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Category Archives: ADHD

Recently been diagnosed with it. Explains a LOT in my life.

Organization! Or, how I learn to cobble myself a system.

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I have alway been terrible at organizing. I used to think it was a deep character flaw, some horrible persistent weakness of will and manifestation of laziness until my ADHD diagnosis. Now I know it’s neurological. That does not stop me from wanting to be organized, though. So here’s the thing: what strategies and tools are out there for folks like me who go into brain static lock at the idea of putting things all in a row? Truth be told, there’s not much, at least not that I’ve found. A lot of suggestions involve post-its or catastrophic decluttering or getting an org-buddy or fancy containers. If you’re like me, though, none of this works — it’s just inert stuff or unrealistic divestiture of goods or more clutter. But there are some things that have drawn my attention; their concepts are appealing, or there’s a subsonic hum of logic that … Read on! →

Preparation

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I was thinking, yesterday, of preparation. It’s not something I have a really good grasp of outside of very formal or important situations, mainly because I seem to think that people, on the whole, don’t have to do much preparation to get smaller things done in their lives. Like get dressed in the morning. I know I stress less if I don’t have to make choices when my mind’s not up to speed, which is the majority of a morning. I can if the scope is limited (find error in text, fix error in text) but not if the scope is open (I literally have twelve different top combinations I can put on for work this morning OH GOD NO). I’ve done that sort of thing before — prepping wardrobe at an hour where my brain’s warmed up and okay with picking things out — though I often fall out … Read on! →

Half an hour goes by really fast

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I have never had a good grasp of the passage of time. I used to think that it was just a thing, you know, no one ever really does have a good grasp of the passage of time, but revelations about my neurology show that it’s actually more acute for me than I thought. Or imagined. The Sock Puppet is awake this morning. Didn’t take long to spool up. I am not a morning person. I appreciate mornings in a mechanical sense; I can, with effort, shake my mind to some relative plateau of awareness, and I like the quiet and the dim gray light. But morning s are not a natural state for me. Part of it, I suppose, is the wheeling and churning of my head which I thought everyone dealt with — I thought it was just a natural part of being human. Again, this particular wheel-spinning … Read on! →

Chunky salsa, or the agony of planning

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Planning, or scheduling — the two sort of blur into one another in my mind — they’re both some of the most difficult things for me to do. There’s a physiological reason for this, but before I knew about that, I made enemies with these concepts in other ways. As a kid, I resented these external demands on my time. I know I’m certainly not alone, but this sense that outside forces were always obligating me to do things at certain times for certain durations became a real sticking point, and that perceived childhood injustice has carried through over the years; childhood injustices often do. Because of this resentment — people imposing their rules on my  time — I never learned how to build my own plans, or how to schedule my own time. Again, there are physiological issues making the process even harder, but because I refused to learn the procedures … Read on! →

Three steps forward, two steps back

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I know I talked about this around two months ago, so some of you may know that a little less than a year ago I got a diagnosis that I never would have expected, but in hindsight explains a whole lot of my life. It explains procrastination issues, it explains a decent chunk of my impostor syndrome, it explains part of my short temper and it neatly explains my utter inability to keep anything tidy or in order. I have ADHD. I rate a little higher in hyperactivity than most women, but I mainly lie in the inattentive circle of the Venn diagram. I’m telling you this (again?) for two reasons: one, I’m working through all of this, and it’s not easy, and I think well when I write (though I reserve the right to change my mind on conclusions in light of new thinking or information). I thought I’d … Read on! →

Time, Again

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Time is a wicked thing. We get caught up in it, we view it as an enemy almost exclusively, we try to exert control over it knowing that we can’t, that it’s something beyond our control, fleeing and fleeting and obstinate. Time is a big deal for me. I mean, yes, it’s a big deal for a lot of people in various ways, but I wonder if it rules my life more than it seems to affect others. The answer is, probably not. Maybe you can tell me if I’m right or wrong. In the past I’ve talked about not managing time well, but I think it’s not a management issue, as in my ability to be organized. I’ve talked about that, too, and how abysmal my orderliness is, but I’ve been around enough to know some strategies that make things easier and help me keep on track. But time … Read on! →