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We now return to "Return to Art" - interrupted by ADHD...
a year ago
In my last journal entry, I mentioned some new health issues I've been dealing with lately, which don't matter right now, as well as the difficulties I've had with sticking to art goals and finishing pieces. So, after looking into the motivation and focus problems I mentioned and somehow managing to have them promptly investigated, I was actually diagnosed with ADHD like a week ago. So now I'm waiting to start medication for it, and just having that pending me makes me feel kinda paralysed, like I can't fully focus on anything else because it's this huge distraction.
"Oh, but Shadow, everybody and their mother has ADHD these days!" Well, not really. It's estimated around 5-10% of kids and 3-5% of adults have it, so we're talking 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 at worst, respectively. The odds of running into someone with an actual ADHD diagnosis aren't that far-fetched but still, over 90% of the population doesn't have it. Heck, based on the statistics, there are probably around 25-50* or so of my watchers who have it too, maybe more since there seems to be more neurodiversity in the furry community. As a bit of extra context, ADHD is a neurological thing where the brain actually develops and functions differently compared to neurotypical people. So it's not something to be taken lightly, which is why the medications used to treat it can have very different (and very BAD) effects on people without an ADHD diagnosis. "Don't do meth, kids!" Or, do, if your brain literally needs it.
The diagnosis has really helped me understand why I struggle so much with following through on goals and projects, even things I genuinely want to do and why I have related so well to the difficulties my friends with ADHD face. The diagnosis has given me some release about the level of mental care and attention I place on certain things, I feel less bad about not doing things I want or even need to do. I still want to do them. I had no idea how much of an impact executive dysfunction and other ADHD symptoms were having. I've just kinda adapted to managing the symptoms my whole life without knowing that's what I was doing and it explains so much about my childhood difficulties and issues at school. All the coping techniques I've developed for staying on point, avoiding both internal and external distractions, and so on? All really common ADHD strategies that I discovered, on my own, over the years. Even more recently I have been using tools like LLMs to help me get started with tasks and to help myself get organised about things I want (or need) to do, including this entry.
It explains why, despite feeling less depressed and anxious lately, I still find it so hard to actually enjoy hobbies and interests, including art. In my head there's about a million things I want to be doing or working on. Art is just one of the things I really do want to focus on - I mentioned in my last entry that one of my short-term goals was to create a new profile picture, but I still haven't managed to even touch my sketch again.
I am not joking when I say you're literally shouting in your head to make yourself do the thing, and you just, don't... Like, something is at the top of your list of things to do and you really want to do it and every time you try, someone's turning you around and making you jump off the cliff and start at the bottom. It's incredibly frustrating and again, I just assumed everyone else had to deal with this. There are so many sequences, patterns and rituals to everything people like me do, just to get ourselves to actually do the thing we want to do. The ridiculous thing is that often those sequences or rituals have absolutely nothing to do with the thing you want to be doing when you have ADHD.
"Oh, but Shadow, everybody and their mother has ADHD these days!" Well, not really. It's estimated around 5-10% of kids and 3-5% of adults have it, so we're talking 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 at worst, respectively. The odds of running into someone with an actual ADHD diagnosis aren't that far-fetched but still, over 90% of the population doesn't have it. Heck, based on the statistics, there are probably around 25-50* or so of my watchers who have it too, maybe more since there seems to be more neurodiversity in the furry community. As a bit of extra context, ADHD is a neurological thing where the brain actually develops and functions differently compared to neurotypical people. So it's not something to be taken lightly, which is why the medications used to treat it can have very different (and very BAD) effects on people without an ADHD diagnosis. "Don't do meth, kids!" Or, do, if your brain literally needs it.
The diagnosis has really helped me understand why I struggle so much with following through on goals and projects, even things I genuinely want to do and why I have related so well to the difficulties my friends with ADHD face. The diagnosis has given me some release about the level of mental care and attention I place on certain things, I feel less bad about not doing things I want or even need to do. I still want to do them. I had no idea how much of an impact executive dysfunction and other ADHD symptoms were having. I've just kinda adapted to managing the symptoms my whole life without knowing that's what I was doing and it explains so much about my childhood difficulties and issues at school. All the coping techniques I've developed for staying on point, avoiding both internal and external distractions, and so on? All really common ADHD strategies that I discovered, on my own, over the years. Even more recently I have been using tools like LLMs to help me get started with tasks and to help myself get organised about things I want (or need) to do, including this entry.
It explains why, despite feeling less depressed and anxious lately, I still find it so hard to actually enjoy hobbies and interests, including art. In my head there's about a million things I want to be doing or working on. Art is just one of the things I really do want to focus on - I mentioned in my last entry that one of my short-term goals was to create a new profile picture, but I still haven't managed to even touch my sketch again.
I am not joking when I say you're literally shouting in your head to make yourself do the thing, and you just, don't... Like, something is at the top of your list of things to do and you really want to do it and every time you try, someone's turning you around and making you jump off the cliff and start at the bottom. It's incredibly frustrating and again, I just assumed everyone else had to deal with this. There are so many sequences, patterns and rituals to everything people like me do, just to get ourselves to actually do the thing we want to do. The ridiculous thing is that often those sequences or rituals have absolutely nothing to do with the thing you want to be doing when you have ADHD.
Did you generally not have hyperfocusing before medication or did it present itself in some different way? The focusing/hyperfocusing is usually not my issue as much as the ED is for starting activities I want to start and I'm always thinking about the other couple dozen things I want to be doing while I'm engaged in something else.
A bit like you, basically the most rewarding and low effort thing almost always ends up taking place, which isn't what I want to do. Though, after having watched Dr. Barkley's lecture, I have a much better understanding of the mechanisms for what the hell is going on (behaviourally) all the time, even if that knowledge isn't necessarily helping me overcome the issues, it is starting to make me think about alternate ways of dealing with myself.
Also, I'm realising it's a bit random to be discussing this on journal comments, I just appreciate that you made comments I could relate to.
I certainly had some experience with hyperfocusing before I was on medication, but it was harder to stay on tasks I didn't like. Now, with meds, it's still hard to start a task I'm not going to enjoy, but I can at least stick with it for a reasonable amount of time before my brain decides it's done with it.