“Be messy.” That’s what my best friend Kaytie used to say to me.

She said it often, but here’s the irony—she wasn’t very good at being messy herself. Kaytie didn’t have ADHD, but she wrestled with her own struggles. One of them was perfectionism.

And it wasn’t until she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma—bone cancer—that she started to loosen her grip on perfect. Life got stripped down to what really mattered.

Perfectionism and ADHD

People with ADHD wrestle with perfectionism every day. Not because we’re wired for order, but because we’re wired for all or nothing.

We don’t do “good enough.” If it can’t be perfect, why bother?

• We rewrite the email until it’s too late to send it.
• We plan the blog post until we never publish it.
• We study for the exam until we’re paralyzed by overwhelm.

It’s one of the most common maladaptive coping strategies I see in ADHD women. Outwardly, our lives may look chaotic, scattered, even impulsive. But inwardly, we’re brutal with ourselves. We demand flawless execution in a brain that doesn’t work in straight lines.

And when we can’t achieve perfect, we swing to the other extreme: avoidance.

Compassion, Not Criticism

Another practice? Compassion.

We’re so good at extending it to others. We’ll forgive friends, coworkers, even strangers in an instant. But when it comes to ourselves, compassion is the last tool we think to reach for.

I’ve learned (the hard way) that compassion is the antidote to perfectionism. Not “letting ourselves off the hook,” but understanding that our worth doesn’t live in flawless outcomes.

Kaytie’s Legacy

My best friend Kaytie would be so proud of me this year.

I started writing this on the one-year anniversary of her death. And, in classic ADHD fashion, I didn’t finish it. I couldn’t publish it on the “right” day. My perfectionism told me it wasn’t good enough, so I put it down. And for months, I struggled to come back to it.

But here I am. Writing it anyway. Messy. Imperfect. And alive.

And in the year since she died, my messy life has been full:

• I moved across the country.
• Bought a house.
• Studied for and passed my California licensing exam.
• Started a business (again).
• Built a website.
• Got an adorable puppy.
• Met a man I’m crazy about.
• All while raising my daughter as a single mom, in a pandemic.

Whew. I’m exhausted just typing that list.

But I’m also proud. Because I didn’t do it perfectly. I did it messy.

The Practice of Being Messy

Living with ADHD isn’t a deficit of attention. It’s that we care so much, we get stuck in the caring. We hyperfocus, overthink, and demand perfection from ourselves when the real gift is in showing up messy.

Being messy doesn’t come naturally to me. People with ADHD often lack an internal barometer—we’re unsure of the “rules” of the world around us because we’re too busy trying to live by the impossible ones we create in our own heads.

So being messy is a practice. A daily one.

And every day, I thank Kaytie for trusting me to be messy. For reminding me that life isn’t meant to be flawless. It’s meant to be lived.

The Takeaway

If you’re a woman with ADHD, perfectionism may be your default coping strategy. But perfectionism isn’t protecting you—it’s paralyzing you.

The antidote isn’t more effort. It isn’t another planner. It’s compassion. It’s giving yourself permission to be messy, and to believe that messy is more than enough.

Because perfection doesn’t build a life. Messy does.