For about 20 years, Kiki Rakowsky tried to unearth the root cause of her panic attacks, disorganization, and analysis paralysis, which stopped her from finishing school and made her life feel increasingly difficult. Originally diagnosed with anxiety and PTSD, ADHD only came onto her radar in her 40s—in part because the Instagram algorithm clocked her interest in ADHD-related memes. “I started to feel like, wow, these posts are posting at me.” She broached the possibility in therapy and was eventually diagnosed with ADHD and dyscalculia, a math-related learning disability.
Emboldened by diagnoses that fit, Rakowsky went back to school at age 44. “At the beginning of this semester, I was sitting in my math class crying,” she says. By the end, she had scored a 95 on her final and an A- overall. “I thought my life was ruined; now I have a 3.94 GPA,” she says. “When I got my grades, the first person I called was my therapist—I just cried and said, ‘Thank you so much.’”