What this blog is

 

This blog is a place for me to share my experiences as someone diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s, and ask some questions. I really feel that all the bloggers and writers and tweeters and youtubers and content creators in the ADHD community have helped me more than anything else in this process of figuring things out about myself. I also know there are some things I’ve shared over the past couple of years that people have found to be helpful. And since I been helped so much by the advice and tips I’ve found online, I thought it was time to share mine.

Why the ADHD-body?

As I get used to myself with the diagnosis and the medication, so many things have fallen into place. I've found new perspectives and coping mechanisms for my work, my relationships, my motherhood and so may other quirks of my brain. But many of the ways my ADHD manifests show up in my physical body, my physicality, my relationship with my body. Some of this is funny, some is problematic and some is downright painful. And these things have been the hardest to unlearn, or even discover in the first place. Like holding my pee until my bladder cramps because of hyperfocusing, ignoring physical cues, forgetting to breathe when doing sudokus or just tensing what feels like all of my muscles all of the time. 

Along with being the hardest things to shake, I've also been struggling to find literature and strategies in the places I've found help for everything else. This doesn't necessarily mean they aren't out there, so I'm really grateful if you know of a good place to start looking. I have found a few tricks and strategies of my own by trial and error I want share with you, that I hope you can find helpful. But I'm also hoping I can put words to things that are hard to describe, and maybe prompt others to join the conversation, or give ADHD-coaches a new topic to research.

Be warned

As this is all from a personal, subjective perspective with little objective expertise inserted, there’s a decent chance some of it will be wrong¹, and much if it will be self-serving drivel². I also have an immense amount of privilege in many ways, with access to specialists and affordable medication in a country with socialized healthcare and good sick leave policies. I have a family that has never struggled financially, a solid safety-net and a supportive work-place. Also, just because something works for one person it absolutely might not work for you. All I’m saying is that if you ever feel a white-hot rage reading something on this blog because it sounds like someone telling you your problems are your fault for not trying hard enough: I get it. I don’t blame you. That rage is that bit of you that knows you’re giving it everything you’ve got shouting at the world.

If anything I write ever makes you feel bad about yourself I sincerely hope you go read something else, someone else. I know I said most of my drivel would be in the footnotes, and that this right here is me overexplaining myself in classic ADHD fashion(1), but: it’s really important to me before I do this to say that whoever you are, you’re amazing. And that I know you’re doing your best, whatever your best may look like today.   

What this blog isn't:

This blog is not meant to be focused on the biggest or most serious issues facing people with ADHD. It is not meant to be the whole story of ADHD and how it affects someone. It’s not even the whole story of how ADHD affects me in particular.

It won’t contain many certainties, platitudes⁶ or all-encompassing solutions. I don’t have many of those for myself, and I’m not qualified to dole them out for other people 

It also isn't:

-Medical advice

-As clever as I think it is

-Particularly succinct

-Done by someone with any aesthetic expertise

 Sources:

(1) https://www.mic.com/p/why-you-keep-overexplaining-yourself-how-to-stop-58542437

Footnotes:

1) for a given value of “wrong” that does not necessarily imply I have admitted that “right” exists as a theoretical or functional value

2)I will, as much as is possible, try to limit the most drivelly bits of drivel to the footnotes³, which you can always skip if you’re not particularly impressed by my particular brand of nonsense⁴

3) Yes I read too much⁵ Terry Pratchett: I make no apology for this.

4)Yes my meds have worn off for the day, why do you ask?

5) This would be a perfect example of something “wrong”, too much Terry Pratchett does not exist

6) But I will mean them when I say them, and I have a linguistics degree so I can say them in many languages