"so at least a few days out of the week I’m trying to handle things the old fashioned way, using just panic and shame." I could share my ADHD story, but I'm too busy laughing.
I have *some* characteristics of ADHD but not all of them so I've never been sure if I have it or not. I suspect I may be slightly neurodivergent, but I've never been formally tested for any of it. I always feel kind of silly even thinking about it because my brain is all like, "you're fine! don't be ridiculous."
I haven't been able to concentrate lately because parts of my life have imploded, some in more terrible ways than others. Every time I start to beat myself up because I'm not working like I want to be working, I have to remind myself that I'm going through some shit and my brain is otherwise occupied.
I, too, cannot get anything meaningful done if I have an event the same day--but "event" is a loose definition--it can be a meeting, zoom call, doctor's appointment, etc. I'm productive on long days with NOTHING, even when I don't get started early.
Other tidbit--I line my purses up on the floor on the closet--I was hit in the head and strangled by straps far too many times.
Final POV--I adore Ragdale. I've been there 10 times--through all of Novel #1 and most of Novel #2, though my last three week residency nearly put me in traction (long standing neck injury). I have a perfectly wonderful home office... but I dream of Ragdale.
I identify with every single one of your ADHD traits. Scheduling doctor’s appointments is particularly torturous, as is making phone calls of any kind, or dealing with car stuff.
A recent game-changing aid to concentration and focus has been an under-desk treadmill. I’d already purchased mine when I heard Ann Patchett say on a podcast that she wrote all of Tom Lake while walking on a treadmill. I’ve found that walking slowly (2-2.5 miles an hour) boosts both my creativity and ability to get in the zone with writing. As a bonus, I’m getting about 50 miles of walking in every week without really noticing or breaking a sweat. Highly recommend!
The best thing I seem to be able to do for my writing and focus is to go to the library. It takes me out of the house, the urge to clean, the distraction of family and the everyday. Being around other people who are quietly working is contagious!
I have to clean up every morning, at least a little. By the end of a day at my desk it is piled with many extraneous items. (Right now; magnifying mirror, head scratcher, lunch plate, 4 pairs readers, a New Yorker, a Fitbit charger (I do not have a Fitbit), pill bottles, a rose quartz pyramid, tea cup full of wrangled pens, quart of Just Water, yoga book, shower cap, etc and that is all beyond the notebooks and thesis and print outs I am reading.) I try to straighten up daily so I can focus but it doesn't last for more than the first burst of whatever. I have another desk piled with projects, ironing, sweaters...enough.) This used to make me feel crazy; it still does. On the focus front, I realize I have to start my novel over again because I haven't had the mental space to see it deeply enough. I know people who are very tidy but it seems to me everyone has an area of muddle.
I must have the Bizarro version of your ADHD, because I can put away laundry/dishes/accomplish a great many chore-like things like an automaton, but god forbid I actually put more than 10 words on a page without having to give in to any and every distraction. Wanna trade?
Thank you for sharing your ADHD journey/discovery/reveal. I know I have it and have brought it up to my doctor to which I was told happens: perimenopause, then menopause, then because of Covid...This time I will insist on the testing. Until then I take L-Theanine and Vitamin B and am also on decaf (highly recommend the investment in good coffee beans and an espresso machine. I get mine through a subscription service Trade Coffee and my espresso machine is DeLonghi, I can also steam milk and make a decaf cap/latte or sometimes a dirty chai (chai tea with espresso and steamed milk). On days that I can't focus I also wear my glasses all day (I need them for reading, sometimes for distance but not for driving). I do want to say I have read your 2nd book the 100 year old house. This was the first book of yours I ever read and I loved it. The way I fell back through time reading it was so wonderfully captured I truly felt like I was falling. It also underscored the point of how we never know the whole truth. Thank you for your subMakk it's a bright spot in the inbox.
Another statistic for you. I had actually started my ADHD evaluation before you published those pieces last year, and felt comforted and confirmed reading your words. And a mere 10 days ago, I met my evaluating psych to discuss the resulting 72-page report (we do things thoroughly in Switzerland).
Bingo: ADD (emphatically missing the H), plus all the earmarks of a Highly Sensitive Person.
I spent a week being relieved snd occasionally sad, and now am sorting out the treatment recommendations and what this will mean for me.
Oh the closet thing. I feel like I’m like that with every project. I can’t tackle something until it’s out of hand, and then I am suddenly the queen of organization and can turn the out of handedness into a Marie Kondo book cover. The house sitting is also genius. Im in such a huge struggle trying to balance my copywriting deadlines (that pay the bills) with my self-imposed book and essay deadlines. I procrastinate all of them until they’re emergencies. Diagnosed with ADHD ten years ago at 38 but have always been too fearful of the meds. 🤷🏻♀️
Wins: We've been in this small house for about 35 years. I tend to write on my lap, or the dining room table, though since pandemic times, that has become more of a place to keep stuff--fruit, my husband's latest bread rising, Christmas wrapping etc. For a while I used a desk in our bedroom. It's getting similarly assimilated, and I have gotten to the point that I need a dedicated room just for me, and my writing.
So my husband and I (mostly him), have cleared out my daughter's room (she's 41, living independently for the last 20 years, married, two kids, etc, so yeah, it's taken us a while. Besides her stuff, it had become a storeroom...) But we cleared it out to the floorboards, got a new rug; my new Ikea desk just showed up, and I am ready to have my own writing (and drawing and painting) place, where maybe, hopefully, I will get my concentration back. I'm hoping that an organized place will help me organize my mind. Fingers crossed!
Never been diagnosed, but I have a feeling ADHD is rampant in my family. Organization is always, always a challenge. I've spent most of my life losing things. In first grade, I was moved down to lower and lower reading groups every time I lost my "word list." Came thisclose to having my desk dumped.
I need to hold onto my writing space--in the room and in my head.
In other news--looking forward to seeing you speak in Montclair next week!
Yes to the cleaning all at once. If I stopped to clean things here and there that is all I would be doing. Because I live in a less expensive area, we can afford a housecleaning team 2x a month. Thank God for them. We actually prep for them so that is our "all at once."
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 43. I tried all of the stimulants and had terrible dry mouth with all of them. (Seriously, it was debilitating. I had open sores on my tongue I was teaching courses that met for two hours twice per week at the time, so that degree of dry mouth was untenable.) I take bupropion off-label now, and it works relatively well for me. Anyway, I'm living a slow-burn win right now. I joined a generative writing group led by a friend - I think ~1.5 years ago? We take turns bringing prompts, and we write on camera (muted) for 45 minutes. After the first couple of months I started using these sessions to write snippets of my novel. These are not planned scenes or dialogues, mind you. Just...whatever the prompt is, I put my main character into it, and I usually write anywhere from 500-700 words during that 45 minute period. Today, coincidentally, I looked at my file of snippets and realized that I have a lot of them. Really, quite a lot of them. I'm getting excited to read them all. I think I'm going to summarize each one on an index card, then play a weird game of solitaire: lay them out in a chronological tableau, then shuffle them, rearrange them, weed out the irrelevant snippets, and then. Well, THEN we'll see what I've got. Wish me luck.
I truly relate to not getting things done when there’s something coming up. When my days are fractured, I’m far less productive. On the flip side, if I’m the passenger on a road trip, I can get a lot of work done. My focus has been terrible lately as well, and I’m on vacation for a mental reset. Who knows if it’ll work.
I stand at my desk. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in spaces with adjustable desks. Those days are gone. Now I have a big table that I placed on those blocks people put under their beds to raise them. I’m tall so it works! And it’s a cheap fix.
"so at least a few days out of the week I’m trying to handle things the old fashioned way, using just panic and shame." I could share my ADHD story, but I'm too busy laughing.
I have *some* characteristics of ADHD but not all of them so I've never been sure if I have it or not. I suspect I may be slightly neurodivergent, but I've never been formally tested for any of it. I always feel kind of silly even thinking about it because my brain is all like, "you're fine! don't be ridiculous."
I haven't been able to concentrate lately because parts of my life have imploded, some in more terrible ways than others. Every time I start to beat myself up because I'm not working like I want to be working, I have to remind myself that I'm going through some shit and my brain is otherwise occupied.
I, too, cannot get anything meaningful done if I have an event the same day--but "event" is a loose definition--it can be a meeting, zoom call, doctor's appointment, etc. I'm productive on long days with NOTHING, even when I don't get started early.
Other tidbit--I line my purses up on the floor on the closet--I was hit in the head and strangled by straps far too many times.
Final POV--I adore Ragdale. I've been there 10 times--through all of Novel #1 and most of Novel #2, though my last three week residency nearly put me in traction (long standing neck injury). I have a perfectly wonderful home office... but I dream of Ragdale.
I identify with every single one of your ADHD traits. Scheduling doctor’s appointments is particularly torturous, as is making phone calls of any kind, or dealing with car stuff.
A recent game-changing aid to concentration and focus has been an under-desk treadmill. I’d already purchased mine when I heard Ann Patchett say on a podcast that she wrote all of Tom Lake while walking on a treadmill. I’ve found that walking slowly (2-2.5 miles an hour) boosts both my creativity and ability to get in the zone with writing. As a bonus, I’m getting about 50 miles of walking in every week without really noticing or breaking a sweat. Highly recommend!
The best thing I seem to be able to do for my writing and focus is to go to the library. It takes me out of the house, the urge to clean, the distraction of family and the everyday. Being around other people who are quietly working is contagious!
I have to clean up every morning, at least a little. By the end of a day at my desk it is piled with many extraneous items. (Right now; magnifying mirror, head scratcher, lunch plate, 4 pairs readers, a New Yorker, a Fitbit charger (I do not have a Fitbit), pill bottles, a rose quartz pyramid, tea cup full of wrangled pens, quart of Just Water, yoga book, shower cap, etc and that is all beyond the notebooks and thesis and print outs I am reading.) I try to straighten up daily so I can focus but it doesn't last for more than the first burst of whatever. I have another desk piled with projects, ironing, sweaters...enough.) This used to make me feel crazy; it still does. On the focus front, I realize I have to start my novel over again because I haven't had the mental space to see it deeply enough. I know people who are very tidy but it seems to me everyone has an area of muddle.
I must have the Bizarro version of your ADHD, because I can put away laundry/dishes/accomplish a great many chore-like things like an automaton, but god forbid I actually put more than 10 words on a page without having to give in to any and every distraction. Wanna trade?
Thank you for sharing your ADHD journey/discovery/reveal. I know I have it and have brought it up to my doctor to which I was told happens: perimenopause, then menopause, then because of Covid...This time I will insist on the testing. Until then I take L-Theanine and Vitamin B and am also on decaf (highly recommend the investment in good coffee beans and an espresso machine. I get mine through a subscription service Trade Coffee and my espresso machine is DeLonghi, I can also steam milk and make a decaf cap/latte or sometimes a dirty chai (chai tea with espresso and steamed milk). On days that I can't focus I also wear my glasses all day (I need them for reading, sometimes for distance but not for driving). I do want to say I have read your 2nd book the 100 year old house. This was the first book of yours I ever read and I loved it. The way I fell back through time reading it was so wonderfully captured I truly felt like I was falling. It also underscored the point of how we never know the whole truth. Thank you for your subMakk it's a bright spot in the inbox.
Another statistic for you. I had actually started my ADHD evaluation before you published those pieces last year, and felt comforted and confirmed reading your words. And a mere 10 days ago, I met my evaluating psych to discuss the resulting 72-page report (we do things thoroughly in Switzerland).
Bingo: ADD (emphatically missing the H), plus all the earmarks of a Highly Sensitive Person.
I spent a week being relieved snd occasionally sad, and now am sorting out the treatment recommendations and what this will mean for me.
Oh the closet thing. I feel like I’m like that with every project. I can’t tackle something until it’s out of hand, and then I am suddenly the queen of organization and can turn the out of handedness into a Marie Kondo book cover. The house sitting is also genius. Im in such a huge struggle trying to balance my copywriting deadlines (that pay the bills) with my self-imposed book and essay deadlines. I procrastinate all of them until they’re emergencies. Diagnosed with ADHD ten years ago at 38 but have always been too fearful of the meds. 🤷🏻♀️
Wins: We've been in this small house for about 35 years. I tend to write on my lap, or the dining room table, though since pandemic times, that has become more of a place to keep stuff--fruit, my husband's latest bread rising, Christmas wrapping etc. For a while I used a desk in our bedroom. It's getting similarly assimilated, and I have gotten to the point that I need a dedicated room just for me, and my writing.
So my husband and I (mostly him), have cleared out my daughter's room (she's 41, living independently for the last 20 years, married, two kids, etc, so yeah, it's taken us a while. Besides her stuff, it had become a storeroom...) But we cleared it out to the floorboards, got a new rug; my new Ikea desk just showed up, and I am ready to have my own writing (and drawing and painting) place, where maybe, hopefully, I will get my concentration back. I'm hoping that an organized place will help me organize my mind. Fingers crossed!
Never been diagnosed, but I have a feeling ADHD is rampant in my family. Organization is always, always a challenge. I've spent most of my life losing things. In first grade, I was moved down to lower and lower reading groups every time I lost my "word list." Came thisclose to having my desk dumped.
I need to hold onto my writing space--in the room and in my head.
In other news--looking forward to seeing you speak in Montclair next week!
Yes to the cleaning all at once. If I stopped to clean things here and there that is all I would be doing. Because I live in a less expensive area, we can afford a housecleaning team 2x a month. Thank God for them. We actually prep for them so that is our "all at once."
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was about 43. I tried all of the stimulants and had terrible dry mouth with all of them. (Seriously, it was debilitating. I had open sores on my tongue I was teaching courses that met for two hours twice per week at the time, so that degree of dry mouth was untenable.) I take bupropion off-label now, and it works relatively well for me. Anyway, I'm living a slow-burn win right now. I joined a generative writing group led by a friend - I think ~1.5 years ago? We take turns bringing prompts, and we write on camera (muted) for 45 minutes. After the first couple of months I started using these sessions to write snippets of my novel. These are not planned scenes or dialogues, mind you. Just...whatever the prompt is, I put my main character into it, and I usually write anywhere from 500-700 words during that 45 minute period. Today, coincidentally, I looked at my file of snippets and realized that I have a lot of them. Really, quite a lot of them. I'm getting excited to read them all. I think I'm going to summarize each one on an index card, then play a weird game of solitaire: lay them out in a chronological tableau, then shuffle them, rearrange them, weed out the irrelevant snippets, and then. Well, THEN we'll see what I've got. Wish me luck.
I truly relate to not getting things done when there’s something coming up. When my days are fractured, I’m far less productive. On the flip side, if I’m the passenger on a road trip, I can get a lot of work done. My focus has been terrible lately as well, and I’m on vacation for a mental reset. Who knows if it’ll work.
Thank you for the link to the chair! I really need one of those. Sitting properly is impossible.
I stand at my desk. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in spaces with adjustable desks. Those days are gone. Now I have a big table that I placed on those blocks people put under their beds to raise them. I’m tall so it works! And it’s a cheap fix.