Do you need an ADHD diagnosis to understand your own brain? Paul Bowers is 67, has never been formally assessed, and has spent decades learning how his brain works anyway.
Paul is a commercial photographer and video director with more than forty years behind the camera. He's not a clinician, and neither am I. He's also a motorcyclist, a mechanic, a landscape designer, a husband and a father, and for most of his life he heard one phrase as a put-down: jack of all trades, master of none.
We talk about what it's like to be good at a lot of things in a world that keeps asking you to pick one, and how one subject in school convinced Paul for decades that he was secretly stupid. He explains why so few people are actually qualified to notice what's going on, and what believing "nobody noticed, so it wasn't that bad" can cost in relationships.
Then we get into the question underneath this whole conversation: does it count without the paperwork? Paul is honest about why he never pursued an assessment. For him, the label matters less than knowing his own patterns. He describes the rejection sensitivity that still shows up before every interview he does, after photographing thousands of people. Rejection sensitive dysphoria isn't a formal diagnosis, but a lot of you will recognize it.
I also share a number from a 2020 meta-analysis of adults 50 and over: about 2 in 100 showed ADHD-level symptoms on validated scales, but only about 2 in 1,000 had a diagnosis in their medical records.
And Paul shares the one small thing he does on his own that changed how he sees himself, plus what he wrote on a label and stuck on his motorcycle throttle.
Paul's work lives on his website, and he's on Instagram.
Paul Bowers: https://www.paulmbowers.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulmbowers/
If this conversation brought something up for you, my free Mental Health Resources Hub is here: https://thevibewithky.com/mental-health-resources-hub/
Ky is a mental health advocate speaking from lived experience. He is not a clinician, and nothing in this episode is medical advice.
Much love. Good vibes. - Ky
