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

self-care sunday: mindfulness + adhd (02/31)

• by kerri

Mindfulness.
Is.
Tough.

I realize this is the case for just about everybody, even those without ADHD. My friend Scott posted on Facebook a couple days ago his own need to become mindful again—a thought that many of us appreciated him sharing. Because mindfulness is hard, anyways.
And THEN, ADHD is like
T-REX.
Or whatever.

Yeah, mindfulness has become a bit of a buzzword—to me, that means mindlessness has become a prevailing approach to life, and the majority of us need to make a more conscious effort toward mindfulness. Which is simple.

Mindfulness is simply (per definition 2 on Google): 

a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

To dig deeper, the mindful approach means acknowledging and accepting feeling, thoughts and so forth without judgement, embracing that it is okay to feel the things you are feeling—even if you want to change your reaction or the situation you are in.

I read an article yesterday from ADDitude that explored emotions and ADHD. Emotions are hard to quantify, so guess what? They’re not included in the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, despite how common overly-intense or difficult to navigate/manage feelings are for people with ADHD—which, the rest of the world might interpret as overreactions or meltdowns. Another interesting fact from the article is how sometimes people with ADHD simply cannot articulate or identify how or what we are feeling (more here) and that it can be hard for us to interpret how others feel, especially when we are overwhelmed.
These are things that I definitely experience, and find that regular mindfulness practice can help immensely with: when I’m in a more mindful headspace, I pause to think—and breathe—before I react.

For me, this is what mindfulness is about: the pauses. They do not have to be long, but they have to be enough to plant me back where I am—to ground me—to reclaim a sense of calm when my mind is in the past and future simultaneously and not in the place I can control: right now. It’s about taking a few moments to hear the leaves crinkling along the sidewalk in the breeze and feeling my feet hit the sidewalk. It’s about remembering that my body exists and dropping the tension in my shoulders when I’m working. It’s about actually hearing the music I am listening to, picking out something new I hadn’t caught before. It’s about pausing to actually recognize the emotions I am experiencing before they are able to take over too much. It’s about the pauses.

When I am meditating regularly, I take these lessons out into the world with me. I am much better for it. It is still super hard, but, it helps. That’s where I’m at: I’m not about to trade my ADHD meds for mindfulness, but in tandem, they’re a solid pair helping me tackle the chaos that can be the ADHD life. Yeah, I’ll mess up—both in general, and with the mindfulness—but I’ll be able to tackle the obstacles better if I’m checked in to a more mindful space.

—–

Day 2 Challenge Update:
Plank: 65 seconds. The foamy tiles in my office are quite rad for this.

Meditation: I think midnight meditation’s going to be a thing (though I do want to try to make it a twice-daily activity); I used the Smiling Mind app again and did the 10 minute Breath and the Body meditation but I think I didn’t pay attention to half of it because I was relaxed nearly into sleep. (Not quite the intent, but I’ll take it).

ADHD + learning disabilities / ADHD/LD Awareness Month / life / stuff bloggers do / wellness / writing

adhd awareness month: my october challenge roadmap

• by kerri

Most people that know me are aware that three (and a half) years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and learning issues primarily affecting my visual memory and processing speed. Since then, I’ve tried to engage with as many other adults with learning and attention issues as I can. For girls especially, it’s common that ADHD especially is missed, since we present differently than boys—more often we have the inattentive subtype, so we are less noticeably hyperactive!

October is ADHD and Learning Disabilities Awareness Month. You may also notice that things look a bit different around Kerri on the Prairies in celebration of neurodiversity—which is just the cool way of saying that everybody’s brain is different, whether you have ADHD, learning issues or autism… and that it’s okay to not be “neurotypical”! 

But hold up, that’s not all! A guy named Jesse d’Eça from Quebec is taking ADHD Awareness month one step further, and he and the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada (CADDAC – don’t get thrown off, they probably existed before all ADD became ADHD) have come together to get Canadians doing things to raise awareness of what ADHD really looks like. Challenges can be whatever you dream up: CADDAC recommends: a) Something physical—like exercise, daily b) Something cerebral—like meditation or mindfulness practice for a predetermined amount of time once or twice per day, or c) something educational, like reading or writing.

Here’s my challenge:

Planking. Opting to follow Jesse’s lead, I’m going to be trying a plank challenge for October—the app I did the initial test on today (where I made it 55 seconds… just couldn’t make a minute!) claims I’ll be able to sustain a plank for 3 minutes and 25 seconds (or 205 seconds) by the end of the month. While I understand the whole rest day thing, I’m going to try to skip the ones the app requires taking because part of the whole challenge thing is to do something every day! Unless I like, injure myself.

Blogging. Hi there, people reading my blog. I’ll be here every day in October blogging for ADHD/LD awareness month. I even have a plan for this! Some days will be longer posts, some will just be pictures, but hopefully everything will share a bit of my story of living with ADHD.
I mean, look, random t-rex pictures? Yeah, that explains my ADHD life pretty well, right? 😉

Okay and you know what, since we’ve got column A – something physical and column C – something educational(ish) covered, let’s set the bar high.

Meditation. I meditate using the Smiling Mind app. The fact that they are led by an Australian dude does not hurt the app one bit. It’s something I’ve been trying to get into a habit about, so… Let’s do this. (I’ll give myself bonus points if I can manage to get in all 42 of the remaining meditations in the Adult track ;).)

Want to support the challenges I’ve set up, and support the Centre for ADHD Awareness, Canada?
The site is quite non-intuitive, so you’ll have to go here, select your donation amount, and then search my name (Hi, I’m Kerri MacKay if we’ve never met and you’d like to donate money. Thanks! How are you?). Want to do something yourself? Register your challenge here.

And as always, have questions for me about my ADHD, the challenge, or about anything else? Drop me a comment or e-mail me at KerriOnThePrairies [at] gmail.com.

ADHD + learning disabilities

reading with my ears: on (audio)books.

• by kerri

Last year, my friend Beth (founder of Smart Girls with ADHD) shared her affinity for audiobooks on her blog.

I disagreed completely. You can’t listen to music while reading an audiobook, and I like blocking out auditory distractions with music (well, okay, you can, but that requires wizardry). I’d tried one audiobook around that time, Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, and while the story immersed me, I preferred reading its sequel After Ever After as an eBook (I ended up also buying Dangerous Pie as an eBook to re-read). Plus, I can read with my eyes just fine (I mean, the whole ADHD jumping paragraphs bit and rereading stuff is annoying but hey, whatever, that’s my life.)

Well, here we are a year later. And I get it.

ADHD/LD and Reading: Earphones

Guys, you can play games on your phone while reading audiobooks. You can walk around the mall while reading audiobooks. If your fellow passengers aren’t too chatty, you can read audiobooks on the bus even if you have motion sickness (which I do not, but whatever, I can still look for my stop since the speakers do not always work, ahem Transit). These things are all great for mind-wandering ADHDers who need to keep some part of their body moving beyond flipping pages, and multi-task to a degree to focus… And so we’re more likely to not miss our bus stops maybe, but that happens regardless so I’m not holding my breath on audiobooks helping that too much. 😉 Sometimes I have to rewind, but OverDrive (the player my—and many—libraries uses) has a skip backwards 15 seconds button just for the spacing out times or the people nearby getting too loud times. Oh, and recall that they said in my assessment that I’m more likely to retain information that I get through the auditory bit of my brain than the visual bit.

EDIT: Oh, and you can play Pokemon Go while reading. Heyyyyo.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

I set myself a goal to read 40 books this year (last year I think I tried to read 75 books and failed, obviously, reading 30, so 40 seemed like enough of a jump). Except now it’s July so we are more than halfway through 2016 and I’ve read, um, not even half. (If you want to bug me on GoodReads, be my friend!)

Here’s what I’ve read so far:

  • Freak the Mighty (Rodman Philbrick)
  • Smiling Mind – Mindfulness Made Easy
  • A Mother’s Reckoning – Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (Sue Klebold)
  • The Summer Before [the Baby-Sitters Club] (Ann M. Martin)
  • Shot in the Dark (Janet M. Whyte) [Audio]
  • Every Day (David Levithan) [Audio]
  • After (Amy Efaw) [Audio]

Here’s what I’m in the middle of:

  • Islands and Insulin (Erin Spineto)
  • Millersville (Brendan Detzner)

Some catching up is in order.

Maybe with my ears.

life

alive:living

• by kerri

When you have

your pulse and blood pressure checked. A blood draw. An EKG. Eyedrops and eye pressure checked. Bright lights shined into your eyes…

You know you are alive.

When you have

a dog lick your hands out of nowhere and rest his head on your leg. A conversation over coffee. Poutine, no matter how bad it might be for you. 11,359 steps on the Fitbit and counting. Excited hugs and high fives from kids. Coloured your hands pink with food dye and laughed, then fingerpainted with coloured pudding at work with three boys. A run in on the bus with a friend you haven’t seen in forever and you both jump off a stop later to go for Subway, a trip to Bulk Barn, and continue on to Toys R Us and Dollarama and CATCH UP. A silicone Lego ice cube mold arrive in the mail as a late birthday present. A million messages flying around about the plans for tomorrow and next week…

You know you are living.
I know I am alive, even if a little scarred.

And I know I am living. Fully.

ADHD + learning disabilities / life

ADHD and me: three years.

• by kerri

Three years ago today I received the results of my assessment. While I waited awhile to have my ADHD diagnosis further confirmed, today—March 20th—is the day that I still see as my ADHDaversary (I mean, look, if I’m making this a cake-worthy celebration I’ll celebrate both days. Duh.)

Photo on 2016-03-20 at 11.02 AM #2

Like anything, I’m not defined by my ADHD, but it helps explain me—and, over the last 3 years, I’ve learned a lot about how ADHD influences who I am, and how its traits are woven into the person I am. My diagnosis helps me understand myself better—and that’s the most important thing of all. Everything I wrote back in August resonates so much here:

I just felt different for much of my life: [ADHD] explains the frustration, the self-doubt, the guilt that was associated with not being all people thought I should be, the huge shift I’ve felt in my world on meds, the issues I had in school, the issues I had/have at times interacting with people, the sensory overload, all the freaking feelings that sometimes justoverwhelm me. ADHD helps explain that. Those things are all a part of me, and so is ADHD.

—it’s not a label, it’s a bridge: part two

I’m happy to have answers, to have words to explain my world, an amazing tribe of Smart Girls with ADHD who get it (Smart Girls founder, Beth, is the reason I actually went back and looked for my diagnosis date after her own anniversary a week ago!), friends who have reached out with their own stories, and others who may not totally get it, but they try. I am happy to be the person that I am, with the story that I have—ADHD and all.

In all of its chaos and ups and downs and the curve-balls it has thrown into my life, its still my story—THIS is what ADHD looks like: Me. 

Appropriately random for the day several of my quirks got explained, it’s National Ravioli Day today (and no, I don’t care which nation is celebrating ravioli.) Obviously, I’m going to celebrate my awesomeness with ravioli for supper.

Here’s to more attention deficit adventures ahead… Because ADHDers definitely have more fun—at least once we figure out where we’re going, find our keys, remember what time we’re supposed to leave, and learn to embrace everything about who we are.