Overview

After being diagnosed with ADHD in 2023, I began a personal project to explore and better understand this complex condition.

Given the current surge of interest in neurodiversity, this side project has moved and morphed much faster than I could have anticipated.

That’s why I decided to build a dedicated space to accomodate all the new ideas, networks and research I’ve been uncovering along the way.

Learn more at Heumans.com

Slowing down to speed up.

The project is definitely taking longer than I’d hoped.

I spent a few months being really torn about whether or not to build something specifically about my frustration with the whole ‘ADHD’ thing.

• Branding

• Marketing

• Outdated diagnostic criteria

• Lack of education filtering down to educators and general practitioners who are clearly in the best position to help more families identify and get help early

  …etc

Eventually, despite believing there‘s a special place in hell for anyone mansplaining about things they have no lived experience with, I decided something was better than nothing.

Heumans was born from the idea that building an ‘umbrella brand’ would not only be more inclusive, but allow me to more effectively advocate for everyone who feels a bit different or just wants to learn more about how their brain works.

It’s far from perfect, and I’m happy to change direction if it’s not fit for purpose, but I clearly need ‘a thing’ in order to begin some of the broader research and discovery I’m dying to get stuck into.

Where it might lead

A selected list of the sub-projects, experiments and lines of enquiry I’d love to dive into

• The ADHDecelerator: For those of us with too many ideas
  Beta program created, expressions of interest for Cohort 1 here

• AiDHD: Crowd-sourced and crowd-owned diagnostic tool & dataset

• The Neue Normal: Newsletter and podcast

• Heumans: Safe, mask-free community
  Profiles, information, AMA’s and self assessment tools

How it started

Some context about my personal experience

How it felt being diagnosed with ADHD at age 40

Early Research Notes

A very rough timeline of ADHD symptoms, diagnosis and perception in society

Connecting the dots

After going deep into the weeds, I was keen to connect what I’d learned to the experience of others going through something similar.

I spun up this survey as a first attempt to understand how my friends / family / network felt about their own journey but decided to pull it down until I could figure out the right questions to ask.

Random ADHD creators & memes

Just some bits and pieces I picked up in the early days of the project

Some educational, some entertaining but each forming a part of my new ‘instant identity’.