Harnessing your ADHD to become a successful writer and get a lot of fans and love and friends and also how to get big pants too
Turn your diagnosis into a superfood!
I have a lot of other work I should be doing right now. But then I was like “but I could write a post about being a writer with ADHD for my newsletter” and then I was like “oh, I could use that one meme of the car as my post image” and then I googled “ADHD meme” and got a million results, all with a shitload of tiny tiny text. Then I Googled “ADHD meme car” and got a million new ones, but not the one I was thinking of. Googled “ADHD meme car off ramp where one sign with the arrow going forward says ‘thing i should be doing’ and the other sign with the arrow off the highway says ‘thing i want to do’ and then the car is in flames between the signs and it says ‘third option that is somehow neither’ or something like that.” Nothing.
But that was the meme I wanted and oops an hour just went by.
After a while, looking at all the memes, I got really mad at how much comforting we demand for our brains. How much these memes are about being seen and understood and excused for never answering any emails. I’m mad because I hate having to explain myself to myself all the time. I’m mad that some of my favorite writers also have ADHD and they are geniuses and prolific and look really happy on Instagram. Sharing these memes feels like I am asking for forgiveness for being neurodivergent and to please factor that into my annual employee evaluation.
But I promised some secret tips and tricks in my post title. So here goes:
Make ADHD stand for “Attention Debitcard Hellscape Distractor” - try taking the view that you have a lot of GOOD reasons to seek distractions. You and everyone you know are going to die. You’ve really fucked up a lot of stuff the last 42 years. There are very powerful psychopaths in charge of key government offices and business positions. Don’t make me list everything. BUT try not to use the Debitcard too much or you’ll overdraft your life’s bank account and you’ll forget to walk the dog and she’ll shit on all of your stuff.
Schedule sex - or whatever else you want to be doing but that is never at the top of your to-do list. Do you even have a to-do list? I made one once in 2009 and spent so much time adding new stuff to it that the entire day disappeared and I, exhausted, never looked at it again. I bet I never did half of those things. My to-do list is now “whatever fire is currently burning directly on top of me” which means that smaller fires, like chores or things that actually give me joy, get pushed aside.
e.g. I started my poetry workshop early in the pandemic because I was STARVING for adult attention and the ability to talk about art and write poems (the tiny fire got too big to ignore). Three years later I’m still doing it every other week and I’m writing and reading more poetry than ever before. That one commitment that I have to prepare for, that other people hold me accountable to in the gentlest possible way, has totally reshaped my adult life.
Similarly, I am seriously considering starting a bi-weekly reading group where we get together on Zoom and just sit there with our mics off and read quietly for two hours. It sounds awesome to me if I can just get the debit funds together. I think it’s called “dynamo genesis” but I refuse to look that up so I can move on from this sentence.
Take your meds - I’m just reminding myself. I don’t actually know if they work but I know I feel worse when I forget to take them. Is that how it’s supposed to go?
Avoid easy fix language like you might find in an internet-based ‘listicle’ - god I hate that word. I think people who say they have easy-peasy advice for you are, at best, just excited to share things they have devised that work for them or, at worst, trying to make more CONTENT. Lists like the very one you are reading are extremely sus. I remember one time in the long-long-ago I was at an Un-Conference and there was a session on ADHD and productivity and I went to it excited to learn how to finally manage my executive functioning garbage. What it ended up being was a giant circle of people with ADHD sharing their meandering paths of management techniques (about a hundred app names) that applied literally to their specific life situation alone and each one was totally different from the last and everyone was being very affirming and nice and I HAD A PANIC ATTACK. I may have broken a fidget spinner trying to cling to the diverging threads of conversation.
One time I wrote a poem when I was on my way to a funeral and I pulled over to type it out on my phone. One time I wrote a poem while holding my sleeping baby. One time I wrote a poem on a banana peel. A hundred times I have started writing poems that never went anywhere. I don’t think I wrote a single poem in 2015.
Write and Read. I think that’s the main thing. And it’s boring and simplistic. Read more and write more. If you can. No presh. But also maybe challenge yourself so neither is TOO easy. For us of the spicy brain, making sure that writing and reading is important enough to make time for is the hardest part. Maybe that’s why I like that meme so much - because writing and reading are both what I should be doing AND what I want to do. But I have to make it burn brighter somehow in order for it to get my good energy.
I guess what it comes down to is being nice to yourself - something I am not sure how to do. But what I DO know how to do is not be MEAN to myself. So yeah, don’t make excuses for when you don’t fulfill yours or others’ expectations, but don’t call yourself a piece of shit either. Just keep tweaking your own formula and maybe sometimes you will be briefly happy! Maybe even joyful! No promises tho.
Good luck!