Neurodivergent

Tag: motivation

  • 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 😉 

  • “Those Cheerful ADHDers Achievers…” Ugh, Right?

    “Those Cheerful ADHDers Achievers…” Ugh, Right?

    Happy as clam! That’s how I was when I wrote that “having ADHD saved me from a lifetime of Trauma,” after having received my diagnosed. 

    But I was in a bubble… I had never followed the hashtag ADHD. I had never seen how much so many neurodivergents (especially recently diagnosed) were struggling and feeling, “All that time lost…”

    One day I came across a tweet which read: 

    “GPs / Psychiatrists…PLEASE stop telling patients that it would have been impossible for them to have gotten a degree if they had undiagnosed ADHD. It could not be any further from the truth.”@NDaoshea, June 10, 2020

    And I thought, “Yes!” But as I was scrolling down throughout the thread, I read:

    “Fair enough, but please can we remember that it is very difficult for people whose ADHD did prevent them from completing a degree to read this. The rhetoric of success can really diminish what they went through.”@AlisonHoneyBone, June 10, 2020

    And I thought, “Oops.”

    So I got to thinking, do you feel this way? Because I might be able to help you feel better…

    My Academic Resume It’s Far From My Life’s Resume

    If you read my resume, you’ll probably think, “Oh, she is super motivated because she did a lot.” But the truth is that paid a high price for it, almost with my life. 

    AND if you’re thinking, “But Laly, still! You got all those degrees!” I’ll ask you to please give me the chance to explain…

    When the time to choose a University arrived, I knew I wanted to become an author (slash artist). During primary school, my literature teacher wrote a note on a short story I had written, telling me, “This is how writers begin.” 

    I have it framed; my mother sees the dust in the frame. I went to Law School because my parents gave me no other choice.

    Actually, here is funny story: when I had to choose a career (at 17) I signed up at two community colleges: Law School and Med School. That’s how confused I was.
    So in the morning of the first day of class, I sat down in my bed for half an hour or so and considered: “Which one should I go to? I’d like to be a pathologist (to discover mysteries and the human body doing autopsies)… but my godmother is a Lawyer so she’ll make it easier for me. 
    Law School it is!”     
    I shit you not.

    I attended one year and I couldn’t take it anymore. So, my parents gave me one year of grace and I signed up for Drama School. The dean one day whispered to me, sitting on a small stool in a dark room during an improv class: “Don’t ever quit; you’re a natural.” 

    So I rushed to tell my parents the great news! … and they went like, “We’ll pay for you to go to a private Law School; do it and then you can do what you want. You are young.”

    I Hit Rock Bottom, Hard and Multiple Times

    After that, my life started to crumble down. And I’d say I lost twenty years before getting the chance to do what I wanted. 

    Not pursuing my dream, not being happy – while carrying a backpack filled with traumas – lead me to doing drugs, almost becoming an alcoholic and to a ten-year abusive relationship (plus forty pounds of fat). 

    But I choose to not say it… 

    I am grateful for the knowledge I gained, and proud for those degrees. However, do you know what I’m most grateful for and proud of? “Having made it this far alive, with the chance and the will to start over.”

    I did try to kill myself once… almost twice… (without counting an “Oops, I didn’t mean it” near death experience)

    Growing up with an undiagnosed or untreated ADHD, or without the proper guidance to help us thrive, is a torture. It’s painfully frustrating. It eats our soul. 

    Hence, my biggest achievement is that I am still here. 

    Isn’t it yours too?

    What Is Success Anyway? My Life Is Far From Being Easy

    Success… It’s such a tricky little word… For some is money, a college degree. For others is raising happy children. If success is one of these things to you, go get them, now. 

    Holding a grouch is going to do for you only one thing: hold you back. Do you want that, after all the time you feel you’ve lost?

    Tough love? Yes. Doing what I love (this blog) is no walk in the park. Make no mistake. I am not cheerful all day because “I’m finally doing it!” Hell to the no. This puts everything my brain doesn’t like over my desktop, and says, “Just do it, dopamine or not.”

    I am planning and scheduling, when I’m time-blind. Surrendering to perfectionism, sometimes gives me blurred vision for hours after having published a post. I have the strict routine of cloister nun from 3.15AM to 8PM. This is far from being easy.

    And in case you missed it, it is my brain the one saying, “Just do it, dopamine or not.” Because a clear goal in our pre frontal cortex is like getting help when we’re a single parent of seven and the CEO of Google. Having a purpose is everything; I’ll say it until either you get tired of me or join the Hummingbirds Academy.

    Time, especially for us with ADHD, goes by in the blink of an eye. There is no more time to loose and so much time to win.

    Isn’t that inspiring enough? Ok… My godmother was a kindergarten teacher with two children. Things got difficult in her life, so she quit… Decades later she said “enough,” and she pursued her Law Degree at sixty-two years old. And she had quite a good run. 

    She didn’t have ADHD, but her life was a nightmare and she refused – in her 60s – to continue living that way… So I’ll tell you another one: 

    My doctor told me about a patient, recently diagnosed, who had quit Med School ten years ago with only one class left. The patient started his treatment, and now there’s a new doctor in the city.

    It’s never too late. It truly isn’t. And I’ll say this one more time so you can print it in your neurons:

    “…holding a grouch is going to do for you only one thing: hold you back. Do you want that, after all the time you feel you’ve lost?”

    With ADHD, We Define What Success Is For Us

    Success is something you can define in your own terms. 

    “Today”, success could be doing the laundry or organizing one folder in your computer. Our brain needs small tasks so we can feel a quick reward. And that, in our hyper lives, is a path to success.

    If you feel you haven’t achieved anything, you are mistaken. 
    Because you, you made it this far. 
    You are exhausted but you keep seeking for motivation in blogs and in anything that could give you a boost of dopamine. 
    You are resilient. 
    You are not a quitter.

    Thus, congrats! I take my hat off for you! You are a survivor, and you’ve got a bunch of great ideas waiting to come alive and you know you can make it.

    So …

    What are you going to do now?

    Become a cheerful ADHDer achiever? 😏

  • How to Find Our Inner Voice: The “Top-Down” and “Bottom-up” Processing

    How to Find Our Inner Voice: The “Top-Down” and “Bottom-up” Processing

    When I was a teenager, I thought I was “smart but dumb.” I couldn’t understand how despite being so intelligent I’d make such poor life choices. In the early 90s, without internet, I couldn’t google “how do I find my inner voice”. So, I’d ask friends about it, my dad’s wife, my aunts. But they didn’t help much.

    Today I know we can find our inner voice with science: by knowing what information we hold in our brains, and how our brain processes that information.

    Let’s make this fun.

    Between Two Opposite Inner Voices

    Knowing I was smart, but feeling I was so dumb, I’d think, “What’s wrong with me?” Like Indiana Jones in the final puzzle of the “Last crusade,” I used to jump from “I don’t know” to “probably yeah,” and then to “nope” and “Oops, I did it again.”

    I began asking people for advice, whenever I’d needed help to decide and avoid the “Oops, I did it again.” And they would always tell me, “Listen to your heart.” (Ugh) 

    I’d reply, “What does it mean? Give me a proper answer! Is it something I need to feel?” (And let me tell you, Roxette coming out with the “listen to your heart, when he is calling for you,” made me consider my musical choices.)

    So, that didn’t help much. 

    Whenever I’d have to make a decision, I used to have this issue:

    • Something in me was telling me, “I really want to do this!”
    • While another part of me was saying, “Mmm. better don’t do that.”

    Did I have two inner voices? If so, which one was right?

    Passion Vs. Purpose

    Let’s pretend two things1: 

    • one, that we can wrap up all the information our brain has in two categories: purpose and passion. 
    • and two,
      • that our “passion” is information we’ve gathered sort of naturally 
      • that our “purpose” is information we’ve worked on.

    Purpose and passion are simply names I came up with to distinguish easily what scientist say.

    Now, Those two categories are in two different parts of our brain: in the back bottom, and in the upper front. And they compete.

    “Bottom-Up” and “Top-Down” Processing

    “Bottom-up” and “Top-Down” processing, are scientific terms to explain how our brain processes information (according to most scientists)

    When we are trying to make a decision, those two parts begin chatting with each other: 

    • the “bottom-up processing” (which kicks in automatically, like “right away”) says, “Let’s do it! I really want this!” 
    • and the “top-down processing” says (hopefully), “Wait. Let me check if I can allow it.”

    Therefore, I had in fact two voices.

    Let’s break it down with a couple of examples.

    Example: The People Vs. Madonna

    I grew up in the 80s surrounded by women who’d tell me that, “Men can be bad, and cheat. Women must put up with it. It is the way it is and has been.”

    That “information” was stored in the back bottom of my brain (sort of speak) Those “teachings”, took root in my brain becoming a habit to choose bad boys. I wanted to choose a good one, but my intention wasn’t that strong.

    So, every time I’d meet a gorgeous bad boy, he’d become the project I could fix and the torture I’d have to endure. (Because I was woman, and that’s how things were)

    Then I discovered “Madonna”, and she’d tell me to “express myself”, to be strong. I wanted to follow her advice because it seemed according to my own beliefs of how a woman should live her life. 

    However, “old habits die hard”. So, even though a little voice within me started saying, “Choose the good boy,” I couldn’t answer to it.

    Needless to say, it took me a long time to erase what the women in my life had taught me and to embrace my own beliefs, my own way of living and my path to happiness.

    This is important:

    The brain grows from the back bottom to the upper front. And as we grow, we begin storing information there (sort of speak) So, our passion, that kicks in automatically, will be stronger. 
    It is our job to work on our goals and beliefs, so that they can win the fight.

    We are to take as much as we need to see where is the balance.

    Because… our “passion” may not always be bad. Cue for another example!

    Parting Vs. Saving Money

    Let’s say I’ve been working a lot so I could save money to buy a new computer, which I really need for my work. 

    But I get an invite to a super cool party, and, what’s the harm? A friend will pick me up and bring me back home. I won’t spend money “at all” and I deserve some fun!

    The party was mind-blowing, and so was the hunk my friend hooked up with. Now it’s 3am, and how do I get back home? 

    My instinct wisely says, “take a cab, it would be dangerous to walk back home.” My instinct is correct, but it collides with my goal of saving money.

    So how would I get out from that crossroad?

    By avoiding it in the first place.

    I had put a “bet” on the fact that I wouldn’t spend money. Why would I bet when I have an important goal?

    This is specially important for those of us with ADHD. We tend to not see beyond what’s happening now, what we want now.

    How Do I Find My Inner Voice

    Whenever I need to make a decision and I feel the two parts in my brain are driving me insane, I let them talk… And I wait… 

    Then, when I feel at peace with the result of that chit-chat, when I feel there is no more doubt, that is when I act.

    And if I need to make a decision “now”? Well, if I have my purpose very clear, and I know which of my instincts are correct, the time to reflect will certainly be shorter.

    So, if you think about it, that “Listen to your heart” response, wasn’t that wrong. When I feel my heartbeat is normal, when I stop feeling the doubt punching my chest, that is when I know I’ve found my inner voice.

    Footnotes

    1. These concepts have been explained based on Dr. Klijnjan’s “Bases neurobiológicas implicadas en el comportamiento” [PPT] Carrera de Posgrado en Psiquiatría ↩︎
  • How to Find a Purpose in Life

    How to Find a Purpose in Life

    Have you ever had that feeling, “I don’t know what to do with my life… I’m happy, I guess; but it feels like something is missing.” If so, this is for you.

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