7 February 2024
Who knows how many days left to the submission deadline?
I do – 53.
Days left to submission deadline: 6
[Insert here the many, many opening paragraphs I wrote for this essay]
I delete all dead paragraphs with words like ‘practice’ and ‘structure’ and ‘routine’ and worst of all – ‘shame’ – that word kept shoehorning itself in (the brat.) And that’s where I’d stop writing and start again: another attempt to explain, or rather protect through misdirection, the true nature of how my brain – the brain I have for whatever reason – that has been diagnosed with ADHD – processes, manages and creates text.
It’s the only thing my brain wants to do, and is truly happy doing, but only under a very specific yet continuously unpredictable set of circumstances. The only consistent state being, my brain doesn’t work the way I want it to, the way other people want it to, or the way I have been told it should. I cannot stress this enough.
IT DOESN’T WORK – AT ALL – until a deadline LOOMS.
I have tried everything. It is no use. I can write multiple paragraphs in advance, perfectly pleasant paragraphs. Pleasant and mild and safe is all my brain is interested in when I try to write something in good time. My brain talks to me while I write, a never-ending internal monologue. Not yet, Victoria. It is still mulling, making word soup, salty brain brine broth, tangy, punchy but not ready yet. You cannot rush it until it is time to rush.
I try to push on. It is pointless. So here I am. And I hope the soup is ready now because it has been bubbling for weeks. I hope it’s steaming and hot and good for you. I want it to satisfy. I really do. If you don’t like it shame will find its way back in. Maybe it never left.
The shame might be about how if we do things differently to what society deems acceptable – even in terms of how we finish an essay for example – we hide it because it is wrong somehow and we know it. We’ve been told it by parents and teachers and friends and mentors. Notice I am using ‘we’ suddenly. Interesting. I just caught myself. We must mean neurodivergent people. I can hide with the many. So let me be very clear, I should be using I. I have been told, over and over that my way of doing things, of living, of being, is wrong. So much so that I believed it. It became my inner voice. I get very, very, very tired trying to present otherwise. To be honest, dear reader, I am very, very, very tired indeed.
Days left until essay submission deadline: 5
Very approximate statistics relevant to the writing of this essay that may be of interest:
Times I…
- checked my phone only to return to the page with no recognition of what I was writing, realised I needed to check something on the phone for this essay, so picked up the phone again, distracted, returned to the page with no recollection of what I was writing… (repeat and repeat and repeat): 278
- made coffee and got sidetracked by laundry, loading/unloading the dishwasher, sewing a button back on my black coat, making phone calls, opening post I had previously ignored. Took more than 30 minutes to return to the computer: 37
- suddenly, and with great anxiety and panic remembered I had not replied to an email, text, WhatsApp message, voicemail. Confronted by the sheer number and complexity of these unread or unanswered communications, froze with overwhelm: 78
- forgot that I had to write this essay even though it is the number one item on a list in my diary that I studiously rewrite at the top of the page at the beginning of each new week with the title: URGENT – TO DO: 323
- played with my child wholeheartedly while also being very conscious in the back of my mind that I have to finish this essay; and those blurbs; and that article; and those workshops; and that meeting; and ask, ask, ask over and over, ‘What is the fee for this, please?’: 97
- make dinner, get groceries, transfer money over, ring my solicitor. Think about writing essay. Decide to play with my child instead: 103
- sit at the computer crying and slapping my cheeks, mainlining coffee hoping to achieve hyperfocus – that glorious state – that feeling where everything flows and is easy and words pour out like fragrant tea. When the writing gushes and you don’t think of anything else and there is silence and nothing, nothing, nothing can stop you: 3 (my lucky number)
- stopped because of back pain that has been ruining my life for months. Take medication that is necessary to sit for extended periods of time with less pain, but also makes me extremely woozy, dizzy and dopey so it is almost impossible to concentrate: 247
Days left until essay deadline: 4
As far as I can ascertain, my brain seems to be an amalgamation or maybe more accurately a patchwork of:
- theme tunes from old children’s TV shows and verses from 1980s pop songs,
- lingers from random poems,
- snatches of conversations that are over a decade old,
- intense, overwhelming paranoid or glorious and exciting epiphanies,
- intrusive disturbing thoughts about driving off the road or running into the sea,
- repetitive and distracting fantasies about people I love,
- anxious thoughts about my child,
- extreme joy thinking about my child,
- a deep, overwhelming desire to switch the brain off.
My brain ‘switches off’ in the following ways:
- Reading and writing,
- Watching the full offering of a show on one of the subscribed streaming services,
- Dancing,
- Looking at art,
- Flowers,
- Yoga,
- Being with the people I love in very particular circumstances,
- Lifting weights,
- Other private activities.
Days left until essay deadline: 3
When I do experience a burst of hyperfocus, I can achieve a level of productivity in one day that someone else might expect to get through in a month. It is glorious. I feel so alive! Hello, hyperfocus! I’ve missed you! More often, I sit at the computer, when I can make myself, or stare into space while alternately picking at my nails with my teeth – something I have learned is called a ‘stim’. A stim is short for ‘stimming’ behaviour that neurodivergent people engage in to regulate their nervous systems. I pick at my lips with my teeth. I tug at my hair. I swing around in my chair. I pick my nails with my teeth again.
I repeat certain phrases in my head aloud.
I repeat certain phrases in my head aloud.
I repeat certain phrases in my head aloud.
When things are bad, and I’m upset or frustrated, I knock hard on my skull with my closed fists. I don’t do this in public of course because when I am amongst fellow humans I have learned to mask, this ‘mask’ refers to coping mechanisms neurodivergent people employ to fit in, to be acceptable. So, I might allow myself to pick at my nails, or repeatedly flex my fingers, but more often I sit on my hands to avoid these tics. To compensate, I count my teeth with my tongue instead. Or, I move my eyes from one corner of the ceiling to the other to the other in a particular formation. I try to keep my feet on the floor to ground myself. I am so often at risk of just floating away. I try to look still and normal and calm and human.
Do I look human to you? Do I?
[Pause to bite my nails.]
[Pause to let the cat out.]
[Pause…]
Put music on. Music helps me write.
Days left until essay deadline: 2
What is it like to be a writer with ADHD?
Is this what this essay is going to be about?
Do I really have ADHD?
(I have two different diagnoses to confirm this, but do I believe it?)
Do you? Does it matter?
(So many people think it is made up, or that everyone has a sprinkle of it.)
Honestly?
When I found out I was both relieved and very sad. More than anything though, I felt released from the shame I have been carrying with me my whole life like a vial of poison in my pocket.
I am listening to the radio as I write this. I must have noise of some sort when I write. But at other times I must have complete silence. Sometimes music works but more often it untethers me and I completely lose track of time. Who am I? Where am I? What was I doing? Tears roll down my face and drop on the keyboard, so moved am I by the haunting melody of my current obsession – I listen to a song or album repeatedly until then, one day – it just doesn’t work anymore. It isn’t doing the thing to my brain that I need it to. And I frantically try and find something to replace that high, that satisfaction. It can take hours or weeks and the liminal space between can feel so dead and heavy. Empty. Until the right music manifests and I play it again and again. Sweet, sweet dopamine.
[Hold on. Must check Instagram to feel bad about myself. To feel something.]
[I write three new poems about the spine instead of the essay. I send off one (1) invoice.]
Days until essay deadline: 1
[I’m going to make a quick coffee. Can I make you one?]
[Oh, that’s better.
What was I saying?
What was I saying?
What was I saying?]
Now there is sweet, dark, cavernous silence. Hello, hyperfocus! We’re back! LET’S GO!
[Sits at computer for three (3) hours straight without breathing]
Days left until submission deadline: 0
I have allowed my brain to fizz and pop. I find rest through this. Or there is no rest. To struggle is to punch a mirror with my own face hanging like a moon in front of me. To pour my own brain brine broth, boiling and hissing over myself so my skin withers is just to burn. I am not struggling. I am writing. Here – this is for you.
***
This essay forms part of an ongoing series of reflections on the writing life edited by Olivia Fitzsimons.
Previously:
‘The Waiting House’ by Marianne Lee
‘The Road (Not) Taken’ by Emily Cooper
‘We can’t all be a fresh new voice in literature’ by Sheena Patel