ADHD + learning disabilities / ADHD/LD Awareness Month / advocacy / life

no, actually, you aren’t having an “ADD day”. [13/31]

• by kerri

There’s a difference when an ADHDer says “it’s been one of those ADHD days”.

This is how I started writing this post, and then realized, remembered the fact that—frustratingly—the term “I’m so ADD today” is thrown around like it means nothing.

Yes. I have ADHD every day. But there are some days—like today, when I can just feel the chaos in my brain intensify as the clock keeps ticking—from 6 PM onward because I took my morning Concerta at 6:20 AM and didn’t—again—manage to actually get my afternoon dose into my body. I can feel that difference in how my brain feels. 

The thing is, whether it’s a less-well-managed ADHD day like today, or a more holistically approached day with my ADHD—one where I take my meds when I am supposed to, and get a decent amount of exercise, and get grounded with meditation and all that stuff—I still have ADHD. No matter how I choose to approach it, I still have ADHD, like I’ve had my whole life whether I knew it or not, and like I’ll presumably continue to experience the rest of my life. 

I’m not about to get into the positives/negatives of ADHD. Honestly, it’s great to hear those things being discussed candidly, but it’s also at times a bit overdone. ADHD is just a part of me—at least that’s how I feel tonight.

Why neurotypical people misunderstand ADHD, or classify their five minutes or inattention or an hour of distraction once in awhile as “ADD-like” is that ADHD behaviours are typical human behaviours. It’s confusing, I get it. With ADHD, we experience these things—impulsivity and/or hyperactivity and/or inattention symptoms—exponentially more frequently than people with typical brain chemistry. The difference is that after a non-ADHDer’s hour of distraction or brief lapse into impulsivity or “off day”, they return to a normal level of functioning—they get a good night’s sleep or do something to recharge and they’re back at 100%. 

Everybody’s ADHD looks different—some of us also experience certain symptoms associated with ADHD—or ADHD in general—more severely than others, and we all have different combinations of symptoms.

But a moment, an hour, or even a single a day of these kinds of symptoms does not at all mean that you’re having an ADD day. Because part of having an actual ADD day is knowing that you get to wake up and start all over again, with your same quirky brain. And depending on what factors are at play, who knows what that’ll look like.

I don’t know what non-ADHD life is like. I guess it would probably feel restful to even have one day off—even in contrast to having stimulants on board. Then again, if I just got a day off, I’d probably be bored partway through of normal brain life ;).

My ADHD life looks different every day. And it confuses even me, though you find patterns sometimes. (My ADHD might look different every day because I don’t remember or because shiny things. I don’t know. You couldn’t expect me to get through this without a shiny reference right? You also only find patterns when you pay attention…). But I know that this is the reality I live in. ADHD is a part of it—legitimately. It’s a whole mix of things, not awesome or terrible, i just is.

So help all of us with ADHD out if you don’t have ADHD, please.
Say you’re really distracted.
Say you’ve got too much energy.
Say what you’re feeling, that’s cool.
Please, though, don’t compare your off day to ADHD.
It’s not the same thing. 

12 of 12 / ADHD + learning disabilities / ADHD/LD Awareness Month / life / stuff bloggers do

[catching up] 12 of 12: october 2016! [12/31]

• by kerri

Today is Wordless Wednesday except with words. So it’s just Wednesday, really.

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12:## am | kitchen. Bedtime snack pumpkin pie, BOOM.

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12:## am | kitchen. WTF, Winnipeg. It’s October 12th. Snow is not okay.

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11:22 am | kitchen. I swear I do leave my kitchen. It’s #LDchat time, like it is every (or most, for me) Wednesdays!

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##:## pm | bus stop. I wrote half a blog post while I sat here because I got to the bus stop 11 minutes early. Also the snow went away and there is still a flower at the bus stop.

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##:## pm | mall. I found all the sweary colouring books and sent this picture to Tara. Then she bought a sweary colouring book (which kind of surprised me, actually!)

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##:## pm | my office. It’s still weird typing my office. Anyways, I’m super into both Command hooks and what the Internet calls office hacks now. So I put three more command hooks onto the wall—two are pictured here so my writing junk and dry erase junk doesn’t actually take up room on my desk.

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##:## pm | car. Driving to IKEA. The camera never captures the pretty sky…

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##:## pm | IKEA. Uh oh, the LAPTOP (which has a LAPTOP label on the other side) is BROKEN.

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##:## pm | closet. Trying to get paper plates for a craft for work… WHY the eff is there so much carbonated beverage in my house?

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##:## pm | my office. Refreshing my memory (aka re-learning all over again) about energy systems, adenosine triphosphate and lactic acid for a blog post.

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11:16 pm | my office. I plank in my office because I have foamy tiles there and it’s nice. The app said it was a day off today, so I just held the plank as long as i could moderately comfortably. To think I started at 55 seconds 13 days ago. (Don’t tell me about why rest days are important or whatever, kay? I have a kinesiology degree but it’s called a plank challenge for a reason.)

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11:28 pm | kitchen. Actually heading to bed before midnight because I’m going to a thing about budgeting in the morning (who am I?). My dad always leaves coffee cups and stuff here under the microwave. To like, reuse in the morning (or, if my mom is away, all weekend). It’s not like we don’t have a dishwasher he could put it in.

PS. I did the 3 minute Mindful vs. Mindless bitesize meditation after this. Yay.

ADHD + learning disabilities / ADHD/LD Awareness Month / life

ADHD tech tuesday: google calendar ramblings [11/31]

• by kerri

The great thing about technology that is great for ADHDers is that it’s also great for like 95% of other people. Most of it is not eve designed with ADHDers in mind, but for everyone. (That is where good design comes in!) However, good technology is even more of a benefit, I think, to those of us with ADHD than it might be for others—if that’s even possible given how much the world now relies on technology.

This is where Google Calendar comes in.

I am not a crazy colour coder. I do use Calendars 5 for iOS which has some colours in it for different To-Do list fields which is okay, now that Microsoft killed Sunrise, because Microsoft is mean that way. (I’m pretty sure they also killed Timeful. Damn it, Microsoft!) But my Google Calendar is not all colour coded. Everything feeds into my iPad, iPhone, and Mac (except I currently lack a calendar app on my Mac because I don’t like anything except for Sunrise which is now dead, and refuse to pay $60 for a calendar app. C’mon guys.)

I’ve been a pretty thorough Google Calendar user for years. And years. Except now that I bullet journal (more on that Thursday), I am less into the Google Calendar. But, with IFTTT (more on If This Then That next week), I do still store a TON of information in my Google Calendar, ready to access wherever I need it. (Because somehow I never lose my phone ever. Miracle.) Foursquare checkins and other such things are pushed into my Google Calendar so I can check back later to see where I was on a particular day, or when I want to whatever place. If I’ve used Foursquare anyways which I usually forget to.

Sunrise made a lot of my Google Calendar-y things even easier. But, hey, maybe sharing my rambly love for Google Calendar with you all is the way I can actually get myself to IFTTT more things to my Calendar. (Maybe not the best idea to keep things uncluttered, but in terms of an archive, it’s super great.)

One thing that I hugely appreciate from Google Calendar that my Bullet Journal cannot give me is alerts. Alerts are SO freaking important to me (although I did get really alarm fatigued by my Fitbit and all my Concerta alarms so I am STILL trying to figure out a way to ensure I take my Concerta at noon everyday…). But for special tasks, they are great. Like submitting a job application or—for next year—I have four reminders set asking me if I want to cancel my Visa card because it keeps auto-renewing and now I finally have a record of the auto-renew date.

Because honestly, y’think I’m going to contact my BANK? I’d need four alerts for that, too ;).

Challenge Update Day 11:

Meditation: Body Scan Bubble Journey meditation last night, 7 minutes.

Plank: Crossed the 100 second barrier today: 105 seconds. It was friggen hard. It’s hard to believe that after just 11 days, I can do 50 more seconds than I could at the beginning of the month. Day 30 will be 205 seconds—ridiculous!
ADHD/LD Awareness Month / life / quotes

[catching up] mantra monday[-ish]. [10/31]

• by kerri

Thanks, Thanksgiving, today is really Metaphorical Monday. So I’m not really late. Actually I am.

Whatever.

My friend Mike started this thing called Mirror Mantras, where he puts a positive phrase or quote on his bathroom mirror to focus on for the week. Of course, I copied him. Here’s mine for this week.

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“Don’t live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.”

Plank update [yesterday]: 95 seconds. (Seriously. WHAT!)
Meditation update [yesterday]: I did something except Smiling Mind only gives me ONE meditation history, sooo I cannot tell you what it was. This is why I should update every day. 

ADHD + learning disabilities / ADHD/LD Awareness Month / advocacy / life / wellness

[catching up] self-care sunday: community.

• by kerri

I started this on Sunday. You know, ADHD. Point is I am finishing it and I still did the plank and meditated. BOOM. (Mostly.)

The thing with ADHD is that unless you have it, it’s hard to totally understand. Or as the folks at ADHD U say, “If you don’t got it, you don’t get it!”. While ADHD is variable and no two of us are alike (like, of course, with just about any diagnosis), community helps.

The ladies—especially our team of administrators—at Smart Girls with ADHD are equally good at providing empathy and laughing at ourselves for the things we do… At volumes that only ADHDers seem to do those sorts of things. Even when I am not posting or responding frequently, if I do something that the other ladies will relate to—usually funny, sometimes frustrating—I will most often pop over to the group and share it! It’s fun to see the comments come in of other girls’ stories from the preceding few days saying “I get ya!”

Community is important to know that you may be different from most people around you because of ADHD or LD, but that you are not alone. I shared a blog post earlier this month, and I always don’t know how to feel when I get a response like this:

Mostly, I am overjoyed that someone knows that we get it. However, there’s still a part of me that still hurts because we are so enthusiastic to find people that get it because of all those who don’t get it. This, though, is why community is so important—and for me, an important part of self-care, one that I can choose to access more when I need it, and less when I don’t. Because when nobody gets it? The ADHD community—whether that’s our Smart Girls (or the Smart Girls admins), the #ADDcheckin tweeps, or just sending off a message to a friend who I know gets it, like Aaron or Jess if I’m needing to be a tad less public about the whole thing.

I’ve said it before about chronic disease, but it really applies to ADHD too. Find your people, your community. The ones that get you. Even if they’re halfway across the country or the continent or the world, my little neurodiverse, ADHD community is so important to me to have—to know that even in my brain’s quirks, other people have the same variation of normal that I do. And just having that safe space to share or rant or whatever is so important, and often reminds me that yes, patience is important and that applies SO MUCH to being patient with myself, too.