((Featured image – an example of ‘drawing so I can also focus on something else that’s happening’ from a few years ago, I just called it “Colorbomb”))

I did a google search on “artist with A.D.D” and found an interesting blog write-up on someone with A.D.D that has many similarities to mine – undiagnosed throughout my childhood and early adult years, just thinking certain things were normal and that other people just dealt with them more adeptly.

Article: http://www.avrilejean.net/2013/01/27/attention-deficit-disorder-and-art/

My favorite and the most accurate-to-myself bits (things like these help me remember the insights and progress I make in figuring out what issues I have, and hopefully how to work to correct them before I forget it all or lose my place and have to restart any effort):

“I always knew there was something amiss in my head, but not what. I was tired a                 lot, moody a lot, unable to cope a lot. I would cry on the way home when I worked                   full time, wondering how no one else seemed to be as traumatized by work as I was. I            thought of it as a big wall I just could not get over, this thing that blocked me from                doing some of the things I wanted to do.”

“One thing that I did do, all through primary and high schools, and uni, was I drew on          my class notes and my lecture notes. I drew incessantly.”

“You know when you go into a room and forget why you’ve gone into it and you stand            there helplessly? Apply that to almost everything – work tasks, going shopping,                      where did i put my car, what was I just thinking, what did I mean to do now, how come          I’m doing the washing, I thought i was in the middle of the dishes – wait I am, better            go start the vacuuming…..”

“I have used art work to sooth and calm the swirling in my head for years. It started in          class when I drew on my work, and that in effect has been the thing i go back to                      whenever i need a time out from trying to concentrate or think. I find i can direct the            energy and concentration and turn off the chaos by getting out a pencil or a brush,                  and working on a piece of art.  Selecting and choosing colours and working on a bit of            something till it looks right, is awesome therapy for the messed up brain, it soothes it          and calms it and gives it something to look at. I guess art to me is self-medication, it            is the thing I can hyper-focus on.”

(Avril Jean, 2013)

It makes me hopeful to know that others in similar mental configurations figure out how to be at least reasonably successful in life and living with A.D.D. Avril also mentions that forming habits has helped combat a lot of the chaos that tends to make normal life things so complicated. This is something I am still working on…habits seem so unnatural to me, so innately repulsive to my more free-spirited and impulsive self, but I know that they will be vital to me accomplishing anything.

I still often end up a slave to things that just help me forget and block out the world, like video games or shows or just…drawing and not using my work for anything. I suppose part of the habit forming process will be working to un-learn my bad habits and tendencies. I’d really like to be able to find a great psychologist or some variant that could help me not only with my mental state but with getting the foundations of habits and strategies that work for me into place. I haven’t had tremendous luck there, however.

So combining the aspects of myself that are very…control freak, plus the unlimited way I view just about everything (Perceiving type MBTI) many endeavors are just too enormous – too many possibilities, too much work needed to feel I have a decent (complete enough) grasp of the information to make a decision. Add to those how easily I can lose my progress from one day to the next, and my need for an environment that won’t sabotage my attention and it feels impossible to take on anything that can’t be completed in one cram-all session on a day where I have nothing else scheduled (even small shifts at work or appointments that won’t take very much time seem to weigh down and consume a day…).

So here’s to hoping I can figure it out, and find someone who can help me with that. I hate feeling like I am wasting so much potential and talent floundering around in such an inconstant manner. I hate almost ALWAYS being at the mercy of my impulses and moods. I hate how alone I feel in it, which is also on me – shutting almost everything else out of my life in an attempt to get my dreams and future on track, while still keeping my head above water in terms of survival and basic life necessities.