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My medical file doesn’t say I have ADHD or Asperger’s.

“You’re functioning normally. You work in sales, you deal with people every day. If we put this in your file, it could just become a stigma for future employers.” That’s what my doctor told me. Together, we decided the diagnosis wouldn’t go in the paperwork. Nobody forced my hand. I chose, myself, what would be part of my official story and what wouldn’t.

That’s my truth. And I hid it anyway.

They say the truth will set us free. The real question is whether we actually want to hear it – our own, or anyone else’s. People demand honesty right up until the moment they can’t stomach it. I’m the first name on that list of hypocrites: I expect honesty from everyone else, and my own file stays empty.

We all have our own version of this. A truth we only let out once it’s already behind us, once it’s turned into a memory instead of something that can still hurt us here and now. Look at social media – it’s full of people who “changed their life from nothing.” Almost nobody shows the part in between, the part that hurt too much to post.

That’s not usually how I see the world. With ADHD, I think less about what’s socially acceptable, what’s too personal, what might be smarter to keep to myself. That’s exactly why this blog tends to go places other people wouldn’t.

But my medical file proves that even I know how to draw a line when I’m scared enough. So the question I keep asking myself isn’t “am I honest enough.” It’s “which of my own truths am I still hiding, without even realizing I’m hiding them.”

That question will probably outlast this post by a long way.

Someone close to me told me not to say too much – not to give too much of myself away to the world. Maybe she’s right. I know the truth isn’t free, not even for the people around me. But I’ve made my choice: this blog is going to show my truth, as ugly and as brutal as it actually is, because at least it will be mine, and it will be honest. If the truth really does set us free, then this is where I start – with it, not with some nicer version of it.

Related reading: ADHD 1, Enio 0 and “Mom, I was born for greatness!”