Neurodivergent

Tag: basic-access

  • Do You Wanna Be an ADHD Coach: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself

    Do You Wanna Be an ADHD Coach: 7 Questions to Ask Yourself

    ADHD coaches seem to be becoming trending in our world. So, I got to wonder: Who wants to become and ADHD coach, and why? Do they know what it takes to become one and what they’d be getting into?

    My questions arise for three mains reasons:

    • one, because one of the most read posts at this blog is the one about my nightmare at ADDCA, which leads me to think there are many people seeking seriously how to prepare for this profession; 
    • two, because the ADHD world is quite vast and complex, and those ADHD coach training courses make it seem like becoming a coach can take you a couple of years.
    • Three, because the ADHD world is also quite sensitive and everything related to it seems to be becoming a business: ADHD coaches, journals; fidgeting toys; apps! … And it makes me fear about us.

    This is a special world; not a business opportunity nor a world we can fully comprehend with a few courses or books. Every hyper neurodivergent is different; there’s a lot to learn about neuroscience and psychology (for instance); our community is still unraveling what ADHD is [1], and … it’s a lot.

    A good ADHD coach can help improving the life of a hyper neurodivergent; absolutely. But this person can also have a bad impact in our lives, leaving us frustrated and stuck in a loop of low-self-esteem and unproductively for days, weeks or more.

    Therefore, I thought I might help you with some questions; think about them as a roadmap to figure out if this is the career path you’re willing to take, and you’ll enjoy taking.

    1) Do You Know What an ADHD Coach Is and Does?

    When we seek for help, we usually have two or three persons in our team: 

    • A psychiatrist specialized in ADHD, who conducts the diagnosis and screening tests, and eventually provides for us medication if necessary and guides us through the process of finding the right one for us.
    • A CBT therapist specialized in ADHD (where CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapist)
    • A therapist: because, in many cases, the symptoms of our ADHD may be getting in the middle of our success due unresolved issues from our past, or because we get overwhelmed by the issues in our present and we don’t know how to face them.

    With those people we have a doctor-patient relationship, and sometimes is not enough; sometimes we need “a push”, someone who can help us to “do stuff.” This person is an ADHD Coach.

    An ADHD coach, provides for a client guidance towards one goal, in a short term. [i] I like to think about an ADHD coach as a “Neuro Instructor,” because this person has the knowledge on how an ADHD brain works and also strategies to help us cope with our ADHD towards that one goal.

    Think about being the guide and cheerleader for a person who wants to do “one thing;” for instance: learn how to manage their time; commit to start or to finish a project; understand the impact of their ADHD on their behavior; etc.

    I dare to say that if your client wants eventually to continue working with you, endlessly, is because they need a CBT therapist instead or a therapist – plain and simple – to work on what may have been holding them back from thriving.

    2) Are You Hyper Neurodivergent Or Related to Someone Who Is?

    A person with ADHD, has a brain that works in a different way; we talk about  neurodiversity (which is not a medical term) for advocacy purposes, to put an emphasis on our necessity to be understood and heard. We are part of a whole wide world that is going to be very difficult to understand if you’re not ADHD or if you’re not directly related to someone who is (a relative, or someone you live with)

    Having control over our executive functions is our biggest challenge; time management, behavioral regulation, adjusting to the neurotypical rules, everything that a non-neurodivergent takes for granted is an exhausting battle in our world. 

    Amidst those battles and the tornado of thoughts within our hyperactive brain, for many of us it is very hard to shush all the noise so that we find our inner voice, the one that can tell us what to do, what’s better for us, how to take – what to others may seem – the simplest decisions.

    Bottom line is that there are insights about our lives that, if you’re not HN or directly related to someone who is, are going to take you a long time to unveil; this is simply what I’m saying. I am not pointing this out as condition to be a better ADHD coach. Ok? Ok.

    3) Have you done some serious research on what ADHD is?

    You may have seen social media threads with hyper neurodivergents saying, “That happens to me too! Are we clones?” You may have gone further and read articles on online magazines, and even a blog or two written by someone who has ADHD. Truth to be told, it often feels like we’re clones, but we are far from being equal. 

    To understand the HN world, consider the ADHD subtypes and their symptoms as variables you’ll need to analyze with others, such us: your client’s upbringing, education, support system, environment, etc. These other variables make a huge impact on how we manage our ADHD. What works for one client, could be unbearable for another one.

    If you’re coming from the neurotypical world, bear in mind that probably everything you might know about human behavior and think that might help us, it most certainly won’t. 

    My point is: this is such a special world, that I strongly suggest you to first learn as much as you can about it, before going on full “I’m gonna be coach” mode.

    4) Would you enjoy learning about neuroscience, psychology, pedagogy, constantly?

    ADHD is about science; ADHD is about training a brain that works in a different way. Motivational strategies, time management strategies, study techniques, pep talks and else, do not work for us as they do on neurotypicals. 

    You’ll need, for instance, the knowledge on the following fields:

    • Neuroscience, to understand how a brain works, and how an ADHD brain differs. 
    • psychology, to understand the behavior of a child, a teenager, an adult; and then, to understand how that behavior is affected by ADHD;
    • pedagogy, to help you come up with strategies!

    Am I saying “become an expert in those fields”? No. I am simply saying you’d need to have an educated comprehension on what ADHD is, with the help you can find in those fields. And, you’ll need to continue studying, because ADHD findings are in constant evolution.[2]

    You won’t be offering professional advice per se (medical nor psychological), unless you’re a doctor or a therapist of course; but still, you’d need to be up to date with the latest findings because we never know when one research could change the way we understand ADHD. This means putting your hands on the latest research; besides the fact that these are expensive, if you’re not familiar with reading these sort of papers you’ll be facing a long road.

    But please: do not feel discourage on this. It takes practice but it’s doable. Ok? Ok.

    5) How Would You Train to Become an ADHD Coach?

    As far as I’m concerned, most people take courses to get certified, and… that won’t guarantee you a proper education. If you’d ask me, I encourage you to become an “ADHD professional” instead.

    How to do that? Well, these are for instance the steps I took (and continue taking):

    1. Learning how a brain works and how an ADHD brain works (with books and researches on neuroscience, psychology, etc)
    2. Learning what are the main ADHD struggles (with books on coaching; blogs written by Hyper Neurodivergents; and hey, they are good researches on this as well)
    3. Come up with strategies to cope with those struggles (I do this from my personal experience and my background on education)

    There are great books, even some with a very friendly language, that will offer you information on all of the above, including coaching strategies.

     

    5. Who and Why Do You Want to Help As An ADHD Coach?

    Children, teenagers, adults? And, when you think about ADHD, do you think about ADD too? If you do so, choose one because there is a big difference. 

    An example: I decided to focus on adults and young adults in the search of new beginnings, such us new jobs, new college careers, for instance. Why? Mainly for two reasons:

    1) Because I was able to thrive without diagnosis nor treatment, and it breaks my heart to pieces to see how many hyper neurodivergents can’t find a true calling or can’t manage to finish the career path they’ve chosen;

    2) My experience on transiting the “University world” more than once, and my background on education have already given me plenty of tools to manage my ADHD to study, work and to be extremely organized.

    Who and Why. The less the better. By selecting this – let’s say – “path” for you, you are going to have a clear goal and you’ll be able to specialize on ADHD further, deeper. 😉

    7) Do You Feel a True Calling?

    The ADHD world is a wonderful and quite sensible one; you’ll feel you’re learning from us, more than once. We are very reliable people; we believe there is good in everyone, so we are going to believe in you. Thus, one line from your mouth, even with your best intentions, could go south and mess up with our minds big time.

    Are you willing to take that huge responsibility?

    As I said at the beginning, this is a special World; not a business opportunity. All things ADHD seem to be turning into a business; coaches, apps, journals, fidgeting toys; and many of us are so desperate to do something with our lives that are willing to get it all right now.

    Please, don’t take this path for the money. 

    We need ADHD coaches for their calling; we need them for their love, commitment, understanding and knowledge.

    Ask yourself, with your hand over your heart: Could you be the one for us?

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  • ADHD Brain Freeze and Stagnation: Welcome to the S-Zone

    ADHD Brain Freeze and Stagnation: Welcome to the S-Zone

    Have you ever imagined the person you would hate to become? Have you ever feared it so much that thinking about it was your worst daymare? I have.

    Here it is: It is the end of the world (I shit you not) There are zombies eating brains in the streets; neurotypicals brains only; zombies are not stupid. I am in my sixties; I am a fat old lady, with long grey and messy hair, wearing an NYC hoodie I bought during the Big Bang and to which I held on to with the unbreakable hope of seeing the Big Apple one last time.

    My house – where I’ve been locked up since the zombies arrived – is falling apart. I had started to flip it before “the arrival”, but then, ADHD + zombies = “do cows sleep on their feet?” I live alone; I don’t want to rescue pets because everybody dies or leave, and I can’t handle any more pain.

    I survive. 

    That’s all I do. 

    Oh, my dildo still works.

    I am armed up to my teeth, and I do not ever open the door… But then one day, I see through my window a group of teenagers trying to escape the zombies, and I do; I open my door to them. I welcome them feeling they are disgustingly young and beautiful, while I’m watching how the blondie is about to get chopped by a booby trap I’ve forgotten to mention (oops) 

    They tell me they know about a place where one can build a safe future; they have been running towards it, and they won’t give up. And they want my truck; they saw I have gallons of gas, so they say to me, “let’s fill it up and go! Why didn’t you leave before?” My life flashes before my eyes, a tornado of thoughts hit me, and I can’t answer …

    The zombies break in and I feel one person must stay behind to fight them while the group gets in the truck… The sad truth is I’m too tired to even think about lifting my leg to jump into the truck. So I say, “You go.” And I die; only because I’ve put some of the blondie’s brain over my head; duh.

    But as I’m being eaten, I see them escaping towards their future and I feel envy… I think, “Why didn’t ‘I’ get out? Was I always so tired of surviving that I forgot how to live?” My life flashes before my eyes and my last thought is, “If only I…”

    Now, Seriously

    Years ago, I started writing that story just to vent, because my daymare is pretty much like that and I needed to do some catharsis. I have always feared to become that old lady who lives across the street and gets out from time to time; that one of whom people talk about saying, “They say she had a great future, and no one knows why she didn’t get through.”

    Why am I thinking about this today? Because a few weeks ago I entered – drum roll please – the stagnation zone. 

    That’s how I call it; when we get so burned out that we get stuck for days, weeks… even months if we don’t do something about it.

    How did I get here? Back in December I was juggling with a lot of projects, and a lot of things happened that stressed me out; I should have taken a break as I was taking care of those things, but I didn’t… When those things happened, I felt as if someone had thrown at me three more balls at once; and so eventually I ended up dropping them all, over my fucking my head.

    Living With ADHD and Entering the S-Zone

    You know… When I leave my house, I say to myself, “You’re leaving the house.” (Once again, “I shit you not.”) I can get so distracted in the streets, that my ex-husband used to say I’d die under a bus. 

    That being said, a couple of weeks ago I was crossing a street thinking, “Wait for the white light, the white little figure…” and out of nowhere it hit me: I am about to turn an age that FREAKS ME OUT.

    So right there in the middle of the street, I got to wonder, “What am I doing? What have I achieved? I have nothing. Can I still pull it off?” I felt a rush taking over me, and then I froze. I “dropped the balls,” but I did manage to get to the sidewalk. It’s not my ghost writing this post; chill.

    When I get those seriously negative thoughts, is when I know I have entered the S-Zone; so I refuse them immediately; I block them; I know it’s time to begin my rehab.

    Before my diagnosis, before knowing this was an ADHD thing, I use to fall in long periods of depression, ruminating about how shitty my life was when it wasn’t.

    Just To Be Clear…

    I was going to send a couple of newsletters with a series of posts, so you wouldn’t think I am not working for this blog. I also was afraid to show you how much I struggle because I want you to find strength in my stories…

    But then I wondered, “what if you find comfort in seeing how much I struggle too?”

    I was very doubtful about publishing this post; I didn’t want you to think, “And how about all that gratitude you’ve been practicing, and college, and blah? Was that a lie?” It wasn’t… It isn’t… I still do my thing every morning; I am still excited about coming back to a class; but I am just having “a few of those weeks.”

    When I enter the S-Zone, I can’t do much; I can’t do anything truly productive actually; so I fake a vacation… I decorate my house with a few things from NYC to make it look like a hotel, and I try – “I try” – not to work more than four hours per day, or not to work at all.

    And this is one of the reasons why I decided to post this: because I can stop working, but how about those of us who can’t? The stagnation is an ADHD thing, and I believe we should have the right to ask for a leave of absence at our jobs.

    How Does Stagnation Feels Like?

    The way I see it, this is like having car fueled by solar panels; when it runs out of energy it gets stuck. We could pull it for a few blocks with some help, but it’s not going to get further than that; and how exhausting would be to pull such a dead weight? How much it would hurt us to do so?

    It needs time to recharge, and we need to wait for the sun… Just wait…The more we pull, the longer is going to take us to recover. 

    Why am I still here if I know how to get out? Because after that day I realized I had entered the S-Zone, I didn’t slow down; I kept pulling and pushing… so now I’m paying for it. 

    How to Cope With the ADHD Stagnation

    For the past few days, I surrendered to it with grace. I know it’s going to pass; if I take this downtime the right way, one of these mornings I’ll wake up and I’ll feel recharged; I’ll have new and fresh ideas, I’ll be able to hyperfocus and catch up. The car is not dead nor broken; it just needs a recharge and time. (“ugh, waiting,” I know…)

    It’s a period to do introspection,

    • How did I get here?
    • What’s been stressing me?

    And also a period to pull a Marie Kondo on our brains; there may be unnecessary thoughts getting in the way, or even good projects which need to be on pause. 

    I’ve decided, for instance, that I won’t be taking the finals in the upcoming weeks, and I gave up a project which I wasn’t really working on, but it was getting in the middle. Some of my decisions hurt; but I know is for the best.

    Cleanance and priorities. This is what the period is about. And “pride”, the pride of knowing we live with a chaotic brain and still we kick ass. I shouldn’t have killed the blondie… I am so much cooler than her.

    oOo

    Now, right now, this is all I can do.

    “Sorry” comes to my mind and I say “fuck, no”. I am not going to apologize for my mental health.

    I am not down nor defeated; today I was able to open my heart with no shame and hit publish; and maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll see my path clearly again and I’ll resume my life as if nothing had happened. 

    I am just having a few of those weeks, you know? … I just… I just have ADHD.

    Thank you for reading.

  • How Studying Can Be the Ultimate ADHD Brain Training Strategy

    How Studying Can Be the Ultimate ADHD Brain Training Strategy

    The times I’ve told someone with ADHD, “have you considered taking a course, studying something?”, they looked at me as if I had told them, “have you considered going to the dentist?” It’s as if they’d sensed I’ve seen a crooked tooth or something and fixing it is going to hurt.

    Studying with ADHD can be a challenge for many of us, and even something that feels impossible to achieve; for me, it has been a recovery place, a training strategy.

    And this is what I did after practicing gratitude had re started my engines; this is the second step I took to gain control of my life and purpose.

    Let’s Get Something Clear

    Question! When you think about getting an education, what do you think of? Do you think about a structured and boring thing that’s going to take a long time? It doesn’t have to be like that…

    Example! In case you feel I’m telling you that have you a crooked tooth: I found a free tutorial on Web Design (for our Instagram Posts!) that’s super cool: it’s split in like eight videos of 2 minutes or so. 🤗

    After having watched it, the outcome was a quick, fun and effective boost of dopamine, and… knowledge!

    When I invite someone to consider “taking a course”, I am not preaching “go to school.” All I am saying is,“take your brain for a run, with a goal.” It’s exercise!

    If we think about education, outside the box and in a very brief way, it is simply a clear and rewarding path towards a goal; that goal can be a cool Instagram post or the neuroscience behind ADHD.

    How Education Can Be a Training Place for Our ADHD Brain

    You know…, people treat me as if I was a nerd/weirdo when I say that studying saved my life, more than once; and even though I am a nerd and a cool weirdo 🤷🏻‍♀️, there’s much more behind that. 

    Quick story! When I began recovering emotionally from my brain collapse (when I couldn’t even remember my own signature), I took a few and short online courses on Web Development.

    Besides being useful for me, I was interested in the abstract knowledge, in a place where I would hyperfocus on semicolons and brackets instead of words. Coding, in my case, leaves no room for bad or futile thoughts.

    During the first weeks I was able to pay attention to the videos for 15 minutes or so; then 30, an hour, two, three… After three months, I was happier and willing to write again, … and I recalled how to sign a document with my name 🥴.

    I also say very often “this or that helped me saving my life”, which may lead one to believe that I am underestimating the concept of saving one’s life; but I am not. I have lived for decades surviving traumas with an untreated ADHD, and studying played a huge role in my survival.

    Getting an education is for me like a skateboard I jump in to move forward, to leave a bad state of mind quickly and to feel “rewarded.”

    From Practicing Gratitude to Exercising Consistency

    By August of 2021, I was sort of achieving a masters on practicing gratitude, but I was also a tiny bit afraid of failing again and letting the wakeup call boost fade away. And it was August! That’s when I get the “August rush”, remember?

    I was on the right path, but I wasn’t at my best yet. I wanted to come back to this blog and I couldn’t write for more than two hours per week; hence, I needed to practice “consistency, commitment.”

    So! I chose to resume a career I had to put on hold in 2007 because, well, back then I was an adult with an undiagnosed ADHD and studying wasn’t as easy as it had been when I was in my twenties; the undesired symptoms, they do get worse with age.

    One may think why I didn’t choose something simpler and short-termed; but in this case, for me it was. I came back to the same University, thus they recognized me half of the semester I had passed in 2007.

    And, above all, I had a very clear vision of what I was going to do and why.

    Setting Our Own Goals

    When I signed up, I did something that I consider very important for us with ADHD: I set for myself my own goals, regardless of what was expected of me. I thought,

    “I don’t know if I’ll be able to study this much again, at this age, while I’m working. So, I’m just going to focus on attending the classes and passing the mid-term tests; if I can take the finals too, awesome; if not, I’ll take them on March.”

    Furthermore, since I still work for my dream of moving to NYC for good, the world is such a mess and I didn’t know what would happen this year, I also said to myself,

    “Right now it’s not my goal to finish this career; I just wanna study this semester. And I am going to take it as test for myself; if I can do it, awesome; if I can’t, I’ll see what else I’d need to do.”

    The Outcome

    It was freaking painful 🤦🏻‍♀️.

    But I did it! And I passed two classes with a 100% and one with a 90%. How-about-that!

    Doing that semester helped me with the following, for instance:

    • I remembered I used to use “weekly planners” (instead of “daily planners”) to cope more efficiently with my time-blindness;
    • I had to work in groups (ugh, righ?) and bit by bit I re gained more control over my hyperactive brain and my emotions, and I was able to be forgiven and patient with those humans thinking inside the boxes (#sorrynotsorry)

    Studying is not only about the degrees but also about what it can do for us.

    An ADHD Training Place

    When we search for tools to cope with our ADHD, we look for ADHD coaches, apps for ADHD, fidgeting toys… “Ugh.” Why would we rely on things to get better, when we can train our brains, by ourselves, to rely on it? Wouldn’t you like to rely on your brain, and nothing but your brain?

    We struggle a lot with our executive functions and the lack of dopamine, and what they do to us; a learning process, no matter how short, can help us with all of that.

    “But Laly, I don’t know how study!” Let me tell you, with all my years in college, I didn’t know how to study web development… I had no idea where to start, and I figured it out. Because we are creative; we think outside the box; we can find our own ways. Furthermore, we don’t need to know “study techniques” for quick webinars or tutorials; c’mon!

    Taking a course allows us to (beyond the knowledge we’d be gaining of course): 

    • have a clear goal to hold on to. Purpose, check!
    • have small challenges (the tests!). Dopamine boost, check!
    • work on our executive functions to manage the time, the tasks, etc;
    • and if the classes need our presence, we get to meet new people and work on our social skills;

    Bottom Line Is…

    Whenever I feel stuck, I do this: I take my brain for a run and I set my own rules; if I sign up for something that may take a long time, I split it and set short term goals for myself. This is what I did with college last year. And about those coding courses I took (in 2017), the first one was 6 weeks long, the second one was 8 weeks long, and so on.

    One last story: when I was living in Vegas, with like 40 bucks left on my bank account (I shit you not), I watched a free webinar on photography that was probably an hour and a half long. I learned so much, that I put it in practice for my photos, and then someone saw my Instagram grid and hired me!

    Therefore, my dearest hyper neurodivergent, I’ll leave you with one humble advice: If you’re feeling stuck and with lack of purpose, think about what you truly enjoy doing; then search for course at put that brain in motion! No matter how small. This is about what it can do for you… and you never know where new knowledge can lead you 😉