By Roxana Tascu
For most of my life, I genuinely believed I was somehow both high achieving and failing at the same time. From the outside, people often saw somebody driven, intelligent and ambitious, but inside I constantly felt as though I was barely holding everything together.
As a child growing up in Romania, I threw myself obsessively into new interests, one month it was tennis, then dancing, then art, then athletics. I could become consumed by something overnight, spending hours practising or researching, only for my interest to suddenly disappear weeks later. Adults constantly told me I had “so much potential” if only I could focus properly and follow things through.
That pattern followed me everywhere, I remember becoming completely fascinated by genetics as a teenager and competing in the national ‘Biology Olympics’, yet later struggling to pass the same subject once lessons became focused on memorisation and repetition. I never understood how I could be exceptional one minute and completely overwhelmed the next.
At 21, desperate to study psychology in the UK but without financial support, I secretly left Romania and spent three months selling hair straighteners in shopping centres across America to save enough money for university fees. I was terrified and lonely, but determined to create a different life for myself.
Years later, despite building a successful career in business psychology and leadership development, there were periods where I had no permanent base in London, moving between spare rooms and sofas while trying to keep functioning professionally. I became incredibly good at appearing capable while privately surviving through pressure, overwork, anxiety and adrenaline.
Everything changed when my husband Cristi was diagnosed with ADHD. I originally trained as an ADHD coach to better understand and support him, but during the training I started recognising every pattern in myself, and suddenly my whole life began making sense.
At 35, after years of blaming myself for being “too much”, “too emotional”, “too inconsistent” or “not disciplined enough”, I was diagnosed with ADHD too. I cannot fully describe the relief that came with finally understanding my own brain, and for the first time in my life, I stopped seeing myself as broken.
Now, through my work as a business psychologist and ADHD coach, I help other professionals understand how their brain actually works, rather than constantly fighting against it. So many people are quietly succeeding at an enormous personal cost, relying on pressure, overwork, anxiety and burnout just to function at the level others expect from them.
Roxana Tascu is a business psychologist and ADHD coach who works with professionals navigating ADHD, leadership and high performance. Visit www.adhd-advantage.com or follow @RoxanaTascu on Instagram.
