You have been told you are burnt out. But what if burnout is the symptom, not the cause? Here are five questions that help distinguish burnout from ADHD in doctors.

You snap at your partner over something small, and you know straight away it was too much. You replay a comment your manager made three days ago, still trying to work out whether it meant something. Someone gives you a piece of feedback and you go completely quiet, shut down, and pull away, even though [...]

It is not always about what was actually said Someone close to you says something ordinary. “You forgot to do the dishes.” Or they send a short text back. Or they go quiet after dinner. And something in you shifts, fast and hard, and the feeling that follows does not match what just happened. If [...]

Does any of this feel familiar? You re-read the email three times before you send it, checking every word for anything that might be taken the wrong way. You over-prepare for a meeting so thoroughly that there is nothing anyone could possibly pick at. A colleague makes an offhand comment at the end of the [...]

Medical school and registrar training provided the scaffolding your brain needed. When that scaffolding disappeared at consultant level, the difficulties surfaced. This is not burnout. It is not laziness. It is a neurodevelopmental difference that responds to practical support.

For decades, you have been the one who copes. You hold the project together at work. You hold the household together at home. People rely on you because you deliver. And then, somewhere in your fifties, something gives. The systems that always worked stop working. The energy that always came back is slower to return. [...]

Most ADHD conversations focus on what is hard. That is half the picture. A strengths-based look at executive function tells a more useful story.

You are good at your job. Everyone says so. You hit your targets, meet your deadlines, and deliver quality work. What nobody sees is what it costs you. The late nights catching up on admin you could not start during the day. The anxiety before every meeting because you have not read the papers. The [...]

You used to cope. You held it all together. The career, the family, the house, the social life, the mental load. It was hard, but you managed. Then somewhere in your late thirties or early forties, it all started to unravel. You cannot focus. You cannot remember things. You are exhausted all the time. You [...]