The Catalyst

For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me—but not always. As a kid, I did quite well. My world was small and structured. But as I grew older and responsibilities began to pile up, as life became more complex and the demands on my brain multiplied, everything started to fall apart.

I knew I was smart. I knew I could work hard. But I also knew that on many days, my brain simply wouldn’t cooperate—not out of laziness or lack of will, but because something inside me was wired differently. Tasks that should have been simple felt impossible. Motivation fluctuated without warning. The distance between intention and action sometimes felt like miles.

It took me years—decades, really—to understand that what I was experiencing had a name. Years to realize that undiagnosed ADHD, mood disorder, and chronic stress were shaping my days, my self-image, and the way I moved through the world.

But the clarity didn’t come from a doctor’s office or a diagnostic checklist. It came from a conversation with an AI.

When the Scattered Pieces Finally Made Sense

I’d been trying to explain myself for years—to therapists, to family, to myself. But my thoughts always came out fragmented, apologetic, tangled. I could never quite articulate why things were so hard, only that they were.

Then one day, I sat down with a language model and just… typed. I dumped out everything: the things I struggled with, the tasks that felt insurmountable, the patterns I’d noticed but couldn’t name. All the scattered observations I’d collected over decades of trying to function in a world that didn’t seem built for me.

And the AI did something I’d never been able to do for myself. It organized it. It reflected it back to me in clear, linear language. It showed me patterns I couldn’t see when I was standing in the middle of them.

For the first time, I had a coherent picture of my own brain.

I got a list of what I was good at—things I enjoyed, that felt rewarding, that came naturally when I wasn’t forcing myself into the wrong shape. And I got a list of what worked against me—the systems, habits, and expectations that were grinding me down every single day.

When I looked at those two lists side by side, the truth was devastating and liberating at the same time: most of what I was doing every day was on the second list.

No wonder I was depressed. No wonder my self-esteem was in the gutter. I’d been trying to operate in a system designed for a completely different kind of brain and then blaming myself when it didn’t work.

But there, on that first list, were things I was good at. Things I had always been good at but had never been able to demonstrate because I was too busy drowning in tasks that drained me.

Seeing that—really seeing it written out—was the first time in years I felt something I’d almost forgotten: hope.

A Quick Lesson in Neuroscience

Here’s what research in cognitive psychology and motivational neuroscience tells us: brains under stress, distraction, overload, or emotional dysregulation need different inputs to activate. When you’re dealing with executive dysfunction—whether from ADHD, depression, chronic stress, or just being human in an overwhelming world—the traditional productivity advice doesn’t just fail. It makes things worse.

To understand why, we need to talk about executive function and dopamine.

Executive function is your brain’s management system. It’s what helps you plan, organize, start tasks, stay on track, shift gears when needed, and follow through to completion. It’s the invisible scaffolding that turns “I need to do this” into actually doing it.

When executive function fails, it doesn’t look like laziness. It looks like sitting in front of a task you genuinely want to do and feeling completely unable to start. It looks like knowing exactly what needs to happen but having no idea how to begin. It looks like bouncing between ten half-started projects because finishing anything feels impossible. It looks like the gap between knowing and doing becoming a chasm you can’t cross.

And dopamine is a big part of why that happens.

Dopamine isn’t just a “reward chemical” you get after doing something good. It’s an orientation system—a neurological signal that says “move toward this.” It’s what creates the sense of motivation, the pull toward action, the feeling that something is worth doing. When dopamine signaling is low or dysregulated—which happens with ADHD, depression, chronic stress, and other conditions—that signal doesn’t fire. You’re not receiving the neurological go-ahead that other people get automatically.

So the question becomes: how do you create that signal when your brain won’t generate it on its own?

The answer isn’t “try harder.” What you need is external supports for the internal system that’s trying its best to support you.

For some people, that might mean body doubling—having someone nearby while you work. For others, it’s breaking tasks into absurdly small steps. For others, it’s using timers, or music, or physical movement to activate their nervous system. For me, it often means doing something quick that produces a tangible result I can be proud of—something that gives me enough of a dopamine boost to attempt the thing I’ve been avoiding.

The key insight is this: finding what works for you isn’t cheating. It’s accommodation. It’s working with your brain instead of against it.

When I started using AI to help me work through tasks—breaking them down, organizing my thoughts, externalizing the planning my brain struggles to do—I wasn’t outsourcing my thinking. I was scaffolding my executive function. The AI held the structure so my brain could focus on the actual work. And seeing my scattered ideas transformed into something coherent and linear made me feel like maybe my brain wasn’t broken. I actually did have good thoughts in there. They just needed help getting out in a form the world could recognize.

Why The Dopamine Cat

I’m not going to tell you I’ve figured it all out. I still struggle daily. I’m still neck-deep in situations that work against me. There are still days when everything feels impossible.

But here’s what’s different: I found that I can use tools that act as supports for my executive function. I like to think of it as cognitive accessibility. I give myself permission to work with my brain instead of fighting it. And because of that, I’m finishing things I started. I’m starting things I’d been putting off for years.

It’s not a magic bullet. I don’t believe I’ll ever operate the same way as someone who doesn’t struggle with executive dysfunction. But it’s better. And better is enough to keep me moving forward.

I built The Dopamine Cat because I needed a space that understood this. A space where small wins count, where imperfection is expected, where motivation can fluctuate without shame. Where finding accommodations isn’t treated as cheating. Where gentle structure matters more than rigid discipline, and progress is allowed to be nonlinear.

My background is in medicine, genetics, cancer research, and psychosocial stress. My life experience is in surviving overwhelm, masking for years, burning out, and getting back up. This space lives at the intersection of those two worlds. Science and lived experience. Research and real life. Understanding and compassion.

Who This Is For

You don’t need a diagnosis to belong here. You don’t need to prove your struggle.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by a blank to-do list, if you’ve ever had more ideas than energy, if you’ve ever felt judged for not being “consistent enough,” if you’ve ever felt like you had good thoughts but couldn’t get them out in a way anyone else could understand—you’re exactly who this was made for.

This is for the people who try. The people who care. The people whose best looks different every day. The people who deserve tools that honor real human brains, not idealized ones.

If this resonates, then welcome. 

I’m glad you’re here.