Tag: ADHD in writers

Finding Peace and Joy Again by Kitty Bucholtz

It’s been a rough few years for me. Burnout, butt-kicking perimenopause, then menopause that didn’t “pause” my symptoms much. I’ve felt broken. And every January, I hope and pray that this year will be better. This New Year’s, I barely let myself consider the idea for fear that I will be disappointed yet again.

And yet…

A friend of mine has been urging me for months to read some of the materials she’s found on ADHD in adult women. I’ve resisted, feeling these diagnoses are yet another fad created by Big Pharma to increase their profits at our expense. But I finally listened to one of the audiobooks over Christmas vacation. I felt as gobsmacked as when I took the CliftonStrengths test a year or so ago!

Suddenly, it seemed a light turned on in my head showing me what I already knew about myself but with a lot more depth and clarity and understanding. Both times, it was like I could see things I knew were there (like the living room couch, the TV stand, the window covered with blackout curtains) but now I could SEE them! The couch is red and has thick, soft cushions. The TV stand is small, made of pale wood, but the TV is quite large. And the window is bigger and lets in more light than I realized when it was curtained.

What a difference!!

Personality traits that I have been both comfortable with and frustrated by now appear to be different than I’d thought. Maybe I wasn’t actually broken; maybe some of my tools had broken. The tools I’d used to cope with life (we all have them, whatever our personality traits) stopped working as well when hormones and stress blind-sided me. But the books I’ve been reading have reminded me that I am not broken and I don’t need to be fixed. I’ve just been shoved, hard, off course and need to catch my breath and remind myself how to get back up again.

I have no interest in getting tested for ADHD by a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I am very interested in improving my toolbox: sharpening old skills, developing new ones, perhaps letting go of mechanisms that no longer work as well for me. And I think this is going to make a big difference in my writing.

I’ve just started reading The Artist’s Joy by Merideth Hite Estevez, and The ADHD Advantage by Dale Archer, M.D. Both are blowing me away and making me feel — I’m not the only one who feels this way!! (The book that I first read on my friend’s suggestion is A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD by Sari Solden, M.S.)

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with life, or lacking joy and passion, perhaps some of these books or other similar titles will help you get a better handle on what’s not working and how to get back on track again. I’ll continue writing about this in the future in case it’s helpful!