The lessons learned in three years of studying my own ADHD.The lessons learned in three years of studying my own ADHD.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an axiom is “a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true, and from which other statements can be derived.

One of the things that I haven’t seen mentioned a lot in all of the writing about late-diagnosed ADHD is the phenomenon that occurs after you learn to recognize it — and it seems to get worse. It may just be confirmation bias. As I tell you that I used to drive a dark blue Prius, it’s a pretty sure thing that it will seem like there’s a lot more dark blue Priuses (Prii?) in your neighborhood, on your commute, in the parking lot. Of course there aren’t any more dark blue Priuses than there were before — you’re simply noticing more dark blue Priuses because at this point I’ve said “dark blue Prius” enough times to prime your brain to be alerted to them. You might even wonder, when you see one, if perhaps I’m driving it. Spoiler alert: I’m not. I no longer have a dark blue Prius. But when I feel like I am getting “worse” — wait, let’s not phrase it that way. There’s a poor choice of subject, as well as a “judging” label in there. Trying again: When it seems that the expression of my ADHD is getting more intense, more prevalent, more inescapable instead of less — it’s possible that I am simply more aware of the particular ways and when’s that my brain does not quite fit into the world that I live in. Could be nothing more than that. Putting labels like “judging” and “confirmation bias” on the feeling does not change the fact that it feels like I am getting worse. Not only that, the things that I used to compensate for the ADHD years and decades before I knew I was diagnosed — strategies to keep focused, or organized, or motivated — don’t seem to work as well. Part of that is because now they no longer seem like smart choices and valuable skills. Instead, I recognize them for what they are: desperate hacks. Tricks to find some way of fooling either my brain or the people around me that I, too, am a functioning adult. If I wanted to be generous, I could use Dr. Barkley’s reference of “scaffolding”. Recently, though, I’ve felt a lot like that drawing I made. I have many, many tools at my disposal. I could easily talk for 30 minutes nonstop about meditation, about movement, productivity, workflows, hell, I could talk for 30 minutes just about timers. Pray you never get stuck in an elevator with me. But it doesn’t matter. Sor

image generated at nightcafe.comMy ADHD Brain Sucks at Remembering Things; Here’s How My Parents Tried to Help.And what I wish they’d known then that I know now.I can only imagine how frustrated my parents got during parent-teacher conferences.

First, for you Seneca/Mandalorian scanners: and second, while thinking about executive function and ADHD and how "externalize it!" is often the answer: