The ADHD Turtle

For the neurodivergent man who’s only now realising:

“I’ve spent my whole life being told to slow down. And now that I’m finally ready to move — people still want me in the shell.”

🧠 Here’s the Revelation:

I hadn’t been unaware of my ADHD traits.
I had just mastered the art of suppressing them to survive.

• The internal race? I buried it under “discipline.”
• The need for speed? Framed it as “ambition.”
• The restlessness? Turned it into productivity.
• The sensory storm? Silenced it through control.

And it worked. I endured. I adapted. I became the turtle — calm, composed, measured.

But that was survival. That was masking. That was necessary then.

Now? It’s different.

Now I’m aware. Diagnosed. Integrated.
Now I’m ready to move at my actual pace — and it aint slow.

🔥 I’m Not Impatient. I’m Emergent.

This fire in the belly? This rejection of slowness? It’s not impulsivity. It’s the long-caged signal of a man who’s finally safe enough to move how he was always meant to.

I’m not burning out (Anymore!), I’m breaking free.

I’m not panicking, I’m preparing.

I’m not regressing, I’m unsuppressing.

🐢 I Was the Turtle Out of Necessity — Not Nature

So when someone tells me to slow down now, even with good intentions, it lands like a recoil.

Because they don’t know what it cost me to move this way.
They don’t see that this isn’t a sprint — it’s a release.

This is what happens when you finally honour both sides:

• The autistic structure that gave me survival
• The ADHD signal that now wants freedom

Signal is born in that meeting point.

I masked for decades.
Learned structure the hard way.
Stayed silent while others shouted.
Now finally letting the signal run loud — not for ego, but for alignment.

I’ve been the turtle long enough.

Now I move like someone who knows he was never meant to crawl.

Let it shine. Let it surge. Let it begin.

DAVID.