Community Voices: Fleet on memory and acceptance

Today’s Community Voices post comes from Totally ADD community member Fleet, who shares his gift for memory.

Back in 2002, a wise person told me “ You need to work on what is going on with you and forget about everything else that is happening.” I had so much happening back then in my life. I had no idea today I could look back and actually say I finally did work on who I am, as well understand how the world around me is a lot different then the average person who has no concept of what ADHD is or what it does and how to learn and work with it.

I’m totally unique – there are no two of me, and thank God! I always knew I was different. I mean, I think and act unlike most people I know. Most of them tell me if something was to ever happen to me they would have no clue what to do. I have a few fans…:) Also when it came to relationships and having a partner I actually had no clue how that worked either. One of the biggest reasons I feel thankful for connecting my life with this personality quirk.

My Gift, because we all have one…well, it’s my memory. I actually remember being 4 years old. I remember lots about each grade I attended, and about different people I use to hang out with. I also love art very much so and have a great eye for quality. I also have a very old soul when it comes to animals, and this I have only been aware of for the last few years. Horses are my niche. I don’t have any right now but there will come a day.

I reside in Central Alberta. I work in the Automotive Industry as a Commercial Account Manager for a Ford store. I am a single father with a son with whom I share a pretty good relationship with. I feel the biggest thing in discovering that I have ADHD has been my life in general…no drama or very little, realizing my strength and also putting my weaknesses visually in front of me so I can keep an eye on them. Life has improved immensely since then. Getting the guidance and the support from the few I had to lean on was so needed when I started my journey in 2006. Howeve,r I did do one thing that helped me and that was to be a doer of what I was learning and learn as much as I can. And start applying it.

I feel empowered to accomplish all that I want. I always believed I was going to be something and make a difference but wondered how all that would happen. Now I’m seeing the results in all areas of my life.

I’m human and I make mistakes, but I know how to pass the mole hills I once looked at as mountains.

Community Voices: Larynxa’s Scattered Passions

Our second Community Voices posting comes from Larynxa. Larynxa is an active member of our Totally ADD community, who shares her insights and inspirations with great style and wit. Look for her postings in the forum, where she stands out as a unique voice of support and strength.

I’m a magpie. If I walk into a huge room, and there is one single sequin, nestled deep into the shag carpeting, my eye will instantly find that sequin. Maybe it’s because my ADHD brain is attracted to sparkly things, or maybe it’s because I spent the first 10 years of my life watching TV variety shows where you didn’t even THINK of performing unless you were dripping in sequins and feathers.

“The Carol Burnett Show” had the best cast, the best writing, and the best costumes, and I absorbed it all, like a little sponge, from the time I was a baby. And I mimicked it. As soon as I could, I started building a collection of costumes—most of them sparkly and/or feathery. Some of them, I bought, but most of them, I had to make. But where to wear it?

Nowadays, there are only two places where that kind of high glamour still exists: the world of drag queens and the world of burlesque (the kind they used to do in the 1930s-1950s). You don’t think a woman can be a drag queen? Well, I was, and I even won a drag queen contest. But I found burlesque more appealing, so when I heard about a burlesque talent contest, I gave it a try, and won in the variety category!

I’m a singer of vaguely naughty songs, not an ecdysiast…though I do sometimes remove a glove or two, and I know how to twirl my tassels if I have to. I was in the first two Toronto Burlesque Festivals, and I’ll be performing in this year’s too (shameless plug: Thursday, July 22nd, 10:30 p.m., at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto).

I also do a one-hour cabaret show, singing in retirement homes, and at private parties. Though my repertoire there is very different from my burlesque repertoire, I wear the same gorgeous costumes, because most people never get to see things like that in person. When I perform, I treat it like my own personal Vegas lounge show. And I don’t just stand in front of the audience and sing; I have a wireless mic, so I go right out amongst them, and interact directly with them (as Tony Orlando used to do). It’s more fun for the audience, and more fun for me.

As much as I love getting dolled up in my costumes, I also love doing character voices, because you don’t need to worry about costumes or sets or lighting or anything. And it doesn’t matter what you look like; it’s what you sound like. I played a femme fatale and a cabin boy on the Hindenburg (in radio plays with Decoder Ring Theatre), and I voiced 31 different pieces of heavy machinery (in the 2004 series of the kids’ TV show, “Mighty Machines”).

I’ve just started doing monologues—though some would say that, with my motormouth, I’ve been doing them all my life (Thanks, ADHD!). I appear as a character from the mythical eastern European country of Kapustia, and I talk about life there. Then, in my capacity as the country’s poet laureate, I recite some of my very bad poems (another of my passions, I’m afraid). This went over so well at a girls’ afternoon out that Luba Goy (who was one of those girls) asked me to take her place at an event when she was double-booked. And THAT went over so well that she’s asked me to perform with her at two events in October! To think that, 26 years ago, I used to listen to her on the radio and wish that someday, I could perform with her.

Funny how things work out, isn’t it?

Community Voices: Matthew West on Art and ADHD

Welcome to the first guest post in our Community Voices series – featuring Totally ADD community members sharing their strengths and passions. Our first guest writer is Matthew West, an aspiring artist from Vancouver, British Columbia.

How I discovered my gift
I grew up in a small town east of Calgary, Alberta, Canada called Strathmore. Like many of you I was a curious inquisitive child who loved adventures, so I spent a lot of time exploring the neighborhood…
A father who worked long hours, an undiagnosed ADHD mother and three kids…. recipe for an underprivileged family.

When hard times came, we moved in with my Aunty. She was a massage therapist and in her house she has a section of books devoted to anatomy. I would often sneak into this room and look through them all for hours! I loved the way the muscles and tissue connected, and the bone structure behind our makeup. My parents dealt with a lot of complaints from the school board, about their ADHD son who would always distract the class and who would draw all over text books and work sheets. So my parents decided to send me to a special school for original thinkers called Mossleigh Demonstration School, where we were able to learn through our talents and gifts.

One day at Mossleigh my teacher gave us clay and told us to sculpt something from our imagination. I chose a dragon and after about an hour my dragon took the praise of the entire class room. My mother was also very proud, she being the person I would say is most like myself. I use that gift to help others, and it has contributed to much of my happiness in life. Read more

Your strengths. Your passions. Your community!

Our ADHD community is filled to the brim with strong, passionate people. And we also hear from so many people who struggle to make the most of their talents and gifts while struggling with their ADHD symptoms and challenges.

This week on theTotally ADD blog is dedicated to YOU!

In line with our fourth and final Spring Series workshop: Finding Your Strength, Following Your Passions this Wednesday, July 21, I am pleased to tell you that we will be featuring voices from the Totally ADD community all week on the blog. Our community members have stepped up to the plate and have shared some wonderful stories, and I’m excited to share them with you.

If you have a story that you’d like to share, drop me a line at aerin@totallyadd.com.

Imagining a perfect ADHD day

Next Wednesday Dr. J and I are hosting the fourth and final of our Spring Series workshops. It’s the final in the series, and it’s about building the life you want. Not the ideal world. Your life. Creating what your ideal day would look like, ADHD aside. And then making it happen.
With all the deadlines we have, and the overwhelm and one immediate crisis after another in our face, it’s easy to never step back and ask, “What am I up to, what do I want to do?” Hard to ponder your long term goals when you’re racing through traffic cause you’re late for the dentist. When your bank account is overdrawn for the fourth month in a row, the answer to, “What’s your dream life look like?” might produce an answer like, “Less overdue notices.”

Imagining how your “perfect day” would unfold is a challenge when you’re walking out of the tax department offices after your audit, and you can’t remember where you parked your car, or even if you drove the car, or if you still own that car!

Yet it’s incredibly valuable to step back and figure out where you are headed and if where you are going still appeals to you. Some people do it quite regularly. Others wait to have it thrust upon them by a midlife crisis.

Maybe things have shifted. When I was twenty I wanted to meet girls. Now I want to nap a lot.

The exercises we’ll be doing on the evening of the 21st are simple, and the questions they ask can sound almost too simple, but every time I’ve done them they have actually made me feel much lighter, clearer and less… well, less ADHD.
Life goes better when you have some idea where you are going.

And it especially helps when everyone in your life is aware of what’s up.
If you’ve got 40 people together, and a lot of wood, and nails and saws, and everyone starts cutting and nailing and building… well, it would help to know whether you were building an a cottage or a church. Things just go a lot better and it actually makes decisions much easier. “Should we include a place for the priest to light the candles?” “No, it’s a cottage. We’ll put in a fireplace.”
Or…
“We don’t need a boathouse. This is a Catholic Cathedral.”
The clearer your are where you are going, the sooner you get there.

In fact, when you’re trying to tidy, trying to plan the day, or the week, or the month, it helps to step back and look at the big picture. It doesn’t have to be deeply significant. But it helps to let go of things when you decide, I’m not interested in that anymore. Physical clutter and mental clutter. It’s amazing, when you know where you’re going, how little you need to get there. And if you’re carrying less weight, the trip goes much faster.

ADHD strategies, cause and effect, and exploding houses

It would appear that I have the ability to kill people just by logging in to my email account.  Luckily it only appears that way.
You see, I log on first thing in the morning to answer email.  When I do, I also get a list of the day’s top news stories, like this one:  “Suburban House Demolished In Blast, 2 People Killed.” I skim the article, then move on to answer email and log off.  An hour later I log on again.  The news headline has changed: “Suburban House Explodes, 3 People Dead.”  Same house, but now another dead body.  I send off a few emails, log off, and later log on again…and yes, now it reads: “Suburban Home Flattened in Blast.  4 People Dead.”
Every time I log on, another person is dead.  Connection?  Well, why not? Read more