Why Even the Most Successful People Struggle With Mental Health and How to Find Your Light Again
Written by Lara Dawn, CEO & Founder of The ADHD Village
Lara Dawn, founder of The ADHD Village and ADHD Warrior Mamas, is a 25-year teacher on a mission to transform children's mental health by empowering mothers. She believes parenting is spiritual work, ADHD is a design, not a deficit, and neurodivergent strengths are essential to our AI-driven future.
Your lights can be off while the rest of the world thinks you're shining. Behind successful careers, beautiful families and extraordinary accomplishments are human beings quietly navigating anxiety, burnout, trauma and emotional struggles. What if mental health isn't about avoiding darkness, but learning how to find our light again?
Are you a warrior in a garden or a gardener in a war?
There's a saying I love: "It's better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war." To me, this is a powerful metaphor for mental health.
A Warrior doesn't spend every moment fighting. She develops the strength, wisdom and tools to navigate life's challenges, but she also understands the importance of tending her garden. Her physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.
Yet so many of us are living as though we're constantly at war. We're juggling careers, families, relationships, expectations and responsibilities, often neglecting the very things that allow us to thrive. We become so focused on surviving that we forget what it feels like to truly live.
This realization inspired me to create Turn Your Lights On: A Warrior Mama Experience, a free virtual mental health experience taking place November 9-13, 2026.
I'm bringing together extraordinary Warriors who have experienced their own darkness and discovered powerful tools for navigating life's challenges. But this isn't simply an opportunity to hear inspiring stories. Each Warrior is sharing a personal "weapon" for mental health and guiding participants through an experience so they can try the tool for themselves.
Because knowing what to do and knowing how to access those tools when life becomes overwhelming are two very different things.
I know that from personal experience.
When the world thinks you have it all together
For much of my adult life, I believed life was simply harder for me than it was for everyone else.
I was a successful elementary school teacher and special education specialist. I was compassionate, patient, highly capable and deeply committed to the children in my classroom. I was also a wife and mother raising two little boys.
From the outside, I appeared to have everything together. Behind the scenes, however, I was exhausted.
I would wake up feeling as though I hadn't slept, push myself through another demanding day and return home with very little patience or energy left for the people I loved most.
I could manage a classroom full of children with diverse learning needs, yet I couldn't understand why managing life at home with my own boys felt so much harder.
I often imagined myself riding a unicycle across a tightrope while juggling dozens of balls. My career, my children, my marriage, my responsibilities and my own wellbeing were all competing for the same limited energy.
Eventually, everything came crashing down. I experienced burnout so severe that I could no longer continue working. I'd spent years taking care of everyone else while completely neglecting myself.
Perhaps the saddest part was that I'd convinced myself this was simply what my life was supposed to feel like.
The first light was understanding myself
At 40, I received an ADHD diagnosis. Suddenly, pieces of a puzzle I'd been trying to solve for decades began falling into place.
I learned more about the connection between ADHD and emotional regulation and began understanding why certain emotions felt so intense and difficult to manage.
A 2020 meta-analysis published in BMC Psychiatry found significantly greater difficulties with emotional regulation among adults with ADHD compared with adults without ADHD.
For years, I'd interpreted my emotional struggles as personal failures, despite being highly capable in so many other areas of my life. My diagnosis gave me a new perspective.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental difference. I couldn't simply will my brain to function differently, but I could learn strategies to support it. I could seek appropriate treatment, understand my nervous system and begin treating myself with the compassion I so freely offered everyone else.
For the first time, I stopped asking, "What's wrong with me?" Instead, I began asking, "What do I need?" That was my first light: understanding myself.
Why self-care is one of the least selfish things we can do
Before my burnout, I believed self-care was something I earned after everything else was finished.
When the lesson plans were complete, the children were cared for, the house was running smoothly and everyone else's needs had been met, perhaps then I could go for a walk, exercise or do something that brought me joy. Of course, that moment rarely arrived.
Eventually, I began recognizing patterns. When I slept well, drank enough water, moved my body, spent time outdoors and nourished myself properly, my emotional regulation and overall wellbeing improved.
I also began recognizing how hormonal changes influenced my ADHD symptoms and emotional wellbeing.
I'd spent years treating these essential practices as luxuries. Now I understand that self-care isn't selfish. In fact, it's one of the least selfish things we can do.
When we nurture ourselves, we have greater capacity to show up for the people we love. This matters enormously when we're raising children who are struggling with their own mental health.
Why we need a different conversation about family mental health
After 25 years as a teacher, including a decade in special education, and years supporting families raising children with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities and mental health challenges, I've become increasingly concerned about the emotional wellbeing of both children and their parents.
According to the World Health Organization, approximately one in seven adolescents worldwide experiences a mental health disorder. The adults raising them are struggling, too.
In 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory on parental mental health, reporting that 48% of parents surveyed experienced overwhelming stress on most days, compared with 26% of other adults.
For parents raising children with invisible disabilities, there's often another layer of responsibility.
The advocacy. The appointments. The school meetings. The interrupted sleep. The emotional support. The constant effort to anticipate challenges and help a child navigate a world that may not understand their needs.
Because ADHD and certain other neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions can run in families, parents may also be navigating similar challenges themselves.
Yet we continue asking these already overwhelmed parents to remain endlessly patient, calm and emotionally available.
I remember speaking with a father who told me his family hadn't had a good day in eight years.
Eight years. I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. His lights had gone out, and I understood because I'd experienced that darkness myself.
We cannot have meaningful conversations about children's mental health without including the wellbeing of the adults raising them.
What extraordinary Warriors can teach us about mental health
Over the years, I've had the privilege of meeting extraordinary people from many different backgrounds. Doctors, entrepreneurs, speakers, therapists, healers, coaches and leaders who have accomplished remarkable things in their professional and personal lives.
From the outside, many appear to have everything figured out. But their accomplishments tell only part of their stories.
I've met people who were silenced as children and now use their voices to inspire thousands. People who grew up feeling unwanted and have dedicated their lives to helping others feel seen. People who survived abuse, illness, rejection and profound personal challenges, then transformed those experiences into meaningful work.
They have alchemized pain into purpose. What connects these extraordinary individuals isn't that they've lived perfect lives.
It's that they've discovered ways to navigate their struggles, nurture their wellbeing and use their experiences to help others. That's what makes them Warriors.
But here's what I find most fascinating: Behind their accomplishments are practices and strategies that most of us never see.
The things they do when they're overwhelmed. The tools they use to regulate their emotions. The rituals that help them reconnect with themselves when life becomes difficult.
Those are the weapons I want to bring into the light. That's why Turn Your Lights On is experiential.
Each Warrior shares their story, introduces a personal mental health weapon and guides participants through an opportunity to experience it.
Not simply to understand the idea intellectually, but to begin discovering what it feels like in their own bodies and lives.
Because inspiration can open the door, but practice is what helps us create meaningful change.
Why sharing our stories helps us move beyond shame
We live in a world filled with messages reminding us that mental health matters. Yet shame remains.
People still hesitate to talk about emotional dysregulation, depression, relationship difficulties, parenting struggles and trauma, particularly when the outside world sees them as successful.
I know that shame intimately. But something extraordinary happened when I started sharing my own stories more vulnerably. Other people began sharing theirs.
Women told me they experienced the same overwhelming emotions. Parents admitted they sometimes lost patience with their children. Successful professionals revealed that they, too, were struggling behind closed doors.
The more we shared, the more we recognized that our experiences weren't evidence of personal failure. They were part of being human.
A 2023 meta-analysis of 56 randomized controlled trials found that self-compassion interventions can help reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, although researchers noted limitations in the available evidence.
For me, self-compassion began with understanding that my struggles weren't character flaws. They were experiences deserving of curiosity, care and support.
Sometimes, hearing another person's story is the beginning of giving ourselves permission to seek help.
Turning your lights on isn't about eliminating darkness
I've witnessed extraordinary transformations inside my ADHD Warrior Mamas community.
Women arrive feeling completely burnt out, overwhelmed and disconnected from themselves. Many are struggling to support children with significant emotional or mental health needs while neglecting their own wellbeing. Their lights are off.
Through understanding their nervous systems, processing emotions, practising self-compassion and developing practical strategies, they begin reconnecting with themselves.
They learn that they can experience difficult emotions without being defined by them. They discover how to pause, regulate, ask for support and make choices that align with their values. They begin experiencing joy again.
Not because their children's challenges magically disappear or life becomes perfect, but because they've developed a greater capacity to navigate life's difficulties.
Some have even gone on to become coaches themselves, sharing practices that once felt impossible to them.
Watching these transformations has reinforced something I believe deeply: You do not have to accept the way you feel today as the way you will always feel.
Change is possible. Support is available. Learning to care for yourself can transform the way you experience your life.
It's time to turn your lights on
Remember the Warrior in the garden?
A Warrior doesn't spend every moment fighting. She knows when to stand strong, when to ask for support and when to put down her sword and tend to what matters most.
That's what I want for every person who joins us for Turn Your Lights On: A Warrior Mama Experience, November 9-13, 2026.
Not simply five days of inspiration, but five days of experiencing practical tools that can support your mental health long after the event ends.
You'll hear authentic stories from extraordinary Warriors, discover the personal weapons they use to navigate life's challenges and have the opportunity to practise those tools for yourself.
Because you have a Warrior within you. No matter how long your lights have been dimmed, you deserve the opportunity to shine again.
Read more from Lara Dawn
Lara Dawn, CEO & Founder of The ADHD Village
Lara Dawn is the founder of The ADHD Village and visionary behind ADHD Warrior Mamas, a global movement transforming children's mental health by empowering mothers. A teacher for 25 years with a degree in Psychology and expertise in Special Education, emotional intelligence, women's positive psychology, somatic healing, and neuro transformation, she bridges science and spirituality. Diagnosed with ADHD at 40, Lara challenges conventional parenting beliefs with a bold philosophy: Parenting is spiritual work, and ADHD is a design, not a deficit. She champions neurodivergent creativity and innovation as essential strengths in our AI-driven future. Her mission is to awaken mothers' inner wisdom and redefine parenting for generations to come.
