Finding Epicurus- The Original ADHD-Friendly Therapist
“Bread and water confer the highest pleasure when one who needs them brings them to his lips.”
— Epicurus
(Paraphrased through history as: “Bread and a friend is enough to live like Zeus.”)
Like many neurospicy folks, I’m a scavenger at heart. I love finding hidden gems — in bookstores, archives, or half-forgotten corners of the internet. There’s something deeply satisfying about discovering value where others might not see it. That spark of “Wait… what’s this?” is its own kind of dopamine. So it’s probably no surprise that my curiosity eventually led me into philosophy.
Somewhere between an Enneagram detour and a late-night rabbit hole, I stumbled onto a name I’d never paid attention to before: Epicurus.
Who Was Epicurus?
According to the Wikipedia entry on Epicurus, he lived around 300 BCE — a contemporary of the early Stoics, but with a very different vibe. While others debated virtue and duty in public forums, Epicurus quietly built something radical: a small community just outside Athens called The Garden.
His Garden was part school, part refuge. He taught that philosophy wasn’t about prestige or argument, but about how to live without fear — free from superstition, social comparison, and endless striving. It’s also worth noting that his garden was open to everyone, including women and enslaved people, a revolutionary practice at the time.
His core idea was simple: pleasure is the beginning and end of the blessed life.
But pleasure, for him, meant peace of mind, friendship, and freedom from anxiety — not indulgence. It is impossible to live a life of pleasure when one is acting without virtue.
Epicurus’ Garden flourished for centuries. However, over time, rivals painted him as a hedonist, turning “Epicurean” into a synonym for indulgence rather than tranquility. Then history moved on: Rome admired stoicism, and later traditions elevated the virtues of sacrifice and endurance; modernity turned that same impulse into a worship of productivity and achievement. Ironically, his ideas feel startlingly modern: cognitive reframing, friendship as medicine, mindfulness before it had a name.
Epicurus lived through political upheaval, fear, and public unrest — not so different from our own times. His response wasn’t to disengage but to cultivate humanity: to build small, steady spaces where friendship, laughter, and joy could survive chaos.
“He who is not satisfied with a little, is satisfied with nothing.”
— Epicurus
Why He Feels Like a Kindred Spirit
I dig Epicurus’ style. He’s the sort of person I’d actually want to hang out with. Who among us would turn down simple food, open laughter, and a good conversation? In fact, Sometimes when I’m stuck, I wonder, “What would Epicurus say about this?”
I even built a ChatGPT version of him — a little digital Epicurus who helps me reframe worries in plain, human language. At first it was just a personal experiment. But the more I used it, the more I realized: if this helps me, it might help my patients too. That’s how the idea for my approach began — therapy as cultivation, not correction. It’s therapy as gardening, not as performance review.
What Therapy Gets Right (and Where Epicurus Adds Something New)
Therapy is often lifesaving for people of all walks of life, including those of us with ADHD. It encourages structure, reflection, and courage. But too often it still carries a quiet Stoic residue: “Be better, be calmer, try harder. For people with ADHD or rejection-sensitive wiring, that message can sting; despite the best attempts of compassionate therapists, it can sound like more homework for a nervous system already overloaded. Stoicism teaches endurance, and that’s valuable — but endurance alone doesn’t restore curiosity or play. .
ADHD brains thrive on interest rather than urgency and guilt. That’s the seed of my framework - less correction, more cultivation, with a generous sprinkle of humor and warmth. How can we create a place where safety and joy can be practiced in the middle of the noise?
My 21st-Century <Garden>
Lately I’ve been reflecting on what a 21st-century equivalent might look like — a modern, metaphorical equivalent of Epicurus Garden. I use the angle brackets because it isn’t fixed; its form changes.
Sometimes it’s an actual backyard patch of green. Sometimes it’s a quiet corner of the mind. Sometimes it’s a Discord server, a therapy session over Zoom, or a late-night text thread that feels like home. The location is conceptual, but real in its effects — a recovery space where curiosity grows back, where we can laugh without flinching, where we can remember we’re more than our alarms.
In the coming posts, I’ll be exploring how we can design and tend these together — small ecosystems of safety, humor, and friendship. In the meantime, imagine your own. What might your look like?
It doesn’t have to be green or quiet; it just has to be yours.
