mental-health – Positive, Yet Cynical

Finding myself as a Writer with ADHD.

This year I set myself the goal of really focusing on my writing more and getting myself into a position where my novel draft (or drafts) are done and I am in a position to publish some poetry in 2027 as well as start being in an editing/publishing mindset that year for my novel(s).

Ambitious, right? It especially is when you have ADHD. I thought I’d write a little post (because you know, that’s how I express myself) about the different things I have learned in my writing stages while also tackling my extremely overactive hyper brain!

ADHD is a blessing when it comes to writing, having an overactive mind can be amazing because I am full of ideas every single day. The trick is, to plan it out constructively and not overwhelm myself with too many ideas at once.

How do I do this? Well, instead of giving up on novel 1 and diverting to something different every other day. I started a ‘writing jar’. When I have an idea for a plot or a story, I jot it down on a piece of paper and put it in the jar. That way I won’t forget the story idea (because my brain be forgetful) but I’m not losing focus on what I want to currently work on.

There’s a lot of good classes and workshops out there to progress in writing. But they’re not all for me.

One common issue with ADHD, is the impulsiveness we’re pre-wired with. It’s easy to see something advertised and jump on it (much to my bank balances dismay). Trying to get myself into a good position as a writer, means I found myself very easily attracted to any kind of advice book or workshop that involved writing. However, every writer and their writing style is different.

As an example, one thing I have learned for me personally.. all-day online workshops are not for me. It’s nothing against those workshops, it’s a me thing. If I attend a day workshop in person I’m fine. There’s just something about being online watching something for a consecutive number of hours sitting in my flat alone, I find myself too distracted and I can’t engage. I’m not going to beat myself up about it. It’s a learning curve and I now know that sticking to certain workshops that are a maximum of 2.5-3 hours an evening are the one’s I can stick with.

I also found myself diving in to too many various types of writing courses. Truthfully, I am fascinated by a wide variety of genres, I read pretty much anything. I’d love to be able to write novels that are not always exactly the same type of trope or genre. But what I have had to learn is, focus on one at a time. The novel I am working on currently is enough, any other ideas can go into the jar for now.

Also, as cheesy as it sounds.. if something is meant to be, it’ll find me at the right time. I shouldn’t push myself to do more beforehand.

The most difficult thing I find with ADHD and trying to write, is I am hyper-fixated on ideas and plots every day when I am not at my desk or with a notepad in hand. When it comes to the times I want to write it all out, my brain is fried and the motivation seems to have dug its own coffin deep underground. How I try to navigate around this? I have started doing things in ‘small doses’ rather than pushing myself to do large chunks, I’ll give myself small timeframes to just work on something. Whether it is jotting down a poem, working on my novel draft or general writing my feelings in a prose piece, I set small time schedules e.g. 30 minutes a night. Then, if I manage to feel inspired to do longer, fabulous. If I don’t, at least that’s half hour done on something. It’s better than nothing after all.

Now to my next point. And probably most importantly, the biggest struggle with ADHD is a lovely little side condition called RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria). I struggle with this in general day to day life, but with writing it is ten times harder. I might still be working on novel writing, but my blog posts and poetry pieces are shared on social media often. Whether it’s algorithms playing up a bit so people aren’t engaging enough, or people don’t like what I’m sharing (which is allowed, we all have opinions), I overwhelm myself too much with the lack of likes or engagements that my posts get.

I try hard not to, and as part of trying to change my mindset into a more positive one (like my writing, it’s a work in progress), I am trying not to use the number of likes (or lack of) as an indication of who I am as a writer. I need to remember why I am writing and how much I have progressed as a writer in recent times. This should be my mindset, not upset myself over thinking that social media is an indication of what my talents are.

Like with everything I write and do. It is all a learning curve, a work in progress. I’m hoping that this post makes a bit of sense – it is another typical Zoë waffling random rubbish thing so apologies if it’s all just a mess and doesn’t really give any good answers.

Just remember that having ADHD (or any condition that might make you work a bit differently for that matter) isn’t always a curse.

Everyone works in their own ways and own pace, there’s no right or wrong way to proceed.

Modern Common Phrases We Need To Stop Using

We go through life learning many little quotes and phrases, some more famous than others e.g. ‘everything happens for a reason’ – but there’s a lot of quotes that have become regularly used and influenced in recent years that have started to bug me, and I really wish would stop being the narrative people use for various situations. So not that anyone asked for it, but here are my bug bear common phrases that I think we need to eliminate and why…

“If they wanted to they would” – I’m beyond sick of hearing/reading this all over the place. I don’t think it’s really that simple, at all. I may get a bit of backlash on this one because a lot of people feel very passionately about this however, my stance on this is, it is never that simple. We are now living in a world where we are beyond overstimulated all of the time. Our brains are acting non-stop against us. From my own personal experience, I have had situations where I really want to reach out and do something, but there are so many other things that get in the way. Not to mention the fear of how it would be received. Everyone is stuck in their own internal bubble and sometimes people back away for their own personal reasons, maybe it’s too much right now, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t ‘want to’.

Not to mention, as a heavy reader – I have read so many books where the main trope of the book consists of one of the main characters being in love with the other one and the other, has no clue (until later in the book obviously), which just goes to show how common it is that people will struggle with what to say or hide away from what they want through fear. I am not saying everyone who doesn’t appear to ‘make an effort’ cares or is in love with you, but what I am saying is that it is genuinely not that simple. Period.

“That’s just how I am” – I will keep this short and sweet. This narrative is generally used when someone is trying to justify their own poor behaviours or personalities when they refuse to accept someone else’s boundaries or needs. Self-awareness is important. You don’t have to change your entire personality to suit someone else, but you DO need to look more into “I need to work on that” then expecting everyone to cater to you when you would not do the same as them. It’s about balance.

“Other people have it worse” – Why are we always in a competition to see who has the worst time of things, seriously? We seem to forget that everyone has their own boundaries, their own traits and habits, different things will hurt people. I think the problem is that people who have been through trauma, can’t understand how someone who is going through something ‘minor’ to them is so down and hurting. But life is not a competition. In any way. We can’t compare our levels of sadness or success to someone else, as it will always be perceived differently per person. It is okay for anyone to feel however they want to feel about a situation, and they shouldn’t be victimised into feeling like their sadness or their problems do not matter just because someone else ‘had it worse’.

I think I’m done with my little night time vent now about annoying phrases, obviously these are just my own views on things and some people might not like it or think very differently to it but thanks for reading my vent anyway if you made it this far 🙂

A Reflection of Feelings Lately

I’ve been a bit off the grid lately with my writing and blog posts, a lot of it is down to May being a really busy month where I turned 40 and had loads of different fun things to do and lots of events and occasions followed by back to work which made my free-time pretty minimal.

The other side of it though, is that I’ve been a bit all over the place emotionally as I try to process a lot of different things and finally take the time to put the work into different parts of me that I want to work on.

The motivation to write has been pretty poor, but I know that will pass. I’ve just been trying to adjust to different feelings lately and also trying to figure out where the hell I want to go and what I want to do.

My brain has always been chaotic, it’s just how it works. I’m not very good at planning ahead or being organised with things I want to do, that’s unfortunately a part of me I think I can never change drastically. So a lot of the time, my actions are spontaneous and I say and do things too quickly. I am trying to work on that, I know I can’t completely change my brain function and who I am or how I feel about things, but I can at least try to step away and breathe a little before I do something.

As you know, if you’ve read some of my other posts, I have ADHD and a lovely dash of anxiety disorder, which means I function with anxious attachment styles and constantly stressing and overthinking every scenario possible. It means my brain never shuts off, and every single conversation or event in my life gets a whole series of panic and overthinking afterwards. But one of my biggest issues is, I dump my loneliness on other people a bit too much, and start depending on hearing from people or getting messages etc and if I don’t then I make the assumption that it’s obviously because they don’t like me, hate something I’ve said, want to erase me from their life. (Yes, I am that dramatic)

The thing is, it was only recently when I started going through some stuff and taking time away from my phone and not actively messaging constantly that I started to realise what it was like on the other side of things. I have been intentionally spending less time on social media, leaving my phone at home, not checking Whatsapp often and acknowledging messages are there but not getting around to replying to them for a day or so later, and I realised that, I have no idea what the other people around me are going through and what their reasons may be for not reaching out or talking to me. It took me being in a position where I needed to get away from things for my own personal reasons and take some time to reflect and work on my own thought processes that I thought, this isn’t a personal retaliation to anyone I know. This is about something I need to do right now and we are sadly in a generational lifestyle now where we all expect immediacy in everything. In reality, I can’t give anyone immediate attention right now, I’m working on a lot of important things in the background for myself and it doesn’t change what I think or feel about somebody.
We never know what another person is thinking or feeling. I have people that I can’t talk to, for different reasons I won’t go into. But it doesn’t erase the fact that I still have them in my thoughts consistently or still feel a certain way or care about them. I have family members I don’t talk to for weeks and I don’t question if we’re still related, it’s all about understanding that we all have our own stuff going on. None of our brains are the same and we all handle different things in our own ways. I’m glad I sort of went into a ‘block out’ mode recently, as it has really helped me see things in a different way.

I’ve still got a lot of things I want to do, and I’m hoping to have some really productive writing underway in the next few weeks, but it is hard (I will do a different post on writing struggles later) but I am taking things one step at a time. Trying to understand my own brain and find new ways to do things or look at things, even when my brain will actively go into anxious chaos mode and try to make me see the worst.

I’m not entirely sure what the point of me posting all this was, other than having an outlet to express why I’ve been so quiet and also let out a little bit of how my mind works and my brain is feeling.

I think I just have to remind myself that not every feeling I have is as factual as I think it is, and also working on myself right now is the most important thing I can do and it is okay to put that first and the right people will understand that, just as I am coming to understand not to feel so negatively and get personally upset if people around me are needing to do the same.

Battling Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever felt like everything is a case of luck and that you’re the one who’s always unlucky? Do you always feel like no matter how accomplished you might feel with something, it’s not quite good enough, or even if it does meet your standards, that you don’t deserve it, and someone out there is going to expose you and remind you? If you feel like this a lot, then chances are that you’re just like me and you struggle with Imposter Syndrome.

I can’t remember a time where I didn’t feel overwhelmed with the idea of perfectionism. Everything has to be in some form of perfect perceived way otherwise it’s not real. Not to mention, I consistently feel like I don’t deserve any of the positivity or credit. I’m always reminding myself that there’s someone out there that is better than me, or deserves more than I do.

Social media doesn’t help, when we are constantly battling for likes and attention on every platform possible and it is beyond degrading when it feels like no-one likes what I’m putting out there to the world. Imposter syndrome is especially hard when I’m struggling to be a writer. I have a jar I keep filling with random novel ideas (I’m not kidding, it’s a literal glass jar on my writing desk that I shove little idea notes in to come back to later), constantly coming up with and posting poetry and prose. But I always feel like I am never going to be deserving of being good enough to make it in the writing world.

One really big symptom of Imposter syndrome that I wasn’t aware of until recently when I dug a bit deeper into the background of it, is burnout and overworking. This is something I am so guilty of. It’s really bad the things I do to my body to overwork myself into some form of perfectionism. I have skipped meals multiple times, worked insanely long hours, slept late because I feel like if I don’t prove myself and put things out there right now that everyone will realise I am useless and a fraud.

It’s a horrible vicious cycle that I don’t quite know how to push myself out of. The bizarre reality of it all is, I’ve not had anyone (yet) insult my writing skills, or what I post, or made me feel like I’m rubbish and wasting my time at my dream. So why am I in a position where I feel like the moment something officially happens for me, that I’ll be exposed as someone who is never good enough?

The truth is, I have no idea. All I can do is ride the waves of the lows and hope that I can prove my own inner demons and self doubts wrong. The truth is there will be people out there who won’t back me, who won’t enjoy whatever work I put out there. That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to live my dream though does it?

Writing has become my therapy with imposter syndrome and trying to battle it and overcome it in my own little ways. It’s easy for me to write sad poetry, or prose about being broken or failing, but now I’m trying to lean towards writing more positive things. Big myself up more. Remind myself that we are all deserving of the lives we really want. Whether I overcome imposter syndrome and make something out of my dreams, only time is going to tell on that one.

But I’m not going to give up. Watch this space.