2 New Diagnoses

cultivating an attitude of gratitude

ADHD lowers my life expectancy by 13 years! I'm grateful I've learned to stop leaping before I look. I'm amazed I’ve made it this far, and I feel lucky I've been able to put all kinds of structure/habits in place already to challenge that statistic. 

Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

Brave Space schedule:

Brave Sched for 1/22 - 26/24
Monday 12pm ET
Tuesday 10am ET w/Poetry Workshop
Thursday 12pm ET
Friday 12pm ET Brave Sharing Salon 

Brave Sched for 1/29 - 2/2/24
Monday 12pm ET
Tuesday 12pm ET w/Poetry Workshop
Friday 12pm ET

Brave Sched for 2/5 - 9/24:
Monday 12pm ET
Tuesday 12pm ET w/Poetry Workshop
Thursday 12pm ET
Friday 12pm ET

Also I'll be posting these Substacks on Friday nights/Saturday mornings instead of Thursdays.

That life expectancy stat, in case you want to follow up, was found here:

If you are worried you are struggling with early signs of dementia, it might be ADHD! It’s completely unrelated but often misdiagnosed as dementia when it's not! 

How to know? Check your childhood — did people call you the Energizer Bunny? Did you, like me, get As and Fs in school? Apparently smarter folx often escape diagnosis. Are you often or were you emotionally dysregulated as a child? Do people say you talk too much? Write long emails about stuff no one asked you to discuss??????? Are people often amazed (not necessarily in a good way) at how busy you are? Do you find it hard to relax? Are you often too much and simultaneously not enough? You may have ADHD (not dementia and does not increase your risk for it either!) Phew!

And about that life expectancy… it’s based on the fact that many people with ADHD struggle with impulsivity. Yes, I have struggled in the past, but it’s been about 22 years since I’ve stopped leaping and started looking first. I’ve spent decades with chronic illness learning how to manage my food, my energy, my exercise, my sleep, etc. So I’m looking to beat the odds.

My ADHD is - in my opinion - balanced with my autism. I’m officially AuDHD! I can focus very well, thank you. I have a hard time not focusing. If you walk past my desk, and I don’t look up and greet you, it’s because shifting out of whatever I’m doing feels like dragging a needle across a record. (You remember those, yes?)

The ADHD assures me I’ll never get bored focusing because I’ll always have 105 projects to work on since ADHD seeks novelty… It feels like a perfect combo. (It kinda has to; it’s my life.)

Getting my autism diagnosis two and a half years ago was such a relief, to finally know that I am indeed as different as I’ve always felt. Validating was the word that year. Now with ADHD, I feel even more validated and more compassionate toward myself and my struggles.

I know where my keys are because I have a place for them. In fact, I have a place for everything, and woe to anyone who moves anything! I keep a calendar as explicit as a patient’s hospital chart; it has to be, or I don’t know what to do with myself, in 15 minute intervals. And I thrive on the work I do teaching, coaching and writing. I’m grateful for my life. Yes, I grieve the what-ifs when I think, if only I’d been diagnosed earlier. But I’m learning to be okay with that.

The hard part is the second diagnosis, the one I wasn’t expecting last week, the one that scares parts of me (the parts afraid of pain, being debilitated and dependent on others, and, a bit less scary, death). Other parts of me are fine with death, although I will miss my family and want to stick around as long as I possibly can. (I have things to do!!!) Heart Disease was not part of the plan.

And yet I’m grateful for my long history of chronic illness. It has taught me to take the long view. If I can’t manage it today, it will wait. I can only do what I can do. I can be compassionate and kind toward myself.

Chronic illness has taught me I will never be perfect or even “cured,” nor must I strive to be. I can be my quirky, sometimes incapacitated self, and that’s just fine. I hope you too can offer yourself kindness and self-compassion as a practice for your own heart and your own life.

There is a great (possibly American) myth that says, if I yell enough at myself, if I’m super-firm and really mean it, I’ll start to measure up! But that has never worked for me. Does that work for you? Let me know in the chat!

If you’re not used to offering yourself kindness and compassion, the more you try, the easier it gets. I promise. And if you don’t already have a compassion practice, I have more about them in a Substack from November 9th last year. You can find it here if you scroll down in this post.

Writing Prompt:

Booster Rockets - When we’re working on a new play/novel/story/memoir/etc we might begin in one place, with one image, and end up somewhere far from there. I refer to these early origins as Booster Rockets: the things that got the project off the ground. Also what might fall away later.

Like starter homes where the story lives until you figure out where it really needs to be, if you're looking for something to get your next project off the ground, these might come in handy. Like corn kernels before you pop them. Beginnings you can fall in love with but often lose to fulfill the true needs of the story. Ideas, images, and clues like seashells you pick up on the beach before you build your castle. They might be the shell you never use, but if you hadn't stopped to pick it up, your castle wouldn’t be your castle. 

4 Ways to create booster rockets: 

A visual way: scribble all over a page, and then take the senseless scribble and find a picture in it that can be emphasized with a darker line here, a bolder line there, shading, etc., and find the story in the picture. Or use an image from a recent dream. (You do keep a dream journal, yes?)

A physical energy: make your hands run each other to create heat from the friction. Put your heated hands onto your closed eyes and massage your eyes and eye sockets. Then make tight fists (thumbs out) and squish your eyes closed. With your thumbs and fists rub or massage your ears. Cup your hands in front of your now gently closed eyes and make a wish. As you open your eyes, allow your hands to also open to reveal a precious object or secret. Take it in with all your senses. What is this discovery inside your hands? Write about it. Let it speak. Let it tell you why it’s here now.  

Secrets of a character: Imagine that a character has something to show you -- it is in the bathtub right now (or the closet, or the drawer, or the driveway, or in back of the shed…) and they are acting very oddly about it. Maybe it's time to tell you, or maybe you cajole them to take you there and show you -- what is it? Describe it. Why might they have hidden it from you?

The Power of Lists: make a list of at least 10 topics you want to create about, and then make a list of at least 10 images you've been intrigued by. Take a topic and an unlikely (the most unlikely) image on your list and try to combine them. They should be strangely different enough to make you stretch. (If you can do more than 10, it gets easier the more you do, even though that’s counter-intuitive.)

Use any of these or other booster rockets to start something new or add to something that feels flat. If you’re having trouble with your setting, use these to better understand place. Struggling with a character? Can you find them as a child? Maybe they will tell you a secret from when they were younger. Or try to find them in the future. Try a booster rocket for character. Or your next plot twist. Enjoy!

For more prompts and support with your projects, join me in Brave Space!

Milo. Nancy’s two year old completely declawed rescue cat abandoned in South Texas.  No way to defend himself. It took three plane flights to get him to her in Boston.

Send me your pet pics, and I’ll post them!

Onward,

Emma