I wanted to point you in the direction of a new blog, The ADHD Academic Advocate, written by Nathan Stewart. It's not often that I see myself as an inspiration to others, but apparently my humble writings here touched Nathan over there. You can read about it in his own words.
Nathan's approach to ADHD is different than most. Instead of giving you a list of ten ways to better organize your glove box, or as I often do here, recount humorous anecdotes to help ADHDers not feel bad about being themselves, he thoughtfully approaches ADHD from the needs of the advocate. You won't want to skim his articles. Set some time aside to ponder and chew. There's a lot of meat there to take in.
Aside from being sincerely flattered that my writing can influence another writer, I wanted to make the point that we never know when what we send out into the world will affect someone. Adults with ADHD don't often think about what they say from moment to moment, never mind worry about what affect their words will have in the future. There is the omni-impulsive now that demands commenting on. I'm no different. Yet, as I struggle with unemployment, divorce, single parenthood, and finding my way in this Life2.0 of mine, somewhere along the story of my world I made the mistake of believing I was insignificant. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so surprised by Nathan's story. Yet as he states in his blog "much of the way we perceive the world around us is partially structured through narratives". We establish those narratives by what we say and write. So it shouldn't be surprising to me that my passionate belief that ADHD can be a managed asset became a narrative that made a mark upon a reader.
What I want you to take away from this today is that we are not insignificant, despite how poorly we may feel we compare to our peers. Low self-esteem seems to go hand in hand with ADHD, at least for some. If you are an adult with ADHD who sits in that camp take a moment today to think about the people who interact with you. Cherish the small moments where others are brightened by your existence. You really don't know what affect you will have on others until long after the moment has passed, so strive to make those moments meaningful. Not everything that comes out of our ADHD mouths is an explosion of verbal sputum. We see the world in different ways, and it's time we proudly shared that viewpoint in a positive narrative that influences the world around us.
