Written by: Chelsea Twiss, Ph.D., LP
On paper, my credentials speak of someone who has their shit together. Someone who is organized, thorough and precise. My personal life and experiences are anything but and have been for as long as I can remember. I had a stressful week this week, in terms of work, and it has been a reminder to me of how thin the line is for me between having it together just enough to get by and chaos. It has also reminded me how hard I have to work on a daily basis to keep the wheels on the bus in my life.
I am writing this blog post as a love note for anyone who struggles with ADHD and lives in that realm of executive function. I want you to know that you are not alone; no matter what path you’ve taken in life. I’m also writing this blog post for myself because I’m struggling this week and writing has always been a way for me to process and weave a fabric from the many loose threads that exist in my mind.
This week I had an appointment and forgot one of two crucial pieces of identifying information I needed to complete the appointment. I drove to the appointment reluctantly in the middle of the day, struggling to put aside the creative writing project I was working on in order to do some square brain shit (what I like to call the various mundane activities I have to do for work and productivity in life versus circle brain activities which fall into the category of creative flow state for me) and completely forgot that I needed this item (my passport) for the appointment, despite having written myself notes and setting mental reminders.
Since I was a kid, I’ve relied heavily on mental acronyms to remember things. I would repeat in my head, “K, W, P, K, W, P, K, W, P” (keys, wallet, phone) obsessively over and over so I wouldn’t forget them when leaving the house. Instead of writing grocery lists I would create acronyms for the grocery store in my mind, in anticipation of forgetting the physical grocery list: “C, L, T, C, L, T” (carrots, lettuce, tomatoes), for example. The acronym strategy is a go-to one for me and I still use it frequently to this day, but this week, when stress is high, I couldn’t bring myself to engage in the mental acronym strategy for this appointment. Thus, I forgot my passport and had to leave the appointment, unable to complete it without my passport. Hopefully I’ll remember to reschedule it in the future…
I went to the gas station to fill up my car and a few small canisters for my motorcycle. I got home to find, in horror, that my fanny pack was unzipped and I had likely lost my debit card and driver's license to the ground at the gas station. Fortunately, after much panicking, I eventually realized I had put both items in my pocket - which is unusual for me. Losing things has always been a huge problem for me. I have to put things in exact places so I won’t forget where they are. I have misplaced my motorcycle key, for example, many times and have even lost the duplicate key. If I don’t do something right away (like put my motorcycle key in its designated place immediately when I get home from a ride), it is out of my brain, likely forever. If I was a less anxious person, this would probably bother me less and I would probably put much less effort into compensating for this particular difficulty of mine and just let myself lose things.
I had a work meeting this week and realized I had made a huge mistake in anticipating the cost of a service I was paying for, because of my struggle with paying attention to details in the paperwork for this specific contract with an ad company, costing me an extra $1,000 in services that I was not anticipating I would have to spend. I had to lie down for a while after that experience, trying not to panic and go into a complete shame spiral. Trying not to berate myself and call myself a stupid failure, which is a place I often go mentally when things like this happen.
I was attempting to answer work emails and struggled immensely to find the words to communicate the complex thoughts I was trying to convey through writing. My thoughts about complex concepts will often be disorganized and it takes a lot of effort for me to shape them into something other people can easily understand. I know that it is often annoying and frustrating for other people trying to communicate with me when I can’t organize my thoughts. It is embarrassing, especially in a work-related context.
Because of challenges with impulsivity, I struggle to sit down and create a coherent narrative in text messages and emails before I send them, and later regret sending wordy and jumbled messages. I have also had friends frequently get frustrated with me for misreading or not fully reading text messages. It is very hard for me to get my brain to do these things. When I write for work, or when I work on a creative project, I need zero distractions so that I can give 100% of my focus to that task. The best strategy I have found is listening to ASMR or white noise types of sounds through headphones when I’m working so I can tune the rest of the world out and focus.
I have sacrificed financial well-being in my life because I know how challenging life becomes for me when things get overwhelming even a little bit. I work fewer hours, I give myself many breaks during the day to reset my brain and I attempt to work many part time jobs to prevent the potentially life threatening depression I know will set in from the monotony of doing the same thing every single day, five days a week, sitting at a desk. Even as I share these things about myself, I feel ashamed. I often feel misunderstood by others; that they think I’m entitled or lazy for not being able to do life the way most people do. I wish I had understood these things about myself sooner in life, so I didn’t end up hitting my head against the same brick wall so many times because I thought I could be someone I simply am not.
I struggle immensely with fitting into professional spaces. I often feel like the black sheep at conferences or work-related gatherings and avoid spaces where I have to act or dress in a “professional” way. I have a hard time masking my emotions and filtering what I say, so I tend to avoid spaces where I cannot be authentically myself, which unfortunately is often at odds with a “professional” persona. This is one of the main reasons I work from home and provide services remotely. Sometimes it gets lonely, but trying to be someone I am not in order to fit into these spaces has led to crippling depression in the past and a continued feeling that I was a failure and simply not good enough. I work hard to avoid going back to that place.
In recent years I have worked so hard to live a life that is accepting and affirming of who I am rather than masking, accommodating or shaping myself into someone I’m not. At the end of the day, I’ve found it’s just not worth it. People will misunderstand me and sometimes people will think badly of me.
The cost of insisting on living a life that works for my brain is often obsessive worry about money, about not being able to pay my bills, about never getting out of debt from the years I spent in school and making impulsive spending choices in my early twenties before I got a handle on that. The cost is high at times, but the cost of living life in a way that does not work for my brain is higher. The life I have created gives me freedom and the ability to live life on my own terms (for the most part); which is something I’ve learned I need, deeply.
So if you’re at all like me, I see you. I want you to know you’re not alone. Don’t give-up on yourself and even if it’s hard sometimes, don’t force yourself into living a life that doesn’t work for you and doesn’t work for your brain. I know that I thrive in a life where I am in full control of my own schedule and I can do things at my own pace. I work constantly on building trust within myself that things will be okay and things will work out in order to combat the intense anxiety I sometimes feel about future uncertainty and financial insecurity. I’ve had to get comfortable with living with less, but having fewer material possessions is actually something that aligns with my values. I’ve had to work really hard to reign in impulsive spending and prioritize saving money so I can work less and still pay my bills. The truth is, even though life can be hard and living life on my terms definitely comes with sacrifices, it does always work out in the end.
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