5 things i've learned living with adhd

1. "Of all the things we said you remember the words DOG YEARS?"

   1. Recently I had two good friends who tried to explain to me about quality over quantity in relationships. They tried three times, and the first two times, they mentioned "dog years" as an analogy and my brain could not un-hear it

   2. It's that I focus too hard, just not the thing I'm supposed to focus. It's like when you're trying to take a photo and you try to focus on the centre of the thingie you're trying to take a photo of, but it's like NOPE let's zoom in on this LEAF INSTEAD

      1. How I have fun with this: LITERALLY, laughing at myself by myself and with people, and not taking this too seriously.

2. "Why the F were you up at 4AM?"

   1. I call this one CAN'T STOP DON'T START

   2. I will AVOID the hardest task as I do my dentist's appointment reminders and then get 1 week of work done in 1 all nighter. I genuinely lose track of time, and then take 3 business days to recover but that's how the hyper-fixation can really work you sometimes

      1. How I have fun with this: I've learned that MOMENTUM ties to MOTIVATION. I follow Chris Wang on Instagram and her content makes me feel so seen. One of the things she talks about is the importance of MOMENTUM and how that can tie to motivation. And momentum is designed through mini task bursts that are easy and fun to do. Kind of like a warm up that makes your main workout more fun. I know I LOVE checking slack messages first because they're little bursts, and it gets my brain warmed up

3. "You know what it really is? You're just forgetful and lazy"

   1. I remember when I first opened up to my mum about my diagnosis (and I say this with love, because I know she comes from a different culture), but she said "you know what it really is, it's that you're just lazy and forgetful. How I see it is that my brain is like a broken internal connection, sometimes the signal is strong, and sometimes shit buffers, like wifi signals sometimes it just disconnects

      1. How I have fun with this: Practicing compassion with myself that my brain is wired differently, and to pave my own path of processing information and most importantly, mustering up some courage to share with friends and my village in the social purpose sphere

4. "You don't remember"?

   1. I struggle SO hard with this one because I take so much pride in my memory. I write shit down in my notepad like I'm some spy you know. I don't forget because I don't care, I forget because my brain is literally the human version of a desperado iphone 12 mini trying to savour every last bit of storage they got left so it's deleting random shit so that we don't run out of storage and sometimes it deletes REALLY important information - appointments on the wrong date, walk in to a room, gone - signal goes POOF

      1. How I have fun with this: LITERALLY take notes as people speak and clarify that NO I am not a spy or maybe I am or maybe I'm not -side eye-

5. "You seem out of it"

   1. One of the things I'm really grateful for is my ability to feel the full spectrum of my emotions. They have a fucking team meeting sometimes and they all got shit to say. I've learned to well one, give them a chair to sit on, and also, speak, and also, show them the door. Sometimes this can lead to overwhelm, because everything is happening and there is just so much stimulation. There is no timer switch as to who speaks, whether it's sadness, joy, anger, ADHD is having an internal volume stuck at MAX they be havin a PAWTYYY

      1. How I have fun with this: Only recently, I've been vocalizing it and while uncomfortable at first, I gave myself the permission token to take a breather or ask someone to hold me if I need to be co-regulated with.

I realize adhd is a superpower when I learn the rhythm of my mind - I work with it not against, journaling, it helps me keep my brain from going into Narnia 

Thank you to Christal Wang for inspiring me to talk about this more and normalizing things! She is the epic CEO and founder of Shimmer, an adhd coaching platform for adults. Check her out here: https://add.org/professional-directory/christal-wang-founder-of-shimmer-adhd-coach-speaker-content-creator/

Thank you for listening to my TED TALK

LilCDawg Signing out