, to connect, to put yourself in a moment and actually feel it.

That's the magic sauce. And I was trading it for a cleaner to-do list.

The real work has been self-acceptance

When I look back, even that initial "depression" was really just a lack of self-acceptance. Layer on layer of shame, guilt, embarrassment, regret. What is wrong with me? Why can't I do anything normally?

And then I did a complete 180 — became the version of myself I thought would make me proud, that I thought would get me where I wanted to go.

And then I had to see it: Wait. I just wanted to change myself because I couldn't accept myself. I needed to become someone else in order to love myself.

But I didn't even like that version of myself. The "10 out of 10 all-star" version was actually incapable of feeling and expressing all of the things I love most in the world.

So this season has been about acceptance. Not fixing. Not flattening. Just: okay. This is me.

And now I'm like: Hi, you creative impulse. You magic. You little feeling. I love you so much and I missed you.

Now I'm having dance parties all over the place because my body can feel again. I'm not stuck in my brain all the time. I'm not an energizer bunny of productivity from the moment I wake up to the moment the meds wear off. I'm a feeling being again — and I don't ever want to surrender that.

What actually helps me work with my ADHD

Here's the thing: I don't actually struggle with productivity the way people assume. I do a lot in a day. I get projects done.

What I've realized is there are ways I work and ways I don't.

I work well with deadlines — real ones with actual consequences, not fake ones I'll ignore. I work well with time blocks. I work well with body doubles — that means hanging out with my team on Zoom while I work, or keeping my kid beside me while we're both doing our own thing, or going to a coffee shop where there's a bunch of people working on computers so I'm not choreographing a TikTok dance routine in my office when I'm left to my own devices.

I work well with challenges. Constant alarms on my phone. Reminders everywhere.

The reframe isn't "fix yourself so you can be productive."

The reframe is: accept yourself first, own it, notice the magic — and then say, okay, this is who I am and this is what I want. What are the best ways for me to get there?

Systems that support you. Strategies that feel like you. Calendars that allow you to stay consistent in a way that actually works for your brain.

One-size-fits-all strategies are the problem

This is why I cannot get behind the idea that one person's framework is going to work for everyone.

You need discernment. You need to actually understand how you're wired before you adopt someone else's system. Because it's going to be so different for each of you.

The goal isn't to become a straight line.

The goal is to build something sustainable that doesn't require you to abandon yourself to succeed.

Want the full story? Go listen to the episode

This blog gives you the structure, but the podcast episode has the nuance, the emotion, and the parts I didn't soften.

If you want to hear me get personal and go deeper on this conversation, listen to Episode 14 of 17 Minutes:

Listen to Episode 14 here

And if you do listen, come DM me and tell me: what supports actually work for your brain?

Want support that's actually built for your wiring?

If you're tired of trying to "fix" yourself into someone else's version of consistency, check out the Identity Report.

It's a behavioral blueprint that helps you understand your patterns — how you make decisions, how you handle pressure, what drains you, what fuels you, and what kind of systems will actually work for you.

If you want more self-trust, clearer direction, and a business that feels aligned (without becoming a robot to get there), start here:

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