What Assateague’s Wild Ponies Can Teach Us About  Systems (ADHD Version)

Published: September 10, 2025

Labor Day weekend, I took a boat tour around Assateague Island to see the famous wild ponies. And of course, my ADHD brain went straight to: systems.

Stay with me here — because those ponies turned out to be the perfect metaphor for why one-size-fits-all systems never work for ADHD women in midlife.

The Herds and the Boundaries

On Assateague, the ponies aren’t roaming wild with no structure.

• There are fences dividing them into different zones — Maryland, Virginia, the National Park.
  
• Within those zones, ponies live in family groups that stick together.
  
• Each herd has its own rhythm, its own way of surviving in the same environment.
  
  

Here’s the twist most visitors don’t realize: these ponies do get support from humans. Vet checks, population control through a March census and contraception, and the famous annual pony swim. Keeping humans at a distance is part of the system too.

That day, I also noticed one older stallion grazing alone. Strong, but isolated. Our guide explained he may have been pushed out by a younger male. It was a reminder of how much harder it is to make it on your own without support.

What struck me most was this: even in the same ecosystem, each herd finds its own way. There’s no one “right” way to be a wild pony. But they definitely need a herd.

And those fences? They aren’t cages. They’re boundaries that give the herds space to thrive.

What This Means for ADHDers

Now let’s take this from ponies to people.

If you’re a midlife ADHD woman (or frankly any gender), you’ve probably been sold one-size-fits-all systems:

• The “perfect” planner.
  
• The app that’s going to change your life.
  
• The miracle morning routine.
  
  

And when they don’t work? You blame yourself. Lazy. Messy. Behind.

But here’s the truth: