Hi, I’m Melissa!
For the better part of the last decade, I was convinced everyone else received an instruction manual on how to be a ‘proper’ adult, and somehow I never got a copy.
I’ve been struggling to navigate adulthood for years, and I could never figure out why I felt so behind.
My peers seem to know what they’re doing. They’re able to keep up on laundry, have a social life, and their kitchen sinks are never full of dirty dishes when they go to bed.
These skills seem to come so naturally for everyone else, and I’m out here sniffing rogue socks to see if they’re clean.
I struggled to keep up with the everyday tasks that come with being an adult.
It left me feeling like a failure, and it was incredibly isolating to think I was the only one who didn’t get this mythical handbook on how to keep everything together.
I couldn’t understand why every article promising to make life easier never seemed to work for me.
It wasn’t until recently that I figured out why that was. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with ADHD.
My late-diagnosed ADHD came as a shock to literally no one but me.
That diagnosis led me to my big ‘aha moment’: I wasn’t the only person struggling to keep up with the never-ending to-do lists of adulthood.
I was also learning that because I think differently, the traditional methods I’d been told should help might not work for me—and that’s alright.
This new line of thinking has helped me understand my brain better, which has led me to make changes in my daily routine. I’ve finally had an easier time completing tasks around the house.
Now, my house hasn’t gone from a complete disaster to looking like it’s on the cover of a magazine (trust me, I won’t be getting a spread in Architectural Digest anytime soon).
BUT my laundry no longer lives on the floor, and now I don’t have to smell my socks to determine their state of cleanliness.
I created Manual Not Included to give myself, and anyone following along, permission to stop believing there’s one “right” way to do adulthood.
I’ve stopped thinking that everyone around me has a guidebook with all of life’s answers, because no one does.
I’m still figuring this out, one blog post, one chore at a time, and I’d love for you to share in my journey.
Life didn’t come with instructions, so let’s figure it out together.