Dr. Micaela (Dr. Michaela)

And so you've got all these projects.

But I think there's also the component for ADHD is like the masking of the I might actually know who I am.

but I'm trying not to be that person.

I'm trying to be a different person so that I can be normal and I can like do the things I'm supposed to do, like work in a cubicle from nine to five and fill out Excel spreadsheets, right?

Like I think, but it feels wrong.

And so therefore I don't feel like I have a core identity, but it's not in...

At all in the same way as when we're working with a person who has that borderline personality disorder experience, which is is very just qualitative and experientially very different that you like you said, like that hollowness, that emptiness versus the like.

uh, I'm confused or like, I don't want to be who I am.

I want to be like someone else.

Yeah, I mean, I'm going to go with the last kind of content area that we were referencing in the sense of, like, the masking piece of the, like... I think in so many of the things that I do with Healthy Gamer, I always, I feel like, include some component of unmasking and of, like...

learning to like root into the confidence in your own self.

Uh, and that is, that is also a lifelong journey.

Um, but it is so liberating, um, to find the ways that you being the whole real you can actually be profoundly successful and rewarding and fulfilling.

Um, and,

And it's absolutely hard, and sometimes it means losing all of the friendships and relationships you currently have, which is devastating.

And it is so utterly excruciating to continue to try to live your life and pretend in 99% of your life.

interactions and daily activities that you are someone that you're not.

And that there's beauty in being a little weird.

And there are actually a large number of people out there who are going to appreciate you for the real you.

I never finished this article, but I was reading an article about a study.