My Brain Has 47 Tabs Open and I Can’t Find Where the Music Is Coming From

How ADHD and Menopause finally explained my Life

My brain has 47 tabs open and I can’t find where the music is coming from.

Many women discover ADHD later in life — sometimes only when menopause amplifies the traits they’ve lived with for decades. This is my story. And only much later did I begin to understand that these patterns weren’t random, but part of a much wider picture of symptoms many women experience during menopause.

For most of my life, I assumed this was simply how everyone’s mind worked. I thought everyone jumped between thoughts, forgot what they were doing halfway through a task, and constantly felt as if they were trying to catch up with their own brain.

I just believed other people were somehow better at managing it than I was.

Looking back, I now understand that much of this wasn’t just distraction — it was also connected to how my nervous system was constantly switching between focus, urgency, and overload.

It took more than fifty years — and a completely unexpected diagnosis — before I realized my brain might simply work a little differently.

To understand what this feels like, here’s a fairly normal day inside my head:

I’m happily working away when a simple biological need arises: I need the bathroom.

On the way, I glance at the clock.

Panic.

I’m on a 16/8 fasting schedule and I have exactly 20 minutes to make and eat my meal or the whole day is “ruined.”

I pivot toward the fridge like a contestant on a cooking show, only to realize I’m out of tomatoes. I must write this down immediately.

But the bathroom is now screaming for attention.

I head back toward my original destination when I notice out of the corner of my eye the pot I need is dirty in the sink.

Bathroom first, then pot, then tomatoes.

My phone rings.

It’s my daughter. She wants me to do her a favor. Before she even finishes her sentence, my mouth has already said yes to babysitting. I don’t even know what day it is, but apparently I have nothing else to do.

What was I doing?

Right. Bathroom.

As I flush, I remember the tomatoes.

I should exercise more so I could walk, but I’ll drive. It’s faster.

In the car I realize I’m on empty. It starts to drizzle and, peering through a smeared windshield, I think: I’ll also fill the wiper fluid at the station. Easy.

I fill the tank.

Staring through the smeared windshield, I pay the attendant — and drive away.

Of course, I completely forget to fill the windshield fluid.

Annoyed with myself and busy informing all the other drivers that they apparently cannot drive, I finally get home.

Inside, I realize I forgot not only the wiper fluid — but also the tomatoes.

The fasting window has slammed shut.

So what now?

I need another plan.

I walk inside, see the pot still in the sink, but first I need to sit down and calm myself for a moment.

As I stare at my desk trying to remember when I agreed to babysit, my eyes catch the shopping list.

Dishwasher liquid.

Ah.

Now I remember why the pot I needed is still sitting in the sink.

The food is completely forgotten.

What was I doing again?

No idea.

I might as well continue working.

Does this loop sound familiar, or is it just me?

If this kind of mental pinball machine feels familiar, you’re not alone.

The Signs were there all Along

Honestly, until I was diagnosed in my early 50s — completely by accident — I thought I was perfectly normal.

At the time I was working in a stem cells clinic that mainly treated children on the autism spectrum.

I sincerely believed that these things happened to everyone, but that others were simply better at organizing themselves.

My mum used to say I was naughty, lazy, dizzy, forgetful, unreliable — and that she never understood me.

It was soul-destroying. It always felt like I was in a no-win situation.

I tried so hard to do things right, but whatever I did never seemed good enough. I just couldn’t convince my parents that I was normal.

So I focused on other things instead.

There were always so many interesting things to discover.

At school things came easily to me. It was entertaining, although also terribly boring whenever the subject didn’t interest me.

Later, when my classmates started forming study groups, I had no idea what they were.

For me, studying meant reading about the subject.

Curious, I once joined a study group. I genuinely couldn’t figure out what everyone was doing. The whole thing only confused me.

As I got older, I stopped thinking about my mum’s comments — unless she brought them up during an argument.

I became a mother, worked, ran a household, and somehow juggled everything. As far as I was concerned, I was completely normal.

I did notice that I seemed more sensitive to things than many other people, but I put that down to personality.

My star sign is Cancer, and apparently Cancers are very sensitive.

That was my explanation.

Life continued.

I moved countries a few times, and while everyone else started going through their midlife transition, I stood out like a sore thumb.

Here I was — 59 years old — and still having regular periods.

Whenever the topic of menopause came up, I felt like the odd one out again.

My doctor tried to reassure me that it was completely normal.

But how could it be normal when I didn’t know a single person my age who was still menstruating?

The Diagnosis That Changed Everything

My oldest grandson was, let’s say, difficult at the age of five.

He was very headstrong, and it was nearly impossible to reason with him or punish him in any meaningful way. I suspected there might be an underlying reason and took him to the clinic where I worked.

After several examinations with a psychologist and neurologist, he was diagnosed with ADHD.

I began reading about it and investigating, leaving no page unturned.

During one conversation with the doctors at the clinic, they laughed and said:

“You should know — you have it too.”

I was shocked.

It stopped me dead in my tracks. This was one of the rare moments in my life when my brain went completely blank.

How?

Why?

Of course I immediately started taking online tests, and every single time I ticked every box.

But I still couldn’t identify with it.

How could I not be normal — whatever that meant?

When Menopause Entered the Picture

When menopause finally arrived at the age of 60, it knocked me for six.

I had always been very fit and naturally slim, if not skinny. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I started gaining weight.

Before, I couldn’t put weight on even if I tried. Now it seemed impossible to lose it.

Because I lived on my own, I never followed a fixed meal schedule. I simply ate when I was hungry.

The problem was that I rarely felt hungry.

Often I would work all day until evening, feel a headache coming on, and suddenly realize I hadn’t eaten anything.

Then the weight appeared — seemingly out of nowhere.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t lose a gram.

My doctor told me to eat more regularly.

I understood the logic, but my brain somehow couldn’t wrap itself around the idea of eating more in order to lose weight.

Then the hot flashes started.

They came without warning — like a pressure cooker suddenly blowing its lid.

Friends recommended things that had helped them. I probably tried every supplement under the sun and spent a small fortune.

Nothing worked.

My belly started growing. My knees suddenly hurt when climbing stairs. Then came shortness of breath, palpitations, itchy dry skin, dry mouth, and dryness in places we rarely discuss.

The list seemed endless. Looking back, it wasn’t just the physical symptoms — it was the constant fatigue, the underlying anxiety, and the feeling that everything was becoming harder all at once.

In hindsight, I realize something important: hormonal changes during menopause can amplify many ADHD traits — focus problems, emotional sensitivity, sleep disturbances, and mental overload. Many women with ADHD also describe heightened emotional sensitivity and racing thoughts during hormonal fluctuations, making menopause anxiety feel especially intense.

These changes weren’t happening in isolation — they were connected to how my nervous system was reacting, how my metabolism was shifting, and how my hormones were changing all at once. For many women, this is the moment when previously manageable ADHD patterns suddenly become impossible to ignore.

At the time, however, it simply felt as if my body and brain had suddenly started working against me — they were on a renegade mission, and there was nothing I could do about it. It took me a long time to realize that what I was experiencing wasn’t just a series of unrelated problems, but part of a much bigger pattern.

If that feeling sounds familiar, this guide can help you step back and see how these symptoms connect across your body and mind:

Menopause Symptoms Part 1: The Complete Guide

How Lillepin Began

My training as a sports massage therapist (at the LSSM in London, UK), my years writing for Medical News Today, and my work at the World Stem Cells Clinic had already trained me to investigate.

So that’s exactly what I did.

I started researching menopause — and ADHD.

Of course I’m not a doctor.

But I always remember something my boss at the time once told me. He was a renowned specialist in longevity and stem cell treatments.

He said that no doctor knows as much about a child’s condition as the parents do — because parents will never stop searching for ways to improve their child’s life.

That idea stayed with me.

That is how my website began.

I investigate, research, and learn about myself — and then, drawing on my experience writing for Medical News Today, I share what I find in language people can actually understand.

Why I Don’t Like Being Put in a Box

I’ve noticed that to others I often seem contradictory.

I hate rules and regulations — yet I also rely on them to function.

My first instinct when confronted with rules is to rebel. But at the same time, I know that if I don’t write things down, I’ll forget them.

But what bothers me even more than rules is being put into a box.

Whether it’s culture, race, opinions, or lifestyle labels — I instinctively resist it.

It even irritates me when people insist on defining themselves strictly as vegetarian or vegan. Not because I disagree with their choice — I completely respect it — but why put yourself into a fixed box?

People evolve.

Choices change.

Understanding ADHD helped me make sense of many things in my life, but I don’t see it as a box I have to live inside.

I’m simply myself — unique, complicated, curious, sometimes chaotic.

If someone tries to reduce me to a label, my instinct is still to argue, rebel, and remind them that human beings are far more complex than any category we try to fit them into.

Understanding ADHD helped me understand myself better.

But it also raised another question.

How do you explain something like this to the people around you?

How do you describe the way your brain works to a partner, a boss, or a loved one — especially when you yourself are still learning to understand it?

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t discovering that your brain works differently.

It’s finding the words to explain it.

COMING SOON: How to explain ADHD to your partner, your boss, and the people you love — without feeling like you have to justify who you are.

Procrastination and the Strange Paralysis of Starting

Another thing I’ve become very familiar with is procrastination.

Not the lazy kind people often imagine.

The kind where your brain can analyze something from every possible angle for hours, days, sometimes even weeks or months.

I can think through all the ifs, whens, and buts, imagine every possible outcome, and plan things in great detail.

Yet somehow I feel completely paralyzed when it comes to actually doing the thing — even if it’s something small.

Instead, my brain becomes incredibly productive at doing everything except the thing I actually intended to do.

Suddenly I’m answering emails, organizing files, researching something interesting, making tea, cleaning the kitchen counter, or reading an article that has absolutely nothing to do with the original task.

Hours can pass like this.

From the outside it might look like procrastination.

From the inside it feels more like my brain quietly steering me away from something it doesn’t want to start.

Appointments are the worst.

If I have an appointment later in the day, my entire world seems to come to a standstill.

I can’t start anything meaningful because the appointment sits in my mind like a ticking clock.

Other people say, “Why don’t you just do it now and get it over with?”

I want to.

But for some strange reason, I often can’t.

Then eventually the pressure builds to the point where I have no choice. I finally do the task — and it usually takes far less time and energy than all the worrying beforehand.

And every single time I ask myself the same question.

Why didn’t I just do it earlier?

Because at the time, starting felt somehow impossible — even though finishing was easy.

Night Owl… or Something Else?

Another thing I always believed was completely normal was being a “night owl.”

People often talk about early birds and night owls as if it’s simply a personality trait, so I assumed that’s what it was.

But with ADHD it often goes a step further.

When I’m working on something that interests me — or when I fall into a deep hyperfocus — time simply disappears.

I can sit down in the evening to finish one thing and suddenly notice the sky outside starting to turn light.

I’ll look at the clock in complete disbelief and realize it’s four or five in the morning.

At the time it doesn’t even feel strange.

My brain is fully awake and happily working away as if it were the middle of the afternoon.

Only later, when I try to return to a normal sleep routine, do I realize how far my sense of time has drifted.

When Conversations Become Overwhelming

Another situation where my brain sometimes seems to give up is when several people are talking at the same time.

If conversations overlap or people start talking over each other, I quickly lose the thread completely.

My brain seems to shut down rather than try to process everything at once.

I might be listening carefully and thinking of something I want to say, but by the time there is a pause and it’s my turn to speak, the point I wanted to make has vanished.

And then I feel stupid — even though I know the thought was perfectly valid a moment earlier.

In busy restaurants, surrounded by noise and conversations, it can become overwhelming surprisingly quickly.

Sometimes my mind simply switches off for a moment to recover.

If someone suddenly asks me a question, I feel as if I’ve been pulled back from another planet.

To others it might look as if I’m bored or distracted.

In reality, my brain is simply trying to cope with too much information arriving at once.

The Brain–Mouth Coordination Problem

There is another strange coordination problem I’ve noticed over the years — between my brain and my mouth.

They don’t always seem to work together.

My mouth appears to have absolutely no filter.

Once someone gives me their attention, I start talking… and talking… and talking.

Inside my head, my brain is already making the universal cut-throat sign telling me to stop.

But my mouth seems to have other plans.

It keeps going like a renegade master.

There is simply no off-switch.

At one point I even made a deal with my best friend: whenever I start doing this, she should give me the cut-throat signal so I know it’s time to stop.

The problem is — I do notice it.

I completely register the signal.

And yet somehow I still can’t stop.

My brain says: Enough.

My mouth says: Oh… and just one more thing.

And whatever you do, don’t ever tell me “Don’t mention that.”

That is practically a guaranteed invitation for my brain to do exactly that.

Either I won’t realize I’m doing it — or, if I do realize halfway through, I somehow manage to dig myself even deeper into the proverbial hole.

The Hypnosis Experiment

Once, at my husband’s work event, they had a hypnotist.

It fascinated me and made me wonder whether I could be hypnotized.

Years later I tried it.

It was a complete and utter disaster.

As the practitioner spoke, my brain immediately began arguing with every sentence.

“Breathe deeply.”

My brain replied: What do you mean breathe deeply? I am breathing deeply.

“Imagine you are walking toward a lake…”

My brain responded: What on earth are you talking about? This is nonsense.

And so it went on.

I lay there getting increasingly annoyed — with her, with myself — trying desperately to focus and not move.

I tried so hard to reach that calm hypnotic state.

Instead, when the session finally ended, I felt physically sick, dizzy, and had a massive migraine.

I barely remember how I got home.

It took nearly 24 hours to recover — both physically and mentally.

Later I spoke to a friend who is a psychologist about what had happened.

What started as a simple question turned into a fascinating discussion about how ADHD brains process instructions, control, focus, and resistance.

COMING SOON: My uncensored conversation with a psychologist about ADHD, resistance, and how our brains actually work.

The discussion was so interesting that I decided to publish it as a separate article — possibly even as an audio conversation or podcast.

Because sometimes the best way to understand how our brains work is simply to talk about it.

For most of my life I thought my brain was simply chaotic.

Now I understand it was never chaos at all.

It was just a different operating system.

If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone — and there is a way to start making sense of it.

Conclusion

This article will probably never truly be finished. Understanding ADHD later in life helped me see my past differently. What once looked like chaos now feels more like a brain that simply works in its own way.

As long as my brain keeps opening new tabs, there will always be another one to write about.

So consider this less of a conclusion — and more of a pause before the next tab opens.