My Blog: ADHD Since 1978-


Success, failure, progress, learning experiences & a positive mindset.

Nothing gets us moving faster than running away from something. But in my experience, as soon as the scary monster over our shoulder isn’t right behind us, we ease up on the gas and don’t push much further. To really achieve your goals, I think it’s particularly important to have a vision of what you’re pushing for. This might sound like a semantic distinction. But I swear to you it’s important. And it helps create a positive growth mindset. I was working with a client today who had made a lot of progress in two specific areas over the previous…

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Overlapping symptoms.

First, I’d like to apologize to my regular readers for being MIA for a bit. The reason will become apparent during this post. Second, I will admit that I have lost track of a lot of the topics that I’ve written about. I think I’ve been writing this blog for about 7 years. So I’m probably going to start repeating myself. I don’t think anyone is quite avid enough of a reader to notice. But I wanted to name my own anxiety about treading the same ground, which is probably been one of the reasons that I’ve struggled to post…

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under selling attention as a society as it relates to the stimulant shortage crisis

I have seen a lot of things change in the almost 35 years since I was diagnosed with ADHD. Almost all of them have been for the better. There was a lot of, “I don’t believe in that, that’s not a real thing.” When I was younger. Seriously, people would have no problem telling me that to my face when I was like 13 years old. I think this is one of the reasons that I so strongly identify with lgbtq+ folks. Despite growing up white, suburban, and reasonably privileged, I was pretty consistently and fundamentally told, “No, you’re wrong.…

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ADHD & Anxiety & Depression

I subscribe to an ADDitude newsletter for ADHD professionals. It’s not super sciencey. Frankly, I often wish it were more in depth and cited the actual papers so I could at least read the abstract, conclusion, or methodology. But, I guess it is what it is. But the thing that baffles me is how little new is reported from reportedly new studies. I’ve been an ADHD professional for 12 or so years. I’ve been a person with ADHD for 44 years. I’ve know I had ADHD for about 34 years. And, I’ve done my best to learn about ADHD in…

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Overcompensating for our ADHD traits

whether consciously or unconsciously, many of us identify pretty early in our lives some of the ADHD trades that we would like to minimize or eliminate. It might be impulsivity, disorganization, being late, or any number of other things. Of course, there are trades that we can’t control. Otherwise ADHD wouldn’t be a legitimate diagnosis and we could just “try harder.” but there are usually some things about ourselves which, through sheer force of our will or because of overwhelming anxiety, we can work very hard to get better at. But I think we often overcompensate. It can be helpful…

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Getting Back on the Horse

So I had covid about 4 weeks ago. I was really really sick for about 36 hours. And then reasonably sick for about a week after that. I was also stuck at home with a disregulated not very sick but covid positive 8 year old. There’s also a lot going on in my household in terms of mental health with both of my kids. And thankfully, business is good. So I’ve been digging out of the covid hole for the 3 weeks since. But I would be lying if I said that that was the only reason that it’s been…

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meet yourself where you are.

It’s a principle of management. It’s a principle of parenting. It’s probably a good principle of conflict resolution. It’s a cornerstone of good teaching. You have to meet people where they are. But I find that my clients consistently forget to meet themselves where they are. As ADHD adults, we tend to be harder on ourselves than anybody else’s. Which is funny because the rest of the world often thinks that we don’t care and we’re not trying that hard. But the reality is that every little failure, mistake, misstep, or faux pas, whether real or imagined, it’s just another…

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More thoughts on ADHD and decision making

I have this weird analogy that I’ve always used to explain decision making. Imagine you’re on a river floating down in a raft. On one side is a sheer cliff. You’re not going that way. On the other side is the jungle. It may be dangerous. It may be your salvation. And then there’s the river. Better things could lie ahead. Or you could be headed straight for a waterfall. I imagine most people who are reading this blog wouldn’t have much of a frame of reference for deciding whether or not the jungle is a good idea or whether…

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IEP’s

it’s IEP review season in my house. We just did my younger son’s and are going to do my older sons in a little bit. We put that off because he’s got a little bit on his plate right now. And so do we as parents. But it made me think that it might be a good idea to cover the topic briefly on my blog. IEPs are a wonderful and mysterious thing. They allow your children with neurodiversities, mental or physical health issues, learning differences, and other issues to get a more fair and equal playing field when it…

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The Cost of Ownership

As ADHDers we are clutter prone. There is no denying it. There are many reasons why. I think I’ll probably cover that in another post. But, as you move through life and accumulate things, think about this: everything you bring in to your life has some cost after the initial cost of purchase. Even if the acquisition is free, you have to store said item. You may have to maintain it. You may have to clean it. If you move, you’ll have to move it. I am not a proponent of not having things. I have plenty of things. But…

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the cost of caring for children with mental health issues

first a note. It came to my attention that when my website change over to a new host, my blog no longer got sent out to subscribers. I think I have that situation fixed. So, if you are a long time subscriber and get this post, and it’s the first one you’ve gotten in a while, please please go back and read all of the stuff that I’ve been writing for the last 6 months. I’ve been doing it for you! Also, if you wouldn’t mind shooting me an email and letting me know that you’re getting it now, that…

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Procrastination is not a real thing

When new clients come to me, almost all of them list procrastination as an issue that they would like to work on. I don’t believe in procrastination I think it is a word that we use to describe a behavior that we don’t understand. It’s a throwaway term that damages us by labeling us as somehow inferior and maladaptive. Nobody gets up in the morning and says to themselves, “I have a really important thing to do today and if I don’t do it I’m going to be totally screwed. But you know what, I’m not going to do it…

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