ADHD/LD Awareness Month / mirror mantra

thats a wrap: mantra. [31/31]

• by kerri

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“to survive you must tell stories.”
—umberto eco. 

Final Challenge Update:
Plank: I can now plank for 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Not comfortably but planking after the first minute in general sucks. That’s a far cry from the 55 seconds I started off the month with!

Meditation: I enjoyed the short head, shoulders, knees, toes meditation from Smiling Mind last night.

Both meditation and planking are things I am going to keep up. As for the blogging? Well, it didn’t go as well as I’d planned, but I still got it all done. Onto regular programming…

Well, and writing a novel. Here I come, NaNoWriMo!

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

[catching up] self-care sunday: self-forgiveness

• by kerri

Part of having ADHD is not only does it often feel like we don’t live up to others’ expectations of us, we often don’t live up to our own expectations of ourselves. This challenge is one such example of that—yes, I am getting all the posts done, but this entire week has been catching up posts. I’ll get the last day in on the last day, well, probably anyways. I set the bar high-but-doable for myself, and then—despite proclaiming it for the whole Internet to see—fell behind. Despite my best intentions, what happens always happens.

This is why the reward system works so well. Guess what? 99% of the time, my work gets submitted on time because there’s a financial incentive. That isn’t a bad thing. If I’m not on a deadline, my client knows at least a day or two in advance when I notice things are getting tight. And if they said “No, I need that in.” guess what? I’d be staying up all night to get it done for them. School was the same—the extensions I was given were due to legitimate things—ER trips, emergency surgery, and my grandpa passing away. It was never ADHD. Grades, like money, are enough of an incentive. 

Personal goals are a bit different though. There are all kinds of systems to make personal goals work. I’ve actually done surprisingly well this month, believe it or not. I’ve meditated in some fashion every day (even if I still haven’t made morning meditations a thing. November.), and caught up quickly where I got behind on the planking. Although I got a bit tripped up with the app because I finally “failed” a day—didn’t make it the length I needed to—and then what happens is you have to redo the day. So that brings me in behind, too. I’ve tried the accountability partners but that’s proved to not be so successful, which is fine because I get it, people got their own stuff. I have to work, somehow, on the use of rewarding myself for reaching personal goals, I think. Except—other than like, a 3D printer pen—there’s not a lot of stuff I want. (I mean, I did go out and buy noise cancelling earphones yesterday, which are more of an investment, honestly…) I mean, I am the person who takes 3 months to make an Amazon order because I just want the darn free shipping.

There’s a lot of self-forgiveness that goes on with ADHD. I set plans, I start to follow through with them—and somehow I start strong and end up behind. It’s not a unique thing—non-ADHDers and ADHDers alike do it—but I feel like my track record for actually finishing something according to the plan i’ve made or dreamed up is about 20%, maybe. To date, I’ve finished no larger-scale writing projects that I’ve started in like, over ten years. We’ll see if NaNoWriMo 2016—coming up in November—will change that. It feels great to finish stuff: every time I hit submit on that last post or wrap things up and submit an invoice to a client, I feel like I’ve accomplished something, and it’s a bonus that I love what I get paid to do as much as I do. 

So many things though that I don’t finish, I shrug off. Yes, I’d love to finish them. Resistance, however, is there, between me and the checkbox for each step or each project that I’ve started. Resistance is all of the reasons. And yet, self-forgiveness is a necessity in life with ADHD and a byproduct of that Resistance. Overcoming Resistance is easy—do the thing you are being called to do. And while self-forgiveness is required to coexist with my ADHD brain, it wouldn’t be required if I just did the shit I intended to.

Self-care in terms of self-forgiveness? Yeah I haven’t quite got this figured out yet.

Challenge Update

Plank: 3 minutes 15 seconds accomplished successfully after failing it yesterday.

Meditation: 10 minute Breath and Thoughts meditation on Smiling Mind.

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

[catching up] ADHD fact friday 4 [28/31]

• by kerri

adhd fact friday

Week Four Fact

Sensory Processing Disorder and ADHD often coexist, but sensory issues are in themselves common for people with ADHD.

I always just presumed I was right when I said I was secretly seven or twelve or whatever in relation to my reluctance to eat tons of foods for whatever reason—often texture. In fact, it can be an ADHD thing. While I worked in daycare for years with no issue, I’ve always had issues with places like bars or restaurant lounges with loud music and people trying to talk over it at the same time, combinations of dim and neon lighting. I can do concerts, but I think that’s because there’s no other place my attention is shifting between—I’m not trying to converse or anything. Face paint? Nope, nope, nope (and I don’t wear make-up and I wonder if it’s also related? Or also that I cannot be bothered). I’m fortunate that my life uniform can be hoodies, t-shirts, jeans and shorts. And runners—sandals aren’t even a thing I own, save for a few pairs of flip flops I attempt to tolerate going from hotel rooms to hotel pools (sand at beaches? Ick.). Foods? Yep, I’m secretly seven. Salsa, oatmeal and certain pasta sauces even fall into the category of things that I can’t tolerate texture wise. The smells of other foods will do it, or the taste—anything vinegar-y falls into both of these categories. I could list all the foods I can think of that I dislike but we’d be here awhile ;). (I just bought noise cancelling earphones which should actually help with some of the sound sensitivity issues.)

I haven’t been diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, but I wouldn’t be surprised. However, at this point in my life I’m not sure knowing would solve a whole lot. The link to ADHD has been made pretty clear, and that’s good enough for me. Learn more here. 

Oh, and I should add that the weighted blanket thing has been great for me. Although my current rice-ziplocs-and-tape blanket has sprung a leak so I haven’t been able to use it for lack of remembering to fix it during the day. Put it on the to-do list!

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

[catching up] tips + hacks thursday: bullet journal

• by kerri

Last Winter, Nikki and a lot of the other Smart Girls with ADHD were discussing Bullet Journaling as a planning method. So by March I finally caved and tried it.

I’ve stuck with it, which is a shock for my Google Calendar-ized self who has previously been rather planner-phobic due to mostly forgetting them at home and whatnot. Hello, I couldn’t maintain control of a pencil actually being present in my backpack throughout school, how could I be expected to have not only a thing to write with but also a corresponding notebook? I still forget it sometimes, but, it’s with me when it needs to be more often than not. Being a freelancer now, I’m pretty sure the Bullet Journal system is my number one tool for being organized. (Thanks Nikki and the Smart Girls for finally making me curious enough to try. Because I NEVER thought it would work, never mind that I’d keep it up for eight months.)

What’s a bullet journal?

 

Mine’s a half grid-half lined journal that cost $8 at Staples. There’s an official Bullet Journal but look, I can’t even keep up the index on my non-official one and you know what? That’s the joy. IT DOES NOT MATTER. There are no pre-set thingies to make me feel guilty when I don’t fill them out. Here’s an awkward picture so you can see my washi tape tabs.

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The bullet method is what actually matters (which there are a thousand variations for and that are super customizable so hey, no rules!)

Here are some snaps I took of my Bullet Journal on Wednesday.

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My system is circles for events, fill them in when they’re done, and boxes for to-do items: half filled when they are started, totally filled when they are done. It’s month end so all the invoices are due and such.

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Here’s all the shit I have to do that is slightly more checked off now but not actually as much as it should be probably. I guess it’s only Friday as I write this…

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Zooming out, this is half of my monthly view and my work stuff that I had to get done and whatnot. I made a goals section that I realized didn’t really work because you can’t jut fill in a checkbox for a goal. Which is nice because the Bullet Journal system is all live-and-learn-y. The other page has the numbered days of the month down the left side, and then what I have to do on them but there’s not a whole lot on there because I tend to just put it into the weekly view when I need it there. Which is kind of not the point but whatever.

Clearly, it works well for me because I’ve actually been using it since March. Which is pretty cool considering I’ve never stuck with anything paper that long. I like that there’s no special notebook needed—although my interest in the Passion Planner has been piqued…

Challenge Update – Day 28

Plank
175 seconds people. That is 2:55 which is almost three minutes. Nonsense.

Meditation
Bitesize Self-Compassion on Smiling Mind. Which is maybe one of my new favourites, we will see. Also I really have to try to not just do the bitesize ones but I am not made for getting up at normal times and I’ve been super sleepy. Yes, the morning meditation thing would help.