A fundamental part of my music is anger. Even if it’s quiet anger, or pretty anger, or glittery anger… it’s still anger. I would not trade this in for anything; it’s at the core of my whole mission, and I’ll be honest: I very well might stop the mission if I ceased to be angry.
Also: I carry out my life in a measured, thoughtful manner most of the time (save the human lapse now and then). I choose words carefully, I allow folks quiet, I employ nuance, I try hard to make people feel accepted and listened to.
All of that – the anger, the thoughtfulness, the kindness – comes from having always felt different in some nondescript way, and, as a result, having ALSO felt out of control and destructive and self-loathing and powerless and neglected and sickeningly misunderstood, and, yes, even resentful and seethingly jealous.
Again… I wouldn’t be me otherwise, so I wouldn’t change a thing.
But the difference I always felt… which, okay, was maybe PARTLY queerness… was mainly something else. A vague deficiency, a systemic meltdown, a thirty-seven-car mental pile-up, an uncontrollable malfunctioning I couldn’t nail down, that made a few select types of banal activities – usually related to learning, working memory, and communication – inexplicably insurmountable for me.
First I was positive it was ADHD, then I was thoroughly convinced it wasn’t… and now, I’m back to not being so sure. Why? Well, somehow, after years of research, I am only just now stumbling upon the concept of “pervasive” versus “situational” ADHD. I believed that, surely, to signal a clinical situation, these difficulties would need to rear their heads and screw with me in multiple areas of life. If that’s not so… then I have a considerable lot to think about.
Some may ask why it matters. Well, it’s not so much the label that matters, but accurately defining my challenges to equip myself for those times at work when the task required of me strains the limits of my capacity and no one’s around for me to hide behind. There’s also the matter of learning the art of self-advocacy even in the absence of an official diagnosis, which is something against which I’ve traditionally had a mental block.
So far, what this experiment has involved is:
-My finding a local ADHD coach via Google search and submitting an inquiry form, then having a free 30-min. Zoom consultation with her during a lunch break.
-Our hitting it off quite well. Her confirming that, while she doesn’t require someone to have a diagnosis to work with them (and doesn’t see much value in my continuing to pursue a diagnosis at this point), my particular experiences do strike her as typical of a certain manifestation of adult ADHD, to the point that she deemed me a suitable candidate for the type of coaching she offers.
-My taking last weekend to think it over, then today signing off on a 12-week program that will involve seeing her once a week over Zoom. There will be exercises/activities to help disentangle the proverbial clusters that build up in certain types of situations. I’ll be keeping a journal (some of which I will no doubt share here) to increase my awareness of what goes haywire under particular conditions, hopefully in the interest of heading some of it off. We’ll also discuss certain communication strategies and other tools that I can try out at work.
Worst case scenario, I’ll enjoy the comfort of having a professional to talk to in the midst of a rough workday.
So, there it is. Another endeavor aimed at improving my quality of life. Stay tuned, folks…
The Sold Kingdom 
Leave a comment