Stopping the Chase with ADHD

This text is about stopping the chase with ADHD – then and now.

👉 Read this post in Swedish →Att sluta jaga med ADHD – en livsresa från 2009 till idag

This text began its life in April 2009.
Back then, as a reflection on an article about young women, addiction, and mental health – and, as so often for me, it ended somewhere deeply personal.

When I read it today, I see both another time and the same person.
The difference is that I no longer chase answers. I live them.

This is a story about treating causes rather than symptoms, about ADHD, about stopping the run – and about where I stand today.

When methods take root – and people are left waiting

Carina Ikonen Nilsson.

A photo from a time when I was still running, without really understanding why.

(The text below was originally written in 2009. It has been edited for readability, but the content and lived experience remain unchanged.)

A few days ago, I received SiS i Fokus, a magazine I continued to subscribe to even after I stopped working within institutional care. I have always found its content interesting – how methods are developed, gain strength, and take root in practice.

This issue focused on how institutional models have been shaped based on scientific research. Tore Andreassen, who on behalf of SiS, the Institute for the Development of Methods in Social Work (IMS), and the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Families has been involved in this work, was highlighted.

I remembered a lecture I attended several years earlier, where Andreassen spoke about precisely this. Even then, it was interesting. Now, it had clearly become reality within youth care.

But it was the back page of the magazine that truly caught my attention.

The article was about young women – and how they are made to wait for care.

According to the research, women with substance abuse problems had often shown signs of mental distress at a very early age, sometimes as early as preschool. When they later sought help, they were rarely met at the core of the problem. Instead, the focus was placed on the symptoms – the addiction – which in many cases had developed as a form of self-medication.

Solveig Olausson, who earned her PhD at the University of Gothenburg, interviewed young women aged 18–25 with both mental illness and substance abuse. She was interested in how the women themselves described their lives and their path to treatment.

Many had grown up in unsafe environments, with a lack of care. When they finally sought help, it was often at a point where suicide was a real alternative. Still, they rarely felt they received the help they needed. The addiction became the visible problem – the mental illness remained in the background.

Olausson also interviewed a group of older women, around their forties, with long-term difficulties. Despite years of treatment, only one out of 21 women supported herself through work. Most were still dependent on psychiatry and social services.

Her conclusion was clear: care and treatment must address both addiction and mental health at the same time. Relationships and social networks need to be repaired as far as possible to reduce the risk of relapse.

I remember thinking: what a wise woman.

Symptoms or causes – stopping the chase with ADHD

It struck me how often we settle for treating symptoms.

Back pain – a pill.
Low mood – a pill.

And sometimes that is right.
But sometimes it is not enough.

I can use myself as an example.

I have had periods in my life when I took antidepressants, felt low, and saw no way forward. My grandmother – a wise woman with ADHD – watched me run. From point to point. New projects, new ideas. Always capable. Never truly present.

I hid my neurodivergence through performance.

The years that followed were filled with work, studies, relationships, separations, children, and moves. I was terrified of stopping. Eventually, it was my father who said: now you are the one who goes to the doctor.

I received medication. I received a diagnosis of depression. But something didn’t sit right. I asked for an ADHD assessment. Two years of waiting. A new referral. Two more years. Finally, I received my diagnosis.

And my puzzle began to make sense.

Where am I today – stopping the chase with ADHD

I am not there anymore.
Not in the chase. Not in the flight. Not in the attempt to catch up with something that was always one step ahead.

Stopping the chase with ADHD – from medication to presence

I took ADHD medication for two, maybe three years. And it was helpful. Medication helped me slow down, understand myself, and create space. For me, it was never wrong.

But it was not me.

Eventually, I needed to say no. Not because medication is wrong, but because I needed to meet myself without it. To sort out what truly carried me – and what had only been dampened.

What have I learned from stopping the chase with ADHD?

Today, I live a life where I no longer chase.
I don’t chase achievement.
I don’t chase validation.
I don’t chase the next project just to avoid feeling.

Life for me today is slower.
It is everyday life. Stillness. Presence.
It is being able to stay seated without guilt.
Listening when my body says no – and actually respecting it.

Today, I see that stopping the chase with ADHD has not been about becoming slow, but about becoming true.

I have learned a great deal.

I have learned to meet myself in others – to recognize exhaustion, shame, and the need to be capable. But I have also learned not to give others what I once needed, if it costs me too much today.

I have learned acceptance.
To stop fighting what already is.
That responsibility is not the same as guilt.
That empathy does not require self-erasure.

I have learned that boundaries do not make me colder – they make me clearer.
That stillness is not laziness.
That pauses are not failures.

And perhaps most importantly of all:
I have learned that I do not need to become someone else in order to exist.

AHA – between the lines

This post is not really about ADHD.
It is about stopping the flight from oneself.

About daring to stay when movement has always felt safer than stillness.
About understanding that strength sometimes shows in staying put.

Between the lines – my voice

I hear myself say:
I am tired of running, but not of living.

This is not the end of my journey.
But it is a place where I can stand still for a while.
And that is enough.

🔔

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Closing words

This text began as a historical reflection.
It ended in the present.

And perhaps that is exactly how life is:
we carry our stories with us, but we no longer live in them.

Here I stand today

on my birthday
in a text about stopping the chase.

Carina Ikonen Nilsson

Live today.
Right now.
Yesterday rests in history, and tomorrow waits out there in the distance.
Right now – this is where life happens.