an un-defining decade
It feels crazy to say this but I started university this time 10 years ago. I remember being a just-turned 17 year old moving into my single ensuite room in the Glenomena residences of UCD’s on-campus accommodation like it was yesterday. I was alone, satisfied at finally being free. Free is the last word I’d use to describe adulthood but I was ready to finally take the world by storm and do things my way.
I can’t say I had much of a plan for uni. I just wanted to do everything fast while I still had age on my side. When you’re young and brilliant, the potential people see in you goes a long way. You can depend on it. Throughout secondary school my dad would say to me “you want to move so quickly, do you even have direction? Do you even know where you’re going?” In uni my strategy came to a head and my dad’s words hit me like a truck. Here I was in a place where everyone around me is young, brilliant and full of potential and they (seemingly) know who they are and what they want. Who am I? What do I want for myself and for my career?
Throughout my childhood I lived two lives. I was one of those 98th percentile children that had to do very little to achieve a lot. “So long as I understand it, I’m good. I don’t need to study”, I’d say which was really undiagnosed ADHD kicking my ass as I forgot to do class projects and left homework at home while still producing what I needed to in exams to be top of my class. At home, I was an artist; writing, singing, dancing, designing, creating. I dreamt of owning multiple businesses and being in the corner glass office working as a Really Important Person at a Really Cool Place; signing approvals, telling people where to go and what to do. I saw my artistry as a means to get the capital to start my entrepreneurial journey —Rihanna took a play out of my book. I assumed I’d somehow be discovered before uni even became a conversation.
When that didn’t happen and suddenly I was being asked to choose a course and music and business weren’t “viable options”, I was confused. The four years of my undergraduate studies show just that. Confusion. I spent most of my time doing anything but the Science degree I resigned to after not getting medicine. I prioritised my dance crew over redoing my HPAT. I was a videographer, graphic designer, hair braider, youtuber, photographer, band member, blogger; I did anything and everything under the sun, while barely attending my course classes. I took business and law electives, still dreaming of that glass, corner office. I remember walking around a third year law careers fair deflated and confused because I did not have any idea what my future would look like.
And still-undiagnosed ADHD (misdiagnosed as anxiety) was seriously kicking my ass and my mental health.
When, now 21, I was encouraged to pursue a master’s degree in business that was previously deemed “unviable” as “you don’t need to study business to have a business”, I knew I could no longer make decisions based on the vision of me others saw. I had to start making decisions for myself because I was the only one that would live them out. Still compliant, I went ahead and did the master’s, still not knowing I had ADHD, thinking I struggled with my science degree as much as I did because I didn’t enjoy it and hoping that because I was interested in business, it wouldn’t be so difficult. I planned to be present, to make more friends than I had in my undergraduate degree and really enjoy the experience.
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This was the first semblance of an aligned strategy I had when it came to my education and my career. While I still struggled because you can’t will yourself out of neurodivergence especially one you don’t even know about, I was infinitely more present than I was in my undergraduate degree. I think the single act of being present in my own life changed things for me. Rejected from strategy consulting, I discovered that there was a career that combined psychology, business and creative design and started my campaign into UX design. Within three days of sharing my work, I acquired my first freelance client. A global pandemic hit. I moved back home. I co-founded Black Girls in Tech. I got my first full-time UX role. I moved to London. I got my ADHD diagnosis. Then my next role as a product designer. I co-founded Jolt Club. I’ve been pushing and pushing wanting to do great things for myself while I’m still young.
Until earlier this year my dad’s words hit me once again. You want to move so quickly, do you even have direction? Do you even know where you’re going?
And then life hit me. I didn’t stop —I was stopped. I became painfully aware that once again I was on a path that was not mine. It gave me some things I wanted —comfort, respect, stability; all of these things at the cost of my authenticity. At the cost of my happiness; my sense of internal safety; my confidence; my self esteem. I became a shell of myself. After 10 years of living a life that wasn’t for me, my body and mind shut down completely. And I knew whatever strategy I had been following up until now was not working for me because I had no idea who me was. I had strayed so far away from the girl writing songs in her bedroom. The girl who tried any and every business during uni. The girl that never wanted to live a conventional life.
Over the past 7 months, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to stop everything and first of all heal my neurodivergent burnout after ten years of pushing physically, emotionally, mentally, in my education, in my career, in my relationships. I started therapy and ADHD strategy coaching which were absolutely invaluable. It was heartbreaking to realise how much of my life has not been mine. How many decisions I was making based on triggers I had no idea I had. Based on self-concepts I didn’t know I held. To be confronted with these core wounds directly was fucking painful.
Next was resetting my baseline. Getting better sleep, healing my gut, starting regular physical exercise. A lot of these I’m still working on but I’m so much better than I used to be. I worked on shaping what work would look like whenever I was ready to fully go back again by taking some smaller projects that have shown me what self-advocacy looks like. I’ve become great at expressing, asserting and affirming my own boundaries.
Finally, I’ve been getting to know myself. Around my 27th birthday I was reading ‘Becoming an Empowered Projector’ by Evelyn Levenson and it felt like someone was dissecting my entire life. I’ll soon write more about my now three-year study of Human Design and how it helps me in my deconditioning process but this book was a powerful catalyst in taking getting to know myself to the next level. I’ve also been reading ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron and going through the 12-week programme which has really helped me get back into my creative flow. I’ll write about this experience once I’ve completed the process but it’s been great so far. Being able to write and share this article is itself a testament to how far I’ve come.
I had the most perfect day the day before writing this. I took myself on an Artist’s Date. I went out to a Sunday flower market, I ate at a pub, I randomly met and enjoyed the company of an amazing woman who could be a future version of me. A fiery business woman with a big heart, travelling the world marketing her new project —a tequila brand in her case, hanging out at fashion week with her daughter who is her best friend, doing life her way. Having her way because she knows what that is. I don’t know all of me just yet but I know that’s what I want. I know that’s what I want it to feel like.
It’s funny that 10 years later I still want the same thing. I’m still living to be free. To do things my way.
The last 10 years have been a journey into becoming a version of myself that can give me exactly that. There have been low lows that have accompanied high highs, but they’ve all shaped me into being the version of myself that will take the next 10 years —and the rest of my life, by storm. I’m extremely grateful to myself for choosing me. I cannot thank me enough.
As I sit alone as a just-turned 27 year old in the double-room of my East London flat share trying to figure out what my next move is for my life’s work —whether that be strategy consulting or product management or diving completely into my artistry or entrepreneurship, I’m recommitting to myself. To expressing every part of myself without shame. To being happily present because I’m living in the consequences of decisions I intentionally make rather than desperately racing forward trying to achieve meaningless accomplishments by a specific age.
I can’t predict the future. What’s coming for me will most likely be ten times greater than anything I can imagine for myself. What I do know of my direction and where I’m going is that it is completely by me and sincerely for me. Nothing else would be worth living.
Thanks for reading,
