Hey everyone. I am ADHD and I write on LitE. I am creating this thread as a place for me to come and write down my frustrations in dealing with that. I will be trying to work thru the often times confusion in my brain and the stress it creates in my creative process, however if you are not a writer please feel free to join in and work out your own stuff here as well. Who knows? Maybe it'll help. If nothing else perhaps you'll find a friendly ear, someone who gets it. If not maybe seeing my own struggles will be entertaining, who knows? Or maybe no one will care, doesn't matter, just don't be a jerk, ha!
ADD/ADHD And Writing
- Thread starter Statius
- Start date
It's hard writing being ADHD. For me, I am either super creative, or very very black and white, linear thinking, point A to point B, o BS in between. My job requires me to be linear, straight to the point; in other words, non creative. Seems easy right? Nope. Switching gears is near impossible. I cannot simply go from one to the other, it takes great effort and it's mentally draining and exhausting.
When I am in creative mode and working on a story, ideas and words flood so fast I can't keep up. Even when I complete one and I think it's ready, after sitting on it for a week, after 3 rounds of editing, I'll go back to it after publication and it's like really? Why? To the point where I am currently doing edits on existing stories mostly due to repeated words, punctuation, the comma is like heroin to me for some reason.
But I know why, I just can't get around it. It's because it's the IDEA, THE CONCEPT, that matters to me, not the writing. Why? Because writing, technically, is linear thought, and I cannot do both at the same time. If I think my narrative conveys the idea and/or image I had in my head, that is what matters. Until 3 months later.
When I am in creative mode and working on a story, ideas and words flood so fast I can't keep up. Even when I complete one and I think it's ready, after sitting on it for a week, after 3 rounds of editing, I'll go back to it after publication and it's like really? Why? To the point where I am currently doing edits on existing stories mostly due to repeated words, punctuation, the comma is like heroin to me for some reason.
But I know why, I just can't get around it. It's because it's the IDEA, THE CONCEPT, that matters to me, not the writing. Why? Because writing, technically, is linear thought, and I cannot do both at the same time. If I think my narrative conveys the idea and/or image I had in my head, that is what matters. Until 3 months later.
I should note that I am unmedicated. I was told when first diagnosed that the best thing to do would be to train my brain in a particular way, so I did. Thru reading philosophy, poetry (my first literary love), then novels. Philosophy and poetry are obvious; logical, and patterned. Classical music has the same affect on me as poetry. The patterns (numbers as they say) flow in a particular way, rhythmic. Both are soothing to me mentally for that reason and can help calm my chaotic brain. Of course too much of it and I become immune to the affect. Fun.
Getting back to the point I was going to make. I cannot switch gears easily. It takes a long time to go from linear thinking to creative, and back again. It's exhausting, mind breaking, can be soul crushing. And then there's the loss of confidence in my creativity. Especially when I go back and re read either a week later or 3 months later and see all the errors I left even tho I edited 3 times. It's like they were never there before. How did I overlook so many dumb and obvious mistakes? 3 times!
Getting back to the point I was going to make. I cannot switch gears easily. It takes a long time to go from linear thinking to creative, and back again. It's exhausting, mind breaking, can be soul crushing. And then there's the loss of confidence in my creativity. Especially when I go back and re read either a week later or 3 months later and see all the errors I left even tho I edited 3 times. It's like they were never there before. How did I overlook so many dumb and obvious mistakes? 3 times!
If you are ADD/ADHD like me, you probably know that there is a real struggle with things everyone else finds simple. And there you are lost in confusion. But you probably also instinctually know things, or things are obvious to you that everyone else is just 'How the fuck do you know that ' or 'How the fuck did you know how to do that?' And that is what makes me so good at my job. But not so much on the creative side, or to be more precise, the linear aspect of being creative
I have so many things I want to talk about but think I'm going to start with something someone here said to me today. They don't feel like they belong here, meaning LitE, that they never found their community here. I agree. I've been here 2 years and have talked to 4 people. Why? Because I've never felt 'at home' anywhere. The only place I really feel comfortable is when I'm hiking in the woods. That's my peace. Nowhere I've ever been, no group of people I've ever hung out with, no matter how close I was to them, was home. Why? Because no matter what or who, they cannot understand the thought process, that my ADHD brain does not function like theirs do. They may not see the difference, but I know. You can say it's in my head, but really that's all that matters because it's my truth. The truth of every ADD/ADHD person.
That's the thing. Linear thinking comes and goes. It's hard to get back once it's gone, so is the creative thinking. It's mentally and emotionally draining. And that is the point. It's the mental AND emotional draining aspect and the difficulty maintaining and reclaiming. These are the aspects I am exploring in this thread and trying to understand better. I definitely thank you for your contribution to the thread. Are you ADD/ADHD?
I had a friend once tell me a story she said reminded her of me.
An old woman and an old man are sitting on a bench at a train station looking at a huge steam engine. The old lady looks at the old man and says
"What do you think of that paw?"
The old man looks at the old woman and says
"They ain't never gettin' that thing movin'."
After a little bit the whistle blows, the steam shoots and screams out and slowly it starts jerking forward and tugging forward hauling all the cars behind it, eventually picking up speed. After it's gone the old woman turns back to the old man.
"What do you think of that now paw?"
"Well ma, they ain't never gonna stop that thing."
When you're ADD/ADHD chances are one of two things will happen. You will either waaay overshoot your goal/ destination, or you will derail yourself; meaning your brain will 'short circuit' and you'll fall far short of said goal/ destination. The disappointment is real and devastating as it is for everyone. Here's the difference. As hard and impatient as we are on others, because we can't help it sometimes (more on that later) we are far harder on ourselves. We know our potential, we also know we will never realize it, most of us anyway. But even though hope comes and goes, we are ever hopeful, especially if we are in a moment or time of clarity.
But when that train is rolling, oh boy what a rush. We move so fast, Instincts kicking in, brain response and reflex is unreal. Euphoric. But somehow, somewhere you realize, without knowing it, you got
'Ahead of the curve, but the curve became a sphere'
Thanks for that line and song TS, it's a great one.
An old woman and an old man are sitting on a bench at a train station looking at a huge steam engine. The old lady looks at the old man and says
"What do you think of that paw?"
The old man looks at the old woman and says
"They ain't never gettin' that thing movin'."
After a little bit the whistle blows, the steam shoots and screams out and slowly it starts jerking forward and tugging forward hauling all the cars behind it, eventually picking up speed. After it's gone the old woman turns back to the old man.
"What do you think of that now paw?"
"Well ma, they ain't never gonna stop that thing."
When you're ADD/ADHD chances are one of two things will happen. You will either waaay overshoot your goal/ destination, or you will derail yourself; meaning your brain will 'short circuit' and you'll fall far short of said goal/ destination. The disappointment is real and devastating as it is for everyone. Here's the difference. As hard and impatient as we are on others, because we can't help it sometimes (more on that later) we are far harder on ourselves. We know our potential, we also know we will never realize it, most of us anyway. But even though hope comes and goes, we are ever hopeful, especially if we are in a moment or time of clarity.
But when that train is rolling, oh boy what a rush. We move so fast, Instincts kicking in, brain response and reflex is unreal. Euphoric. But somehow, somewhere you realize, without knowing it, you got
'Ahead of the curve, but the curve became a sphere'
Thanks for that line and song TS, it's a great one.
y=mx+b
___________
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2003
- Posts
- 25,545
The struggle for me is that I'll be writing and in the zone and progressing forward and then the slate gets wiped clean. The faucet gets shut off. There's absolutely nothing.
It's not a block. Or a signal to take a break and revisit. It's absolutely 100% completely over
I've since stopped bothering to write. It all has come to be just too difficult.
It's not a block. Or a signal to take a break and revisit. It's absolutely 100% completely over
I've since stopped bothering to write. It all has come to be just too difficult.
I'm going to be extremely blunt and probably rude, buckle up buttercups, excepting EmmAgain. Yes this thread is about struggling with writing. For me to work thru it with my ADHD. But more than that a safe place for people with ADD/ADHD. Here's the problem. NO ONE WITHOUT ADD/ADHD CAN KNOW WHAT ITS FUCKING LIKE. PERIOD. Everybody with it has heard this garbage before from EVERYONE IN THEIR LIVES. 'Just think differently, look at it like this, do this, do it that way'. You don't know shit. Our brains are wired differently, that's the fucking point. All these overly simplistic platitudes don't mean shit, they don't do shit. We have to train our brains differently. We process information differently, we see things differently. We have to process not only our thoughts but our emotions differently. Not because we want to but because we fucking have to.
We become trapped and stuck. Not out of laziness, but because OUR BRAINS WON'T LET US THINK, WON'T LET US PROCESS, WON'T LET US PROCEED. IT WON'T FUCKING LET US. What works for the average person does not, will not, work for someone with ADD/ADHD. It carries elements of depression, OCD. Do you tell someone suffering from depression to lighten up? Smile more? Hope not. Do you tell someone with OCD to just 'make yourself stop'?
And don't get me started on people who say it isn't even fucking real, or it's exaggerated. We just lack discipline. Don't be that person in my thread.
I started this thread because I met someone here who is really struggling, hoping they would come here and we could talk, bitch, complain, get understanding and empathy, give a sense of belonging because ADD/ADHD IS ISOLATING. They will probably not be coming to post or chat now. And it's possible I won't be either. Why? Because people who don't have it and give these simplistic platitudes make people like us clam up, shut down, hold it in, and isolate. The complete opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here, especially for that one person I met, the one person here ( on LitE) that I know of, who is like me.
We become trapped and stuck. Not out of laziness, but because OUR BRAINS WON'T LET US THINK, WON'T LET US PROCESS, WON'T LET US PROCEED. IT WON'T FUCKING LET US. What works for the average person does not, will not, work for someone with ADD/ADHD. It carries elements of depression, OCD. Do you tell someone suffering from depression to lighten up? Smile more? Hope not. Do you tell someone with OCD to just 'make yourself stop'?
And don't get me started on people who say it isn't even fucking real, or it's exaggerated. We just lack discipline. Don't be that person in my thread.
I started this thread because I met someone here who is really struggling, hoping they would come here and we could talk, bitch, complain, get understanding and empathy, give a sense of belonging because ADD/ADHD IS ISOLATING. They will probably not be coming to post or chat now. And it's possible I won't be either. Why? Because people who don't have it and give these simplistic platitudes make people like us clam up, shut down, hold it in, and isolate. The complete opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here, especially for that one person I met, the one person here ( on LitE) that I know of, who is like me.
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