Usually, I embrace ADHD. Last night was not one of those nights. I posted this on Instagram last night, and figured I would post it here too. Because ADHD is not just a punchline; it’s not a joke. ADHD is more than distractibility, more than “hyperactivity”, more than forgetfulness, more than what people “see”, and way more than people perceive it to be. Way more than many people can even try to understand. It is real.

—–

 

A post shared by kerri (@kerriontheprairies) onFeb 20, 2018 at 10:34pm PST

Most of the time I embrace #ADHD. Tonight, I hate it. 
I hate how it makes literally everything more effort. Everything. I hate how it sometimes makes me a person I don’t want to be. It’s not an excuse, but it’s also not my fault. I hate how it’s a series of paradoxes. I hate what it does to my emotions. I hate how I’ve been trying to calm down from something stupid for over an hour now, after two other hours stuck. I hate how it, and in turn I, manage to ruin an otherwise great day. I hate how it doesn’t make sense and how it’s so hard to explain to others. 
Yes this is real. And it sucks. And on nights like tonight it’s hard to embrace my own #neurodiversity.

I hope tomorrow I get my ground back. Tonight, I hate having ADHD. 
Thanks to the amazing people who reached out on twitter. You have no idea how much I needed to know you’re in my corner. 💜 (via The Mighty/ADDitude)

—–

Usually, I don’t get down on my ADHD. Last night was not one of those nights. 
And I’m still “feeling it” this morning pretty hard, from a three hour experience of over-emotion and over-thinking, and all those things. Compounded by the wrong kind of hyperfocus. The hardcore emotional effects of ADHD are not well enough explored, and they are still hard to navigate.

some will learn, many do
cover up or spread it out
turn around, had enough,
pick and choose or pass it on.
buying in, heading for
suffer now or suffer then
it’s bad enough
, i want the fear,
need the fear, cause he’s alone
fear has become, cause he’s alone

well if they’re making it,
then they’re pushing it,
they’re leading us along
the hassle of all the screaming fits
the panic makes remorse.

after all, what’s the point,
course levitation is possible
if you’re a fly, achieved and gone
there’s time for this and so much more
it’s typical, create a world
a special place of my design
to never cope, or never care
just use the key cause he’s alone
fear has become, ‘cause he’s alone

over and over a slave became
over and over a slave became

well if they’re making it
then they’re pushing it
and they’re leading us along
the hassle of all the screaming fits
that panic held before

well if they’re making it
then they’re pushing it
and they’re leading us along
like a cancer caused
all the screaming fits
and their panic makes remorse

leading us along (vitamin r) // chevelle 

Until you have been in my brain you cannot tell me ADHD is not real.
Science says ADHD is real.
Why I have to on occasion argue this fact with people, is still very confusing to me. Although I guess it is the same reason people choose not to vaccinate their children and re-start outbreaks of diseases previously eradicated from the developed world—they choose to remain ignorant.

As I once said to Jess in Calgary, “Stupid people are not your problem”.

Sometimes stupid people make themselves our problems, though, which is unfortunate.

Other times, though, smart people affirm what you’re putting out there. (Thank God for smart people!)

Yesterday morning, I shared a video on Facebook about “pill shaming” people with mental health issues. You can see the video here.

And yes, ADHD very much falls into this category. After all, everyone is just popping Ritalin (or now, Adderall more accurately) as a study drug and nobody actually has ADHD, right? Wrong. Obviously.

I have a have a friend who recently started ADHD medication again, after we had a conversation about ADHD on a dark drive home from a friend’s party in the country (I have a half written post about this somewhere that I really need to get out into the world). He, like me, has found the of meds after not treating his ADHD for over a decade positively life altering.

Yet, when he posted this on Facebook, that he was starting meds, the doubters, the disbelievers came. And—thankfully—many of us fought them back with science. I’m not sure disbelievers enjoy PubMed links being thrown at them, but damn it, I went there. Because that is how we fight ignorance and misinformation.

With freaking science.

Yesterday, when I posted the link from Mental Health on The Mighty, I did so with the following text:

This.

I’ve had so many people ask me why I need ADHD medication.
Because there is an imbalance in my neurotransmitters, that’s why. No I can’t just “try harder”. I tried life on hard mode without a diagnosis for 21 years.
Maybe it doesn’t keep me alive like other meds do, but it does make my life so much better.

Six minutes later, my friend from above commented this:

I like how this publicly happened on my Facebook lol

I replied

Um, FACT.
And we SHUT DOWN those haters. 😉

Alongside this, as of the time I am writing this, 20 of my friends chose to “like” or “love” this post. Another friend commented “Yes! Well said.”

There is power in finding people who get it. People who understand.

Because we all spend enough time fighting misinformation. Fighting people who shame you for not trying hard enough, even if you’ve tried harder than just about everybody for decades to get by without medication—often without so much as a diagnosis to understand why your brain is differently wired.

It’s much better when we fight ignorance and misinformation together.

The only way we can stop stigma is to share our stories, and being fiercely proud of our stories—they make us who we are. ADHD is a piece of me that makes me who I am. I’m proud of that piece, proud of my quirky, neuroatypical brain. Of seeing life differently. I chose meds to be part of my journey, to help me harness the joys of my ADHD brain better. Vyvanse (or previously Concerta) doesn’t cure me. It doesn’t make me neurotypical. It just makes me better able to balance the joyful parts of my ADHD with the frustrating parts (and I still get endlessly frustrated with myself. But it’s so much better).

Sometimes medicine is a part of “trying harder”.

And I’m thankful that many of my friends seem to get that.

This thing is cool.

https://i0.wp.com/farm5.staticflickr.com/4486/36830015114_c7fe8e7a24.jpg?resize=500%2C375&ssl=1

Awhile back, I learned of the C-Pen Reader from the Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba. After learning more about it, I felt like the C-Pen would be a tool that would help me as a person with a learning disability who learns best through listening rather than seeing—as I’ve written before, I primarily now read audiobooks, and frequently use text-to-speech or VoiceOver on my MacBook, iPhone and iPad when reading longer texts. This switch has greatly enhanced my retention of what I read. But what about actual paper documents? It becomes a hassle to scan dozens of pages to have them convert. 

Enter the C-Pen.

In video, because it probably makes more sense that way. 

Disclosure: I contacted Scanning Pens in the UK requesting to review the C-Pen Reader. They got back in touch quickly sent me one out via a Canadian distributor. I am in no way obligated to provide a favourable review.

Hello, October.
Hello, Fall.
Hello again, ADHD/learning disabilities awareness month. 

My last 3 posts have been somehow swallowed up by StableHost following a tech issue last week. I’m really unsure what the deal is, but they have been trying to help me for several days and I am just hoping that I can actually start my October blogging on time. Because, like last year, I have plans.

Plans to hit refresh on the blogging, and this time, perhaps try not to throw myself into too many things at once, although we know that, hello, it is me. That’s not going to happen. Like last October, things will look roughly the same around here:

  • Self-Care Sunday
  • Mantra/Motivation Monday
  • Travel Tuesday (as I still have many things to report on!)
  • Wordless Wednesday (honestly, because I am lazy)
  • Tech Thursday
  • Fun Fact Friday
  • Recap Saturday (in which I will perhaps tell you just normal stories or tales of my ADHD brain from the week.
Since we missed Recap Saturday this week, here is an ADHD story for the week:
 
I went into my room to find a specific hoodie from my closet-I-mean-floor, and I could not find it. I resigned to another hoodie and picked it up and carried it out of my room.
The hoodie I was looking for?
I was wearing it.
Um yes. Hello, ADHD.
 
So, welcome to the adventure, people.
Now let’s hope my blog stays functional. 

You can find “reading with my ears: part one” here.

IMG_1981

Reading with VoiceDream reader on my iPhone – a PDF or electronic text document is read in fairly life-like synthesized voices. Also shown, my Bose noise cancelling earphones.

 

Unlike many people with learning disabilities, I have always enjoyed reading. However, enjoyed is probably somewhat of a loose term. I read constantly, but remembered very little of what I actually read. (Bonus: buy books once, reread them a bunch because you don’t remember what happened). This all started to make more sense when, in 2013, I was diagnosed with a learning disability affecting my processing and memory of information acquired visually, and my processing speed, among other things. In the few years since gaining this information I’ve found a lot of resources that have helped me in ways I hadn’t realized were actually a struggle for me. Now I almost exclusively read audiobooks, retaining far more information with my ears (and allowing me to keep my hands busy at the same time).

Fortunately, audiobook or eText access goes beyond costly audiobooks at Chapters and Audible subscriptions (look, I’d rarely spend $14.95 on a print book a month!), and there are more options out there if you are a person with a disability. To this day, I’ve not touched an audiobook on CD, although I’ve experienced some technology oddities I now avoid (looking at you, Direct-to-Player app of last year!)

Upon learning of my newfound love of audiobooks, my friend Stephen told me about CELA–the Centre for Equitable Library Access, also/formerly known as the CNIB Library.

CELA membership is available to Canadians with a library card to a participating library, who also have a print disability. My learning disability, as well as visual impairment or physical disabilities that prevent people from reading print books, are classified as print disabilities under Canadian copyright law, which also allows people to access works in an alternate format. Signing up for CELA was easy, as it was based on self-disclosure. Other services sometime require proof of disability from a doctor, psychologist, teacher, or other “authority”, as in the case with the National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS – Canada) or Bookshare (Canada/US). (I’ve got forms for both stacked up beside me for my yearly appointment with the psychiatrist later this week!) Each of these services provides electronic books either as a recorded mp3 or that can be read by the right technology, such as a screen reader or app. 

 

CELA opened a whole new world for me in reading, in tandem with the audiobooks available through my public library. As well, assistive technology, such as Voice Dream Reader and iOS speak screen (a recent find compatible with kindle eBooks!), has helped me rediscover reading, and allowing me to access longer or more complicated texts without just being completely lost. Now, I don’t just read books–I enjoy them. I remember more of what I’ve read. I can recommend books to people because I remember things about them. It’s exciting. 

 

And because of audiobooks, because of CELA, because of assistive technology?

I hit my 2017 GoodReads reading goal of 52 books before August 9, 2017.

With 144 days to spare.

 

After failing my 25 or 30 book reading goals in years past, that feels pretty awesome. Because even if it works better for me to read in a different way… I’m still reading.