ADHD

A few years ago a friend sent me a ‘Symptom Checker’ from ‘ADDitude Magazine’,

www.additudemag.com. This is a publication about ADHD and other neuro-divergent conditions. 

 

I’ve spent a lot of my life wondering why is it that I struggle to stay focused or I over-focus, why I lack many executive functional skills and why time management is repeatedly a problem. I’m hugely empathic, very sensitive,

a bit obsessive with some things and I can be impulsive. I’m particularly clumsy, struggle to retain certain information and the list goes on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It so happens, this little questionnaire was quite a turning point for me. After years of feeling shame for my struggles, I finally found an explanation. I knew deep down I had my strengths but I couldn’t see that as being ok, when ‘normal’ and every day capabilities seemed so difficult for me. Often I felt not good enough, sometimes even questioning if it was my brain being lazy as I certainly wasn’t! 

 

I would feel really embarrassed to draw any attention to the fact I hadn’t understood something or that a task was proving to be too challenging for me. Instead I would get this overwhelming feeling to cry as I’d be so angry with myself. In my mind, I was the only one struggling and this often made me feel very self-conscious and alone. I never owned up to it for feeling too ashamed.

 

I couldn’t handle conflict in my friendship groups. Criticism hurt badly and any kind of confrontation whether from a peer, teacher, boss whoever completely tore me apart. I’m still very sensitive, but a lot less so with most things now.

 

I’ve not been formally diagnosed, so it may be I’m not ‘officially’ ADHD or ADD but what I now feel very certain of is that I most definitely have a neuro-divergent brain and not a neuro-typical brain. This realisation and the knowledge I’ve gained around it has been truly liberating for me, I no longer have that shadow of shame. It’s been

life changing. 

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There’s so much support and information available for anyone with neuro-divergent traits, now more than ever. There’s recognition and acceptance. I have no interest in using medications. I always seek to find alternative solutions where I can, but that’s not to say there’s not a place for the conventional treatment.

I know for some it people it's essential. 

 

I’ve found numerous ways to support my needs and challenges. I’ve taken up year round sea swimming - a must for my mental health. I have a weekly piano lesson that I started a few years ago. This is my brain work out where I constantly create new neural pathways keeping my brain active. I practise breathwork and yoga regularly and I even have support coaching from time to time from a brilliant neuro-divergent coach Suzi Payton www.suzipayton.com

 

When it comes to the health of my business, I feel overwhelmed by thoughts of bookkeeping and business admin.

I wouldn’t know where to start! I’m fortunate to have a good friend, June, whose business is bookkeeping with a twist. Her approach is to support neuro-divergent business owners with a focus on the typical challenges a neuro-divergent mind is likely to face when it comes to business admin. June at indigo-bookkeeping.co.uk works empathically towards realistic solutions and achievements with a kind and patient manner. These days I find that to be invaluable support. 

 

These are just a few examples of the tools I use to help to support me. The sky really is the limit now when it comes to finding different solutions and help. If you seek it, you’ll find it!

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I came across the extract below which I feel is a brilliant explanation of the fact that commonly underlying in all neuro-divergent minds is sensitivity. Sensitivity is a very necessary and useful human trait that many humans don’t have as much of as others.

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I firmly believe for any organisation to be successful, fair, cooperative and harmonious, there needs to be a diverse mix of skills, emotional characteristics and approaches. Look at bees and ants! Please forgive my explanation, if it’s not so clear. I feel sure this is a neuro-divergent trait as often I physically feel it very strongly what I’m trying to describe, but I struggle to articulate it!

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Here’s the extract from the brilliant book Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté as follows:

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“There are a small number of debilitating conditions with a strong genetic basis. These are rare affecting about 1 in every 10,000 or even fewer. They do not pose a significant threat to the human species.."

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If however we add up the number of people plagued by depression, ADHD, autism, dyspraxia and other psychological conditions like alcoholism, anxiety, eating disorders, PTSD, OCD, phobias, etc. we would have identified no less than a third of many modernised populations.

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Genetic explanations for these conditions would assume that after millions of years of evolution, nature would permit such a very large number of disordered genes handicapping a third of humankind to pass through screen selection. A highly unlikely proposition. We would face much less difficulty, if we could see that what is really being transmitted genetically is not ADHD or it’s equally ill mannered and discombobulating relatives, but ‘sensitivity"!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The existence of sensitive people is an advantage for humankind because it is this group that best expresses humanity’s creative urges and needs. It’s through their instinctual responses, the world is best interpreted.  

Under normal circumstances they are artists or artisans, seekers, inventors, shamans, poets, prophets. 

There would be valid and powerful evolutionary reasons for the survival of genetic material coding for sensitivity. It is not diseases that are being inherited, but a trait of intrinsic survival value to human beings. 

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Sensitivity is transmuted into suffering and disorders only when the world is unable to heed the exquisitely tuned physiological and physical responses of the sensitive individual.

ADD is not a natural state. It is, to adapt the famous phrase of Freud, “one of civilisations discontents”.

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I had to read and reread this passage several times for it to fully absorb and make sense but now that it has, I feel it explains to me so much of what is going wrong in human culture today! 

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We are faced with endless monumental challenges and injustices. Our planet is suffering in the hands of the least sensitive and empathic people out there. These are the very people ruling our countries, industries and governing the future of civilisation. It’s terrifying and overwhelming. 

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All around me, I see people caught on the treadmill of life going along with what they are told and believing everything the main media reports. Many have become so disconnected from their natural surroundings and their natural instincts, they don’t have the time or inclination to use their deep rooted inquisitiveness because we now live in a world where people are so accustomed to others doing the thinking and inquiring for them! 

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Technology, although brilliant in some ways, is highly destructive in others. Our mental health is greatly suffering - particularly for the younger generations due to screen addiction and toxic information. Our obsessions and materialism are rife and all the while people are becoming more disconnected as they blindly sink into the consumerist, authoritarian civilisations that we are willingly becoming because it’s easier to go along with than to question it! 

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We need to slow down, ask more questions and look at what’s really important. 

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An example which I know many people will disagree with, is something I saw recently performed by demonstrators at www.juststopoil.org desperate to be heard and to make us all aware of what our government are driving us into. These are everyday people: teachers, doctors, grandparents… These brave demonstrators want us to wake up. We need to object to the fact that the government are continuing to license the exploration, development and production of oil and gas when the planet is on the verge of breakdown. To me, this is a crime against humanity and to our planet. Yet, we have no say except for these incredible individuals who risk arrest and injury to stand up for what so many of us are blissfully unaware of or are not prepared to speak up about! 

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What happened was a piece of art, a van Gogh painting, had food thrown over it by some demonstrators. Minor damage that could be easily undone. However this act was to highlight how we protect and honour these works of art placing eye-watering values on them whilst out there our planet is under attack from a small number of individuals making enormous life threatening decisions affecting the majorities. Where’s the empathy and sensitivity in the people making those decisions? Nowhere!

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Society in general is not ideally set up for the more sensitive, intuitive, energetic, imaginative, empathic, authentic and passionate neuro-divergent minds. They often don’t fit in with the regular institutional mould geared towards the more neuro-typical. And when they try, disharmony and discontent arises.

I feel now more than ever we need a much wider representation of neuro-divergent minds in every aspect of governance, industry and civil rights to gain a more inclusive, balanced, empathic and healthy world.