Molly Seidel wants you to know that she still struggles and even struggled at the Olympics: "I was bulimic in Tokyo."

After years of lurking on the letsrun website, I felt compelled to finally make an account and comment on something. Molly‘s story really touches me because, I, too, have been diagnosed with severe adult ADHD.

Reading some the comments on here, I have to tell you: most of you don’t get it. ADHD is very unlike what you have heard on the news. It’s an extremely serious condition that affects all areas of your life.

I had to laugh at that one person who said she should lock herself in an empty room or something… don’t you understand that in silence, the thoughts are racing even more quickly? People with ADHD try everything in their power to drown out the non-stop racing thoughts. We - literally- do our best to run from them. But since the thoughts never stop, we run and run and run ourselves into the ground. Imagine what it’s like to be always on edge - to never be able to get a moment of rest because your thoughts are racing whether you are on vacation, or home on the couch, or driving home from work. And then you either can’t sleep or you dream crazy stuff, jolting awake several times a night and it all starts over the next day.
Running and other kinds of excercise can turn the storm into flow, but while that is a mental relief, it‘s still physical stress on a system which is spending most of its existence in fight-or-flight mode.
People also don’t know that ADHD is often linked to rejection sensitivity. It hurts us SO much more to read negative feedback. It’s like a physical wound (although I would take physical pain over that mental hurt any day) and then our brains repeat the negative messages 24/7 on an infinite loop and no, we can’t just block it out because the regions in our brain that would allow us to do so, never properly developed.

To be honest, I am alarmed to read she stopped taking Adderall, because it’s messing with her training. If it’s also made her bulimia worse…ok. But if she’s mostly avoiding it because it hurt her career, I‘m not sure that’s worth it.
The difference that Ritalin has made for me is night and day. (And no, it didn’t give me a push, it has just given me an idea of what other people might mean by the word „chill“.)
I really wish Molly the best and I wished people on here would either read up on the condition or at least have some more compassion.

To all those who are downplaying her struggles: not having a neurobiological disorder does not make you stronger. It just makes you lucky. Maybe you should appreciate that luck instead of piling onto someone who has been through the wringer for pretty much all her life.

Not to be rude but she creeps me out

Excellent post Neurodivergent. Another challenge faced by many is proper diagnosis. When I read your post, some of your symptoms could be bipolar, anxiety disorder, OCD so there is overlap which can complicate getting proper treatment. Rejection sensitivity is a feature of borderline personality disorder. I mention all this not to question your diagnosis but for others to be aware that some people do struggle to get assessed properly because in some cases it can be tricky. Good luck.

@ Hder Thank you. You are correct. There’s so much overlap that I, too, sometimes end up questioning the diagnosis because I didn’t fit the fidgeting Philip cliche as a child. I also have all the other ADHD symptoms (not able to focus on something that is not interesting but hyperfocussed and unable to tear myself away from exciting tasks/ making careless mistakes/ inability to plan ahead/ feeling tortured by mundane tasks etc). I just felt like those are more well-known and while they can absolutely wreck a „traditional“ career like mine (I was super close to quitting a big 4 job before sucking it up and seeing a psychiatrist), they are maybe less obviously a problem for a professional athlete. I think most people just don’t know enough about the darker and more dangerous aspects of the condition.
Again, you‘re right in saying that a correct diagnosis is hard (even harder over here in Europe, where you can wait up to a year to see an adhd specialist). Anxiety, OCD and eating disorders often result from Adhd, though. As for the bipolar differentiation: the difference is that with Adhd, you always react to an actual event, your reaction is simply completely disproportional to the event. For me, Ritalin has completely taken away what most would have diagnosed as anxiety and it’s definitely helping to keep a binge eating disorder at bay. Originally, Molly spoke of similar benefits from Adderall, so I really hope she quit taking it for the right reasons.

Since Adhd doesn’t just affect Molly but many professional athletes who were hugely successful but still had significant mental health struggles even though they were diagnosed much earlier (Biles, Phelps), maybe letsrun could do an actual article, interviewing both athletes and health experts to shed some light on a condition and possible medications that so many people seem to have an opinion about even when they don’t understand half of it.

That was my suggestion and it does NOT involve pharmaceuticals.

You pushed Adderall and Ritalin.

The shills of the medical industrial complex are everywhere.

I have adult ADHD too and this is BS. Hardly as bad in the way it’s being made out to be here. The attention deficit places some functional limitations on activities needing focus. The hyperactivity part is rarely crippling for adults. Sounds like this poster might have OCD, anxiety or something else in addition to or instead of ADHD.

My heart goes out to her. Bulimia can be incredibly dangerous, especially as a runner, since all the purging really messes with your electrolytes, which can mess with your heart.

There have been so many runners who have opened up about eating disorders in the past few years - I wonder how many of them are actually doing well. It's a tricky balance (says a person in recovery as well)

You do realize not everyone is impacted the same way by disorder, disease, injury, etc, correct? Just because you have lesser or different symptoms doesn't mean the other poster's experience (or Molly's) isn't accurate. Sometimes I cannot tell if people like you are trolls to stir up arguments or are really that ignorant (and apathetic) to how things work. As others have stated, maybe just be thankful your experience isn't worse and show some compassion for others who do have it worse than you.

They really are that ignorant.

Same holds for you. Nothing in my post implied generalization based on my experience anymore than other poster’s. My post provided a factual explanation of the problem. Maybe you are reading comprehension challenged.

Too much information. Seriously, when Joanie had surgery 10 days prior to OT she didn’t give interviews, full stop! No one needs to know you barf after eating. I know someone is going to cry “but that was before social media!” I’ll give another example, Rupp! He doesn’t use social media and gives few interviews. Instead he spends his time running! Other sport figures don’t spend their days on social media. If you send Tom Brady a message on Instagram do you think he reads it or even gives a *uck? It’s like a gang of HS girls. Haters hate, they hated on Rupp, they hated on Joan and Kastor. You should never show your weakness to the competition.

FIFY

These problems are there regardless of social media. People were still depressed, had eating disorders, social anxiety, etc before IG/TikTok/LRC Message Boards

Her first two marathons were the trials and games and she finished 2nd and 3rd. big change from someone who didn’t have a contact with the main shoe companies at that point.

is there a test that was swept under the rug at the trials/games? We don’t know.

The running has become a big business came through very quickly and most aren’t set up to handle good performances-many of our men and women are in a similar boat.

Maybe being a professional runner for her isn’t the right path. Talent or not if this is the result there are other things to do out there.

Good points on those talking about people using running as a way to swap addictions. Very common among drug addicts to swap that use for running long miles, getting that runners high.

Nice post by Molly, describing her struggles, and using her platform to encourage others with troubles to reach out for help. Interesting that she got her most recent treatment after problems were noticed by USOPC during the worlds build up. reach out if you need help.

oh no! poor little white woman! no one in the world suffers as much as white women! tots and prayers

Except it isn't factual because ADHD, like most diseases lie on a spectrum. In your case, deliberate ignorance could be a symptom of your ADHD, but sounds like it could be your NPD or ASPD or something else you got going on

Triggered much?

Sounds like dementia might be what’s going on with you.