'I Always Just Thought I Was Stupid': Rachel Leviss Talks About Having Undiagnosed ADHD

Rachel Leviss opened up about growing up with undiagnosed ADHD, sharing that getting diagnosed was “life-changing for me.”

“Growing up school was very difficult for me,” Levis, 29, shared on her podcast, Rachel Goes Rogue. ”I did not realize that my brain was structured in a different way.“

“I always just thought I was stupid because I couldn't pass my multiplication tables test, and I couldn't read as well as the other kids in class,” the Vanderpump Rules alum said. “I just thought I wasn't intelligent.”

Leviss shared that she wasn’t diagnosed with the condition until college. Leviss has inattentive ADHD, which the Cleveland Clinic explains is the type of ADHD where “you have difficulty concentrating, focusing on a task and staying organized.”

“I realized that I had been living with an invisible disability my whole life,” she said. “Once I was diagnosed, I was able to take control of my life a little bit more and to get the accommodations that I needed for me to succeed in school. That truly was life-changing for me.”

Levis and her guest, autism and ADHD advocate Paige Layle, spoke about “masking” — the term for behaviors that someone who is neurotypical will adopt. 

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's -

Rising London Photographer Pip Talks Mov,...

free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“When you mask, you're unable to be authentically yourself,” Leviss said

“You just process things a different way, and you've worked your whole life taking in data from other people and figuring out what the social norms are and, you know, shifting things inside of yourself to present a certain way so that you could survive socially,” Layle, author of But Everyone Feels This Way: How an Autism Diagnosis Saved My Life, explained about masking.

“When you do that, it does keep you safe, but it also takes away your authenticity," she said. "You become lost and, like, you're presenting yourself in the way that you think other people need to perceive you as.”

“Yes, 100%,” Leviss said. “And, like, to be safe, I needed to not be myself, whoever that person was. I'll just be what it looks like everyone wants me to be. Then how could I not be safe?”

“But then I had so many connections that weren't real at all,” she continued. “Because I wasn't real.”  

Related Articles

Follow Us

Carlos Marqués-Marcet Orchestrates a Del,...