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<title>Neurodiversity – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>Neurodiversity – Michel Fortin</title>
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<title>The Pitfalls and Blessings of ADHD</title>
<link>https://michelfortin.com/adhd/</link>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michel Fortin]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Thu, 05 Mar 2026 20:29:58 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Expert Leadership]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Personal Story]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[ADHD]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Leadership and Mental Health]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Neurodiversity]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[I was diagnosed with ADHD at 52. Here's what it costs, what it gives, and how the same traits that made conventional work exhausting became the foundation of how I operate as a fractional executive.]]></description>
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<h2 id="article-summary" class="wp-block-heading">Article Summary</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Diagnosed with ADHD Combined Type at 52, Michel Fortin recounts what the diagnosis explained about a lifetime of struggles and strengths. The post covers the real costs of living with undiagnosed ADHD, the coping systems built over decades, and how traits that made conventional environments difficult, including hyperfocus, rapid pattern recognition, and context-switching, became the foundation of an effective fractional executive practice.</p>
</div></div>
<div role="navigation" aria-label="Table of Contents" class="simpletoc wp-block-simpletoc-toc"><h2 class="simpletoc-title">Table of Contents</h2>
<ul class="simpletoc-list">
<li><a href="#article-summary">Article Summary</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#how-i-found-out">How I Found Out</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-adhd-actually-is">What ADHD Actually Is</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-challenges-i-live-with">The Challenges I Live With</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#what-ive-done-about-it">What I’ve Done About It</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#the-gifts-on-the-other-side">The Gifts on the Other Side</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#if-you-think-you-might-have-adhd">If You Think You Might Have ADHD</a>
</li>
<li><a href="#frequently-asked-questions">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
</li></ul></div>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I was 52 years old when I was formally diagnosed with ADHD. More specifically, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Combined Type. The attention-deficit side is a restless mind. The hyperactive side is a restless nervous system and body. Combined type means both, mental and physical restlessness running simultaneously, all day, every day.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I lived with this my entire life without knowing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’m sharing this because a friend and colleague wrote about her own late-life ADHD diagnosis and I found myself nodding at every symptom she described. It inspired me to write one of my own. I was reluctant at first. But after seeing how many people in my professional circle discuss their mental health openly, I decided to take the plunge. It’s also a little therapeutic.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">So strap yourself in.</p>
<h2 id="how-i-found-out" class="wp-block-heading">How I Found Out</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The reason it took me so long to get a diagnosis was a bit of a fluke. Up until about ten years before my diagnosis, I assumed I was just normal or simply restless. I was often fidgety, easily distracted, hyperfocused when immersed in work I loved, and easily triggered when interrupted during those hyperfocused moments. I thought everyone was like this.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Then one day, I had a serious blowup with my adult stepdaughter. I got angry over something that, to a neurotypical person, would have seemed trivial. A week later, she sat me down, along with her mother, my late wife, for what turned out to be a difficult conversation.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">“I think you have… something,” she said. She had been listening to a podcast about autism, and the behaviours described reminded her of me. Autism and ADHD share several traits: explosive reactions to overstimulation, hypersensitivity, the tendency to lecture, and so on.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">For the next ten years, the possibility that I had ASD sat quietly in the back of my mind. I did various online tests, some more credible than others, and eventually decided to get properly tested. Mostly out of curiosity.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The result surprised me. Not autism. ADHD.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">At first, I was bummed. But then came the flood. With every symptom I read about, I thought: “This is so me.” For weeks, my mind replayed memories going back to early childhood, things I’d said, done, and struggled with my entire life, and suddenly they all made sense. The fidgeting in class. The boredom in jobs. The explosive moments. The broken projects. The forgotten promises.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">And then it crashed. I realized that many of my business failures, broken relationships, and years of self-blame had roots in something neurological, something I had no name for, let alone tools to manage.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">As a fellow late-diagnosed ADHDer said to me: “One of the hardest parts of a late-life mental health diagnosis is knowing how many bridges you burned while you were still on fire.” That hit hard.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But almost immediately alongside that grief came something else: relief. An enormous weight lifted. All those years of teachers berating me in front of classmates for tapping my feet or daydreaming. The boss at my very first job, selling life insurance door-to-door in the 1980s, who declared in a staff meeting, “Stop being such a fidgety person.” The college I dropped out of because I was bored to tears and too afraid to ask for help.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I wasn’t broken. I was wired differently.</p>
<h2 id="what-adhd-actually-is" class="wp-block-heading">What ADHD Actually Is</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">ADHD affects executive function. It’s caused by a shortage of specific neurons that transport dopamine and other neurotransmitters to different parts of the brain. The result is that the brain can’t access sufficient dopamine to function the way it needs to.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Dopamine drives arousal, including motivation, concentration, and attention. Without enough of it, the result is inattentiveness, hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and mood instability.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">One important note: everyone experiences these symptoms occasionally. We all get distracted, impulsive, or restless from time to time. With ADHD, the frequency is abnormally high. It’s high enough to meaningfully affect your life, your relationships, and your work.</p>
<h2 id="the-challenges-i-live-with" class="wp-block-heading">The Challenges I Live With</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Here’s an honest look at the symptoms I’ve grappled with my whole life.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Staying focused is a constant effort.</strong> My mind wanders constantly. But when I’m engaged in something that genuinely stimulates me, I go the opposite direction entirely: hyperfocus. I zone in completely, block out everything around me, lose track of time, forget to eat, and tune out people trying to reach me. It’s both a superpower and a liability.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I struggle to finish reading books.</strong> My mind drifts and I have to reread the same page multiple times. I switched to audiobooks at double speed years ago, and never looked back.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>My short-term memory is unreliable.</strong> I lose my keys, forget names seconds after being introduced, and can walk into a room with a specific purpose and have no recollection of it by the time I arrive.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I get bored quickly.</strong> I’m constantly busy with work, drums, theatre, learning. But sustained engagement with anything routine is difficult. If something loses its novelty, it loses me.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Multitasking is a trap.</strong> To switch tasks effectively, you need to remember where you left off on each one. If I don’t finish something before switching, there’s a real chance I’ll forget it entirely.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I need reminders for everything.</strong> And I mean everything, from client deadlines to taking out the trash. My calendar and reminder systems aren’t optional extras. They’re how I function.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I’m an impulsive buyer.</strong> Especially with gadgets and technology. I get excited, acquire, and move on. Rinse and repeat.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I work best independently.</strong> Open-plan offices are difficult. I can’t get anything done with all the noise, the interruptions, the social maintenance. Remote and autonomous work isn’t just a preference for me. It’s a functional necessity.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I’m deeply sensitive.</strong> Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is one of the less-discussed symptoms of ADHD, and it’s one of my biggest. I tend to read too much into emails, texts, and offhand comments. I overthink, overanalyze, and catastrophize, especially around perceived rejection or criticism.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Understanding this has been one of the most useful things to come out of my diagnosis. For a long time, I blamed this sensitivity on my childhood and on growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father. And that wasn’t entirely wrong. But when I learned that RSD is neurological, not just biographical, it reframed everything. It also made me wonder, for the first time, whether my father had struggled with something similar, and turned to alcohol to quiet a restless, undiagnosed mind.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I talk fast and interrupt.</strong> Both for the same reason: if I don’t say what I’m thinking the moment I think it, it’s gone. Waiting to speak means I spend the waiting time repeating the thought in my head to hold onto it. The result? I’m not actually listening to the other person. I’ve been working on this for years.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Relaxing is hard.</strong> Lying on a beach doing nothing? Physically uncomfortable. I need input. Podcasts, audiobooks, music, movement. Stillness feels like absence.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Sleep is a negotiation.</strong> Shutting my brain off at night takes effort. I work best with white noise or ambient sound, like a busy coffee shop, rain, or instrumental music. (I’ve literally written two books in Starbucks.) TV in the background is a problem because my brain latches onto it and won’t let go.</p>
<h2 id="what-ive-done-about-it" class="wp-block-heading">What I’ve Done About It</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I’ve built a set of coping strategies over the years. Some through trial and error, some through professional support, some through sheer necessity.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Voice dictation has been a game-changer.</strong> When I can’t hyperfocus enough to type, or when ideas are coming faster than my fingers can keep up, I record myself and transcribe later. Tools like Wispr Flow let me capture ideas while I’m walking, driving, or just waking up. More than a few good articles started as a voice memo at the gym.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Text-to-speech tools made reading accessible again.</strong> Tools like Speechify let me turn long articles, emails, and documents into audio. Combined with 2x speed playback, I can consume more information in less time without losing my place or my mind.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Music and background noise are tools, not distractions.</strong> Instrumental music, chillhop, ambient, binaural beats, helps me focus. Vocals are off-limits while working because my brain latches onto lyrics. White noise and coffee shop sounds create a kind of mental container. Quiet environments, paradoxically, are where I struggle most. My brain fills the void.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>My workspace is deliberately visible.</strong> Out of sight is out of mind for people with ADHD. I keep tabs open, use digital sticky notes, and run three monitors. If a task isn’t visible, it doesn’t exist to me. I’ve stopped fighting this and started designing around it.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I use reminders without shame.</strong> I have alerts for things most people would consider automatic. The reminder isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s how I make sure things actually get done.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>I explored medication early on.</strong> Before my diagnosis, I was drinking three to four pots of coffee a day. I was essentially self-medicating with caffeine. After my diagnosis, I tried prescription stimulants, and they helped. But for personal health reasons, I no longer take them. I’ve built my coping toolkit around systems, structure, and professional support instead. These days, I might have an espresso or two in the afternoon. That’s usually enough.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph"><strong>Therapy has helped more than I expected.</strong> I’ve worked with CBT principles for years, the core practice of stepping back from a reactive moment, observing your thoughts from the outside, and challenging the pattern. My approach to personal work has evolved since then, but the foundation of self-observation that CBT builds is valuable for anyone with ADHD.</p>
<h2 id="the-gifts-on-the-other-side" class="wp-block-heading">The Gifts on the Other Side</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">ADHD is more commonly discussed in terms of what it costs. But there’s another side. People with ADHD are often drawn to creative, strategic, and entrepreneurial work: writing, design, consulting, marketing, building things. The traits that make conventional environments exhausting are often the same ones that make us exceptional in the right context.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Hyperfocus is a superpower when pointed at the right problem. Pattern recognition, unconventional thinking, the ability to make rapid connections across unrelated domains. These aren’t incidental to ADHD. They’re part of the same neurology.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Looking back, I can see how directly ADHD shaped the way I work as a fractional executive. The rapid context-switching that made conventional jobs exhausting is exactly what lets me move between a CMO engagement, a CRO diagnostic, and a content architecture project in the same week. Each one requires a different frame, and the ADHD brain is built for reframing.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The pattern recognition is the one I rely on most. When I walk into a company and start “<a href="/diagnostic-advantage/">Sherlocking</a>” their growth problem, I’m pulling connections from 35 years across hundreds of different businesses. That cross-domain wiring, seeing how a SaaS retention problem mirrors a consulting firm’s positioning gap, is something ADHD makes easier, not harder. The brain that can’t stop making connections is the brain that finds the root cause everyone else missed.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The boredom intolerance has been surprisingly useful too. I don’t do maintenance work. I’m not the person to hire for steady-state execution. But if you need someone who will tear into a complex diagnostic, build a system, train your team to run it, and move on, that’s a working style ADHD practically designed for. It’s also why the fractional model is a better fit for me than a full-time executive role ever was.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Thirty-five years into a career built on exactly those traits, I can say that ADHD has cost me a great deal. But it’s also been the engine behind most of what I’m proudest of. The diagnosis didn’t change who I am. It just finally gave me language for it.</p>
<h2 id="if-you-think-you-might-have-adhd" class="wp-block-heading">If You Think You Might Have ADHD</h2>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Get evaluated. The sooner, the better.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">I know there’s a temptation to avoid it. The fear of what you might find, the disruption of a label, the uncertainty about what comes next can be daunting. I understand that.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">But the weight that lifts when you finally have an explanation, and a path forward, is unlike almost anything else I’ve experienced.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Having ADHD doesn’t excuse anything. But understanding it changes everything. It changes how you design your work, structure your environment, communicate with the people around you, and talk to yourself when things go sideways.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">It also changes how you interpret your past. That part is hard. But it’s also, ultimately, a gift.</p>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">You’re not broken. You’re wired differently. And in the right environment, that wiring is extraordinary.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>
<h2 id="frequently-asked-questions" class="wp-block-heading">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2 is-layout-flow wp-block-wpseopress-faq-block-v2-is-layout-flow">
<details id="when-was-michel-fortin-diagnosed-with-adhd" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>When was Michel Fortin diagnosed with ADHD?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Michel was diagnosed at age 52 with ADHD Combined Type, meaning both the attention-deficit and hyperactive components were present. The diagnosis came after a decade of wondering whether he might be on the autism spectrum — a question raised by a family member who noticed overlapping traits. Testing ultimately pointed to ADHD, not autism.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-is-adhd-combined-type" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What is ADHD Combined Type?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">ADHD Combined Type means a person meets the criteria for both the inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive subtypes. The result is a restless mind and a restless nervous system operating simultaneously. It’s not a matter of occasionally losing focus or feeling fidgety — the frequency and impact on daily functioning, relationships, and work is what distinguishes it from typical distraction.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-are-the-biggest-challenges-of-living-with-adhd-as-a-professional" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What are the biggest challenges of living with ADHD as a professional?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The most disruptive include unreliable short-term memory, difficulty finishing tasks once novelty fades, sensitivity to interruption during hyperfocus, and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) — an intense emotional reaction to perceived criticism or rejection. Open-plan offices, routine work, and anything that requires sustained attention without stimulation are particularly hard.</p>
</details>
<details id="what-coping-systems-work-for-adhd-in-a-professional-context" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>What coping systems work for ADHD in a professional context?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">Voice dictation, text-to-speech tools, visible workspace design, and a non-negotiable reminder system are the foundation. Instrumental music and background noise improve focus; silence actually makes concentration harder. The key principle is designing the environment to match how the ADHD brain works rather than forcing the brain to fight its wiring.</p>
</details>
<details id="how-does-adhd-connect-to-the-fractional-executive-model" class="wp-block-details is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow"><summary><strong>How does ADHD connect to the fractional executive model?</strong></summary>
<p class="wp-block-paragraph">The traits that made conventional employment exhausting — rapid context-switching, impatience with routine, pattern recognition across unrelated domains — are exactly what the fractional model rewards. Moving between a CMO engagement, a revenue diagnostic, and a content strategy project in the same week requires a brain built for reframing. The boredom intolerance that made steady-state roles painful becomes an asset when the work is always diagnostic, always new.</p>
</details>
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