ADHD and Learning to Work With My Mind Instead of Against It
Written By: Jon Bregel - Founder, Filmmaker & Coach, Nourish
I was diagnosed with ADHD in 9th grade. Like a lot of people, I struggled to focus in school unless the subject genuinely interested me. I could sit in photography class for hours and be completely engaged, but most traditional classes felt impossible to stay present in.
I briefly tried stimulant medication as a teenager and stopped after a few days because I felt unlike myself. Productivity wasn’t attached to my identity at that point in my life, so becoming more efficient didn’t feel worth sacrificing the parts of myself I cared most about: creativity, curiosity, fun, and connection.
Years later, around 23 years old, my relationship with ADHD changed.
I was building a filmmaking career and surrounded by incredibly driven, focused, hardworking collaborators. I wanted to keep up. I wanted to succeed. I wanted to prove to myself that I could operate at a high level.
So I went back on medication.
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For several years, it worked really well in many ways. I became extremely productive and could sustain long periods of intense work and focus. Externally, things looked successful. Internally, I slowly began feeling exhausted in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.
Eventually, after years of struggling mentally, I pursued additional ADHD evaluations. Both doctors confirmed the diagnosis. Oddly enough, receiving confirmation again became a turning point. For the first time, I stopped seeing ADHD as something to push through and started taking my mental health seriously.
What followed was difficult.
I stopped taking medication abruptly, largely because I felt desperate to reconnect with myself. I wouldn’t recommend this to others, but it was part of my experience.
The years after that were some of the hardest I’ve experienced. I became depressed. Work that once felt manageable became overwhelming. Writing treatments and creative briefs felt nearly impossible at times. Endless decisions, agency calls, and the pace required for commercial directing became harder to tolerate.
Beneath all of it was a deeper identity question I wasn’t expecting:
Who am I without constant productivity?
For years, achievement had become intertwined with self-worth. I didn’t realize how much of my confidence and identity was connected to output until that output disappeared.
Untangling that took years.
During that period, I slowly stepped away from parts of the commercial industry while moving toward coaching filmmakers, building community, and taking on freelance projects more selectively. Financially, there were difficult seasons. From the outside, my productivity likely looked much lower than before.
Internally, something unexpected was happening.
I felt more alive, more connected to faith, more present in relationships, and more interested in building a sustainable life instead of constantly optimizing myself.
It has now been many years since I stopped taking ADHD medication.
I’m not sharing this because I believe my path should be anyone else’s path. Medication helps many people tremendously. ADHD is deeply personal and there isn’t one right answer.
What I’ve learned about myself is this:
My brain needs structure more than I once wanted to admit.
For years, I resisted routines because I thought they would make me less creative. I saw discipline, calendars, and consistency as the opposite of a creative life. Ironically, routines became one of the things that helped me feel most free. Sleep, exercise, morning practices, writing, task lists, faith, boundaries, and healthy relationships slowly became less about discipline and more about support. Without them, my mind tends to get louder, anxiety grows, and overwhelm follows more easily.
I used to think routines restricted creativity. Increasingly, I’ve found the opposite to be true.
The right structure helps me become more present, more grounded, and ultimately more capable of creating meaningful work.
Living with ADHD still isn’t easy. Focus remains imperfect. Presence is still a daily practice. But over time, I’ve become less interested in maximizing productivity and more interested in building a life that feels sustainable and aligned with my values.
That shift has changed far more than productivity ever did.
— Jon
