Maxine Roper is a 41-year-old neurodiverse writer and voiceover artist with a lifelong passion for telling stories that connect, inform, and inspire. Drawing on her own experiences of dyspraxia and ADHD, she blends honesty, empathy, and humour to shed light on the realities of living with a neurodivergent brain.
In this heartfelt letter to her younger self, Maxine reflects on the challenges, discoveries, and moments of growth that have shaped her journey, offering both comfort and insight to anyone navigating similar paths.
Dear 18-year-old Max,
As your future self, I have mixed feelings about writing to you. It’s a lot to expect anyone your age to even imagine what life will look like in a year, let alone in decades.
Usually, when people write to their younger selves, they imagine how differently their lives would’ve turned out if they’d known certain things. I’m not sure how much knowing these certain things will actually help you yet, because the fullest support to go with that knowledge isn’t around yet, and won’t be for a while. If it were, you’d probably know already and wouldn’t be feeling like you are.
Knowing what I know now won’t get you help from places that don’t know how to help you yet, or life-changing medication that isn’t specifically available yet. It won’t help you find information or meet people like you with technologies that don’t exist yet. It won’t create demand in the world for books and articles which isn’t there yet.
But I know you’re sad and scared and want to know why you feel this way. And I know that if you search for the answers you need on your own, it’ll be another three years of confusion and well-meant but ill-fitting advice before you even start finding them. So I’m writing to you to speed things up a bit…
Understanding your neurodivergent brain
Your brain works differently from other people’s, and there are words for why. Words that explain more about you than you can imagine right now, or maybe even want to imagine right now.
Some of them – neurodivergence, executive function – you won’t have heard of. Others – dyspraxia and ADHD – you might have done, but only vaguely, from programmes about naughty boys, which seemed irrelevant.
Dyspraxia and ADHD are why certain things feel harder for you, why lots of things worry you, and why people call you clumsy and can get impatient with you. They’re why you can feel clever one minute and not-so-clever the next.
No one knows exactly what causes either of them, and they don’t always go together, but experts are pretty sure they’re both related to do with neurochemicals in the brain that control executive functions, aka your attention, motivation, emotions, movement – pretty much everything you do.
In your brain, the neurochemicals get used up too fast, affecting all those things. This often makes someone very good at some aspects of learning and weak at others, which is why you got 6 A’s, a C and a D in your GCSEs.
The most important thing to know about ADHD is that it doesn’t mean you can’t pay attention, it’s all about how you manage attention, so you either struggle to focus or you hyperfocus and fixate on something obsessively. (Sound familiar?). Hyperfocusing can make you very happy. It can help you do things you need to do. It can also make you very unhappy or stop you from doing other things you need to do.
Without the right understanding and support, ADHDers and dyspraxics are more likely to hyperfocus in unhappy ways, which is partly why your life feels tricky at the moment.
Navigating relationships and the power of hyperfocus
The people you look up to and feel drawn to most right now are people older than you with very different and unpredictable lives, which makes them seem very exciting. Unfortunately, the reasons you look up to these people and hyperfocus on them also mean they have less room for you in their lives, which feels disappointing and also feels to you like your fault and a reason to try harder.
This is all very sad and unfair to you, not to mention a sign that the people concerned aren’t managing your expectations as well as they could be. Because you’re very capable in lots of ways, people sometimes forget how young you are and expect you to know how to handle things better than you can. You might also be drawn to unpredictable connections like these because the excitement gives you big spikes of those neurochemicals your brain uses up too fast – a bit like what gambling does to the brain, which is why it’s a problem for some people.
Like everything that’s part of dyspraxia and ADHD, hyperfocusing isn’t something you can just switch off or grow out of, or something to be ashamed of. It’ll show up with different people and in different ways as you go through life. But knowing it’s what’s happening makes it much easier to manage.
For now, if you can accept that you can’t change certain people’s availability at the moment and try to understand the differences between you rather than punish yourself with them, one day they’ll just be like the many other people you’ll occasionally meet for coffee or breezily trade Christmas and birthday greetings with on social media (don’t ask what that is…), and you won’t lose touch with them unnecessarily by writing them long, sad letters.
It won’t come quickly or easily, but you have plenty to look forward to in life, and the more you learn about yourself, the more you’ll be able to enjoy it. As you understand more about what makes you different to some people, you’ll also realise you have far more in common with many others than you might think right now – including your friends from school, and your mum!
One day, you’ll learn to put your hyperfocus into things that make you happier and achieve some cracking things for yourself – and for others. You’ll see a helpful therapist, not one who insists you’d make a fine waitress or that playing team sports will help you make new friends. You’ll do the things you really want to (write books, find love…) as well as things you would never in a million years have thought you could (like run the London Marathon, yes, really!). But best of all, you’ll be able to show kindness and understanding to people who are feeling like you are now.
Love,
Your future self
You can find out more about Maxine Roper by visiting her website and following her on Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
If you live with a neurodivergent brain, share your experiences – the challenges, the triumphs, and the everyday realities – so we can keep building understanding together. Let us know in the comments box, on social media or contact us to share your personal story.