The ADHD Roller Coaster🎢
+ a zine. Happy ADHD Awareness Month!
Happy ADHD Awareness Month!
ADHD is like a roller coaster: You never know what to expect. Each day a new mystery box surprise! It’s not as fun as it sounds…
One day you’re full of physical energy that both makes you feel like you can need to climb a mountain and also makes it almost impossible to sit still and focus, but your schedule is packed with Zoom meetings.
On another, your mental energy is sparking - you are creative and write and plan and build, but forget all of the admin stuff that is also on your list while you’re having fun and at the end of the day you feel like shit because you didn’t eat, or get up, or sign the field trip permission slip.
One day, you have a fun couple of hours with friends planned, but you have no energy to socialize. (You could cancel, sure, but you’re already the kind of friend who never reaches out.)
On another, you plan for a long walk, because it’s good for your mental health and prevents burnout; but then you lose track of time, and you forget, and instead you’re playing with different fonts for your business cards.
And then some days you are filled with all sorts of energy and you play with your dog, and you go for a swim, and you say yes to a dance party, and you laugh, and you take your kids to the library and the playground, and you spend hours on the phone having the best time, and you write and edit, and you create cool things, and you forget about the hard days, and you fall for this idea that this is you, and this always has and always will be you.
And then the next day, you find yourself sitting on the couch, laptop on your knees, dog curled up next to you, crying, breathing shallow breaths, the mascara and eyeliner that you put on to hide the morning tears smudged and smeared, depleted and empty.
You just never know what you’ll get! They say ADHDers are flexible, maybe it’s because we need to be?
The Rollercoaster
Overall, it’s not that our brains are frazzled all of the time, or that we never have our shit together, or that we are generally bad at friendship. It’s that we live in extremes - sometimes it feels like we are on top of the world and can do anything, and at other times everything feels so very fucking hard and like we’ll never have our shit together.
No wonder we find it hard to trust ourselves!
What I can trust is my friends who remind me to create art on hard days. So, I made my first zine (pronounced “zeen”, just like the end of the word magazine1) last week, illustrating the ADHD rollercoaster:
Takeaway: Check in with your (ADHD) people
If I didn’t write about my ADHD here, you would not know much of this, even if you know me in real life. The same is likely true for your ADHD friends. Chances are, they are hiding their hardest days really well.
So - check in with your people who are working hard to do the bare minimum and extra hard to keep up the show.
Ask what they need help with and offer support; even especially for simple things like filling out a permission slip.
What is the ADHD Roller Coaster like for you?
Looking for an ADHD coach to ride the ADHD roller coaster with you? Know someone who might benefit from working with a coach? Learn more here: https://purposefulconnection.substack.com/p/work-with-me
P.S. Sorry about the scary rollercoaster emoji!
you’re welcome. I just learned that it does not in fact rhyme with pine 🌲or wine🍷.
Nailed it Hanna! The relentless swings you describe here resonate so hard. ADHD is indeed a rollercoaster. Before I was diagnosed I didn't even know I'd bought a ticket, and now I'm diagnosed I don't want to get off the ride!
Do you believe ADHD is on a spectrum?