July 13, 2023 • bachelor insider
Gabi Elnicki Opens Up About ADHD Diagnosis and How It Impacts Her: ‘I Feel Overwhelmed’
Getting candid.
Bachelor Nation fans saw Gabi Elnicki look for love on Season 27 of “The Bachelor.”
Since her time on the show, Gabi has been surrounded by family, friends, and her fellow Season 27 cast members.
The Bachelor Nation star recently took to TikTok to open up about her ADHD diagnosis and how it impacts her life.
Alongside the video, Gabi wrote, “Sharing more about my ADHD journey and how the disorder impacts me as an adult. Hopefully this helps bring awareness to the disorder and helps others who also have ADHD or think they might.”
In the clip, Gabi opens up about getting diagnosed later in life and how the disorder was affecting her in college.
She said, “I get a ton of messages asking me about my ADHD and if I can share more about that. I didn’t find out I had ADHD until I was in college. I went to Ole Miss, which is obviously a very big school. It had very large lecture halls. I remember when I was a sophomore in college taking my first anatomy test in the biggest lecture hall I’d ever been in. I literally could not do the test.”
Gabi went on, saying, “I remember other kids getting up and walking through the rows and I could not focus. I left that test, called my mom, and I said, ‘Mom, there is literally something wrong with me.’ So my mom took me to Boston and I got a lot of tests done to see what was wrong. Ultimately, the conclusion was that I had ADHD.”
The Bachelor Nation star shared how her diagnosis has impacted her as an adult.
She said, “In my adult life, I’ve realized it’s very different in females than the normal ADHD things you might think. What people don’t know about is the emotional irregulation and how deeply and intensely you feel emotions. I see a psychiatrist and I also see a therapist. Things I’ve really tried to focus on are a very routine exercise schedule and my sleep schedule. If my sleep schedule is off at all, my mood will be completely different.”
Gabi continued adding, “Very often I feel overwhelmed by things that normal people probably wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by. Like if I have to do something at 12 and it’s 10:30, I think that there’s not enough time to do anything else, so I get into this paralysis mode. A big thing for me has just been figuring out what causes me to have more intense symptoms and I take a moment to be mindful, especially with hypersensitivity. A lot of times I think that maybe someone’s tone was weird towards me, and I get really hyper fixated on why someone said something a certain way and wonder if they are angry with me.”
She said that she will continue sharing each week and hopes that her openness can help others with similar experiences.
Check out Gabi’s full video above.