ADHD During the Holidays

Whenever I attend an ADHD support group meeting during the holidays, I know with grim certainty what I'm going to hear. Even just thinking about it, my heart sinks and I wish I had a magic wand to prevent the pain I know will be occurring.

Life is difficult enough for people with ADHD, and the holiday season, while delightfully enjoyable to some, brings fresh challenges that complicate things more. Organisational, financial, physical health problems, and emotional wounds reopened are just some of the things that cause us to feel, at best, overwhelmed, and at worst a deep sense of dread.

Tom Magliozzi famously said “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” This is often true around the holidays when shining childhood memories or visions from the silver screen inflate what we expect from the season.

So how do we deal with all these pitfalls? My method is awareness and proactivity.

My family and I utilise a strategy which encompasses both these principles. At the beginning of the holiday season, we sit down and plan the events and activities that truly “make Christmas” for us. When I was younger it was important to find out if I wanted the Christmas tree put up before or after my birthday.

I also do this privately. I examine my expectations around the holidays and take steps to fulfil my own desires. I plan time for every little thing I want to happen, because I know it won't come to pass otherwise.

Not all our desires are technically in our control to meet, however. We may expect others to provide certain things for us. This of course is not in our control, unless we state openly and categorically what it is we want given to us, for example. I've used this technique with my ADHD family before. I traded surprise for more confidence in the usefulness of my presents.

What about when requesting isn't possible? In cases like this, the only remedy for me is awareness. Only when I acknowledge what is and is not likely to happen can I let go and enjoy what will be.

Awareness can also assist with those people we see over the holidays who may not “get it” when it comes to us and our ADHD. The challenges I share with my fellow ADHD brains simply make no sense to many neurotypical people, and I need to be ok with that.

And, as much as it chills me to contemplate, I may need to engage in... Small talk. Even the words make me shudder. Small talk is one of those things that people with ADHD consistently report loathing. However, awareness of this unfortunate reality allows me to gear up and prepare ahead of time, instead of unconsciously expecting something else that will inevitably be disappointed.

It's taken me 25 years to learn that my expectations can only be met by me. This seems like a very long time. However, it is half the time it has taken others, thanks to the increased awareness and education about ADHD. It has also enabled me to strive to empower others to take control of their happiness through their expectations. That is something I am grateful for.

What does the holiday season look like to you?

16 Ways Technology Helps (Me)

The definition of ‘tech shaming’ as I understand it is “To make someone ashamed of using technology, especially smartphones, portable music devices, or tablets.” The fear behind this largely unintentional practice is, I can only surmise, that use of such technology will be detrimental to the lives of those using it. I believe the use of shame to change behavior isn’t a good way to build or maintain a healthy relationship with anyone. Even, or perhaps especially, a relationship with yourself.

Whenever this concept comes into my awareness and thoughts I always think of the many, many ways technology allows me to do things I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Here is a list of just some of them.

1. Reading

The first way that jumped to my mind is the app Overdrive. That app is nothing short of a miracle for me.

2. Drive safer

Once driving became commonplace for me, my brain began to feel bored by the task. As a result, my mind wanders in search of something to occupy it. This is of course hazardous when operating a 2,800 pound piece of metal. So on long drives I started listening to podcasts. The engagement is just enough to keep me from being bored, but not so complex that I lose focus on the road. I play them from my phone through the car’s sound system so my headphones don’t interfere with my driving awareness. I’m sure my life would have been in danger if not for Welcome to Nightvale or The Benchcast.

3. Remember important things

Of course I don’t need to mention it yet again, but my reminder app.

4. Maintain long-distance friendships

For a long while I didn’t have text messaging to the United States and so my only contact with my American friends was via iMessage. Sometimes friends who share our interests don’t share our citizenship. How much emptier my life would be without those people and the technology that allows their warmth into my life.

5. Make cleaning fun!

Other things my ADHD dislikes doing separately are socializing and cleaning. Handsfree phone accessories allows me to do both at once. I once cleaned the entire house between two calls to England.

6. Stay accountable

A very effective productivity strategy for ADHD is accountability with friends. Many times I have engaged in a mutual accountability agreement with a friend or classmate via a facebook group.

7. Organize family

Recently my mother came up with a stellar organizational trick. Instead of attempting to herd my family, all of whom have executive function challenges, into an organized event, she invites us all to a Google calendar event that is added automatically to our personal calendars for us to fit into our schedules. It’s fast, it’s easy, and best of all, it’s 100% nag-free. My mother is a brilliant woman.

8. Have executive function

I’ve mentioned before, at length, how useful my smartwatch is to me.

9. Maintain awareness

And then of course there’s Google Drive and Documents.

10. Fall asleep

My phone’s proprietary timer app has a setting where the tone is “stop playing” which turns off any audio after a set amount of time. The podcast app has a similar function. This allows me to drift off to sleep without having to reach over to turn off my phone. So. Incredibly. Useful.

11. Stay asleep

Another function of my phone is the ability to schedule times when all noise (except alarms) is silenced. I view this as a technological boundary. Nobody has to worry about waking me up by texting me because I’ve taken care of when I need to sleep.

12. Have fun and exercise at the same time

Zombies, Run! and Pokemon GO are both apps that have motivated me to include exercise in my life. The trick of both of them is the fun factor that is always a good way to motivate ADHD to do just about anything.

13. Remind my future self

Because ADHD often has memory problems, the statement “Oh, I’ll remember that.” is almost always fallacious. One way I combat this problem is texting and emailing myself information. Or sometimes I’ll ask someone else to do it, if my phone isn’t in reach, say, because I’m driving.

14. Study

When the business my husband and I run together purchased an iPad, its purpose was to be able to display custom chainmail pieces at shows. It became invaluable to me in my studies and coaching business. Of course the use of tablets in business and education isn't new, but before the purchase I could not have predicted how helpful it would end up being.

15. Explain the inexplicable

When my parents were assisting me with renovations, sometimes it was difficult to verbally explain what I pictured being built or altered. I created a structure in Minecraft that visually depicted the shelf I was imagining and it made instant sense to my father.

16. Coach

Most of the above has been for my personal life, but technology has been useful in my coaching business in yet another way. Skype and text message have allowed me to use my skills to assist anyone, no matter their preferences, location, or travel abilities. And all of the above are just ideas I use. I can't imagine how many other brilliant ideas are out there working for other people right now.

The key to it all, of course, is balance. The fact that technology is harmful in some cases is obvious, though I would say it's not as simple as that. People, to quote tumblr, have been sitting inside, ignoring each other since we invented indoors. This, so say I, is nothing new. The distractions, the addictions, the disruptions are all things we, as individuals and as a global community, must learn to deal with. And the key is balance, and each person’s definition of that balance is as unique as they are.

What role does technology play in your life?

My Google Drive

A lot of us with ADHD have a love of stationery. We accumulate piles of notebooks and planners, drawers of gel pens and scented pencil crayons, and fistfuls of post-its and stickers. That blank, smooth, unblemished first page seems alive with possibilities. Maybe this time, we think to ourselves, this time is the one where I'll finally get it together.  It doesn’t help that some others are telling us to “just make a list”. All we need to do is get another organizer.

Far too often these shiny pages are filled with empty, whispered promises. We end up with a stack of books, the first handful of pages filled and the rest as blank as our hopeless stares at our chaotic lives. This happens because ADHD needs two things that so very often clash. We need structure (something we are singularly poor at providing for ourselves, but extremely adept at resisting from the world) and a system completely customized by us.

One of the ways I've created a custom system for myself is by using Google Drive, Documents, and Sheets. These provide that notebook-like space.

(Note: I've developed a habit of referencing Google Documents on a daily basis. This is not a system that would work for everyone because something based online without a reminder or alarm function would all too easily become out of sight, out of mind.)

Goal and Habit Tracking

Once the task of identifying what goals and habits a person wants to achieve is done, the next step for ADHD is to be able to maintain awareness and progress toward them. I use Google Documents to outline each step toward my goals so I can easily begin work on them as soon as I sit down at my desk. I track my habits by recording when I accomplish the habit and when I don't so I have an accurate idea of what it is I am doing, and how long it's been since I began trying to make something a habit.

Tandem Editing and Collaboration

As an avid writer I have collaborated on a number of projects in the past several years. The comment, sharing, and suggestions features of a Google Documents have enabled me to do this with complete ease. My husband has even used these functions to collaborate internationally.

Manual of Me

While training at the ADD Coach Academy to become a coach, I was taught a truly amazing strategy. Essentially it boils down to recording how you function so you don't have to reinvent the wheel each time a challenge occurs. I use Gdocs for this as well.

Wardrobe Suggestions

When I come up with an outfit I'm really proud of I always fear I will forget about it. So I've started recording either a description or a picture of the outfit in a Google Document database of my clothes. This allows me to skip the time it takes to assemble an outfit each time (which could be anywhere up to 45 minutes if I'm feeling particularly uncertain about my fashion sense).

Search

By using the “Find and Replace” feature any document turns into a searchable database of anything at all. I can instantly find out what to do if I'm feeling anxious, what outfits I've created in the past for a spring day, and what's my next step for my goal of launching my coaching business.

When something is blank, it becomes the perfect template for the ADHD brain to create what it really needs. For that other part, the structure, sometimes we need a few outside ideas. All of the above was inspired by ideas of others, then tweaked to fit me. Always search out what you need and never give up, because there are as many ideas out there as there are people to think them, times the infinity of the Internet. All we need to do is find the right one for each of us.

What do you need in your system?

App Spotlight: Remindr

A lot of people with ADHD find conventional organizational systems unhelpful at best. This circumstance isn’t helped by the judgement we feel when we reject these systems. After all, ‘everyone else’ has no problem with it.

The best system I’ve found is to simply accept that we are different, that when it comes to a lot of things, we have to make our own systems. Sometimes this includes a few layers. For example, my memory requires three layers: I use Alarmed for most things, the proprietary Apple alarm app for other things, and for another few, I use Remindr.

Remindr has an Apple-only app (sorry Android users), but it is primarily a web-based service, so anyone can use it. You enter a message for yourself into the online dashboard, select the date, time, frequency of repeat, and mode of delivery. It will text message, email, and/or send you an automated call.

In addition to nuts and bolts reminders, I decided to put Remindr to a more whimsical use. I combed the internet for positive affirmations and entered one for every day of the month. Some days the words were exactly what I needed to hear. It’s like encouragement from me to me.

What layers does your organizational system have?

The Paradox of Accumulative Action

There is a well-known strategy for accomplishing a large task that was first explained to me by the FlyLady. Marla’s essential concept is 15 minutes of decluttering a day piles up over time until before you know it your home is under control. It has many more nuances and helpful layers than that, but that is the core principle.

I have put this into practice in my own life in many ways. Decluttering is one (though I must confess most of my decluttering happens in large, unintentionally overwhelming chunks), knitting is another, and working on goals one step per day. Another way is the restocking list that we use at Ringcrafts to slowly recreate products sold to customers for our next show.

The most fascinating thing about the 15-minutes-a-day principle to me is its paradoxical counterpart. Just as 15 minutes can accumulate to accomplish great things, so can small, inconsequential things wear a human mind down to the point where they are wallowing in a pit, with no idea how they got there.

A critical comment isn't that hard to deal with, for most of us. Or being late for an appointment, once. Or breaking a plate. Or losing your keys. Or hearing of the death of a favourite actor. Or having to cancel time of relaxation in favour of work. All of these things on their own are not noticeably detrimental, in the natural course of things.

What if they all added up? Little things, over time, just poking at us, draining little bits of our energy, wearing down our ability to function. It happens. It happens to everyone, at one time or another. And then what happens if something really huge hits us? What's left in reserve to bring to bear on the new problem?

The one half of this paradox is the other's solution. It does take effort, though, to consciously decide to take that 15 minutes per day for ourselves, to do whatever it is that recharges our ability to function properly. And it takes courage to be honest with ourselves about what that is.

Are you ready for that challenge?

Pill Pod System

Something I recently learned about ADHD is often we can't use existing systems. Even such basic things as planners and forms; we need to alter them to specifically fit us. This is something I've been doing for a long time.

A perfect example of that is my pill pod system. I need certain medications available to me at all times, and I hate having things rattling in my bag.

The little pods that contain the surprise in a Kinder egg are perfect for carrying pills. They are durable, easy to write on with a permanent marker, and easy to open and close.

Two cotton balls will keep the pills from making any noise therefore increasing privacy surrounding medications. Keeping them blank and unlabeled will also help with visual privacy.

They will even fit chewable antacids. If the medication you need is in a blister pack, cut each pill out of the sheet in a smooth oval or circle to avoid sharp pointed edges.

Write any dosages on a slip of paper and include inside the pod.

I refill the pods as soon as they become empty so I am guaranteed the medication when I need it. A great way to do this is text or email myself a reminder as soon as I notice.

Warnings:

- When traveling across international borders, always keep prescription medication in its original containers. Never use this system when traveling internationally.

- These pods are a neon sign for children. I would not feel at all comfortable allowing this system near children because of the potential hazards. A way to avoid this hazard would be to keep the pods in a container inaccessible to children, such a small, locked box, in the bag, purse, or desk.

- I also haven't been able to confirm that they are made from food safe plastic. They are sold with an edible product so it makes sense to me they would be, but the Internet has not yet furnished me with confirmation either way.