I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2024. Then I went looking for help.

Guest post by Matt Humphreys.

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For most of my life, I assumed I was simply a bit of a mess at getting things done. Things happened eventually, usually late and at some cost, with a quiet sense that everyone else had the instruction manual and I hadn't.

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Then, in 2024, at the age of 34, I was diagnosed with ADHD.

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The relief, and the grief that came with it

A late diagnosis arrives as relief and grief at once. Relief because there's a reason, and all those half-finished things and 2am panics weren't evidence of who I am. Grief for the man who spent decades trying to fix a misunderstood problem.

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A few weeks later, a new feeling of frustration set in. And with frustration came a question. So, what do I do now?

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What the National Disability Card changed for me

My wife and I are both National Disability Card holders, and it has made a genuine difference in both our lives. For me, it removes so much of the friction that comes with having an invisible disability. I no longer had to explain or justify my ADHD, or brace myself for the familiar look when people couldn't immediately understand what I was living with. That recognition matters, and the National Disability Card has helped make everyday interactions so much easier.

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The gap I still couldn't fill

That said, recognition and day-to-day ADHD support are two different things.

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A diagnosis explained my past, and the National Disability Card helps others understand my present. What I realised, though, was that I was still missing something for the everyday reality of living with an ADHD brain.

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Where's the help at 9am on a Tuesday, when there are eight things I genuinely care about, no idea which one to start or carry on with, and I'm weighed down by the shame and guilt of not making progress on the others?

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Fourteen items aren't a plan

So I tried the apps. To-do lists came first, but everything in my head arrives at the same volume, so many items on a list aren't a plan. Habit trackers were next. Brilliant first week. Then I'd miss a day, the streak would reset, and the app that had been cheering for me would be holding up a scoreboard of my failures. So to avoid the shame, I'd stop opening it. These apps weren't badly built. They just weren't built for someone like me.

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What I actually wanted

I didn't want micromanaging or my smartphone nagging me about the washing. I wanted to be understood.

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So, a small team and I built the tool we couldn't find, and we called it Loops. Everyone on the team has ADHD, and some of us are autistic too. We've built an app that speaks to us, understands us, and is there for me at 2am when I can't sleep, offering the kind of ADHD support I wish I'd always had.

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The conversation I wasn't expecting

Here’s an example. My training at the gym had been going well, then a few weeks ago it quietly fell over. A habit tracker would have shown me a broken streak. Instead, the coaching side of Loops spotted the drop and asked what had got in the way. Not "you've missed four sessions." Just, what's going on here?

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I typed something honest and slightly grumpy. My evenings were filled up, and my sessions were an hour long. An hour I don't have is the same as no hour at all. So Loops asked whether fifteen minutes of exercise at home would work, and whether walking the dog should count too.

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The goal stayed exactly where it was. But the means of achieving the goal had adjusted.

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What's actually changed

Most of my exhaustion was never the work itself. It was the unmade decisions, the procrastination, the shame, then the guilt, carried from room to room all day.

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If you've spent years assuming you were the problem, I'd gently suggest you weren't. Most systems simply weren't built with us in mind.

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My diagnosis explained why yesterday had been hard. Finding the right kind of support has helped me stop assuming tomorrow has to be.

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Matt Humphreys is a National Disability Card holder and one of the team behind Loops, a daily coaching app for people with ADHD.