The ADHD Episode!

Vibe Check Vol. 2

Aug 28, 2023

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Growing Up With ADHD

Funny thing about not finding out you have ADHD until you are 30 years old is you always feel like something was super off, but could never put your finger on it. I couldn’t focus on anything haha. My brain was always like,“I want to read a book, what book?”, “I want to play all the way through a video game, naw you’ll stop right before the first boss.” I would swerve off course so easily and it would be impossible to go back. My mom was a school teacher and I feel like she knew. One thing about my mom though was she wasn’t going to let me be singled out or looked down upon by anyone for any reason. I think she believed I could work my way around it. Which now I realize is a ton of pressure to be put on anyone, but I definitely understand being a mother to a black boy. Eventually when I got college aged I would try to just accept it, but when you are in college you can’t drop the ball and that lead to being so stressed out I made myself ill. The stress came from what I call ‘white knuckling’ where you try to focus so hard on holding things in your mind that you are literally straining your whole body.

My Triggers

I usually have a really hard time when I’m in a stress inducing environment. Which at this point is all of life haha. The things I can have more control over are my day to day routines. That usually includes having some sort of stress reliever, getting enough sleep, eating enough food and drinking enough water. I’ve learned that if these aren’t being looked after and I’m also stressed then I’m going to have a really bad time.

An Unmedicated ADHD Adult

I will say one of the hardest parts of ADHD is how people without it truly don’t understand sometimes. I know now that there is a lot I can do by advocating for myself. Speaking up when things are taking longer than a manager might have expected or when I lost have the day for a ‘side quest’ and didn’t vacuum the living room. The best thing to happen for my ADHD was working from home in 2020. It allowed me to have a little more space and not feel watched 24/7. I had the space to do things with my family and still get things done for work. Now that I’m a full time freelancer/business owner I can use my ADHD to my advantage. I can make my schedule as crazy as I need to. Put huge breaks in the middle of my day to get lost in doing things that aren’t design like going to the park with my son. Freelancing also allows me to take on very different projects. Illustration on Monday, branding design on Tuesday, and web design the rest of the week.

Things That Help Me

I am in no way an expert. These are just some things that help me and I think some of these items probably would help anyone.

When you run into a task and know it will take less than 2 minutes then DO IT RIGHT AWAY! If you don’t you might forget forever haha.
Time blindness is a real thing and if I’m not careful I’ll lose whole chunks out of my day and be so disappointed that the day is over. A trick to help is to plan out your whole day ahead of time. Like down to the hour. You don’t have to stick to it, but it will make you more aware.
Body doubling is a huge one for me! If you are having a hard time doing a task find someone to sit with who is also working and like magic it will make you feel like you need to work also. My wife and I do this all the time when we clean our apartment. We will go room by room together.
Have some FUN! Life is serious a lot of the time so leaning into a moment where you are drifting over into something that might be fun will be so worth it.

Closing thoughts. You are enough. You aren’t broken. Certain things might be harder, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of good things. Game the system and find out what works for you! Lets do this!

→ STUFF I LIKE

It wouldn’t be a ADHD theme if there wasn’t a hyper fixation section haha. I’ve been on a Rick Rubin kick lately and here are a couple gems I’ve found along the way.

Rick Rubin’s New Book - The Creative Act: A Way of Being → Where do I start haha. First off just look at the cover. It’s just a beautiful piece of work. The cover was designed by Paula Scher. This book really challenges what a book really is. It’s full of passages, prompts, and messages that feel so much larger than creativity and more about how to live life. I so recommend it. Here’s a link so you can grab your copy.
Rick Rubin on Jay Shetty’s Podcast (On Purpose) → Podcast Here. Something that comes up a few times is the fact that as a creative you will never be able to know what other people truly think of your work so why put effort into trying to know what they might think at all. If it is something you think will be cool or something you want to try then that is all that matters. Your perspective is all the value that is needed.

→ FIRE PLAYLIST

→ I’M WORKING ON

From the freelance side of things the month of August has been so slow when it comes to new projects. I have really had to sit in the ebb and be patient. A couple of freak outs later and I feel more confident in my ability to weather the dry periods. One thing I’m super proud of is the reachout deck I put together! I’ve been doing a ton of reaching out and networking. Its been way more enjoyable than it has been scary. Which scary is definitely what I was expecting. Putting yourself out there is hard, but it feels worth it! If you want to check out my reachout deck you can find it here! And if you want to pass it around for ya boy I would greatly appreciate it!

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