You Must be Kidding Me, ADHD? Me, Really?
ADHD, you must be kidding me? What a year, 2020 will go down as the worst year ever. But in some ways, it is a turning point. 2020 was a strange year for me, they diagnosed me at age sixty with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder-Inattentive type. This happened in February of 2020 a month before the pandemic. Thinking back, it makes so much sense. If someone is talking to me and they think I am not paying attention, they are correct. I get bored easily, also I get frustrated easily.
So, What about ADHD?
So, what about ADHD. ADHD people usually are creative. Because I am a creative type, love doing everything with my hands. Love sewing, crocheting, knitting (not so much). Wood turns me on so I am interested in wood carving and scroll sawing. But I am guilty of starting project after project and abandoning them as soon as they become difficult. Not only that, but I also abandon projects when they are not challenging enough. There are several Facebook groups on crocheting, most have more projects on the go than they should. I counted all the projects on the go; fifteen, some dating back several years!
The Good, Bad, and Ugly of ADHD
The old term for my condition was ADD-Inattentive type, now it is all under ADHD. Yes, creativity and ADHD has its challenges. The most recent one is being unemployed with lots of interviews but no bites. Finally, during COVID-19 out of desperation, a grocery chain took me on picking groceries for curbside pickup. A bunch of school kids hired at the same time as me, they picked up on that learning curve right away but it always worried me I would massively screw things up I was afraid to try. One of those kids said I am paranoid, I guess I am. So glad the grocery store took a chance and hired me, I prove myself everyday that I am worth my weight in gold. Learning other things there are helpful when it comes to slashing hours in one department, I switch to another department temporarily. Now I really enjoy making this blog and my own business and learning new things.
Retail and ADHD
So now it is spending an eight-hour day hunting for things that people order. My ADHD has me either throwing my arms up or running up and down the aisles like a madman. I totally lose track of time when time is of the essence, when a customer has a six o’clock order, he will be there a six. Not good. But luckily there isn’t a lineup for people who want to shop all day for minimum wage.
ADHD and Depression
Just came out of a bout of depression, a sense of pointlessness. Feeling alone, I just wanted to be by myself. Being so self-centred is not the “normal me”. Turning to my old love, crochet, I am able to lose myself in that. The agreeable thing about crochet is that it can be as easy or difficult as you need. Sometimes just needing to veg, I work on an easy hat pattern with super thick yarn and a big hook. These can become boring and you can lose interest fast. (I was hunting for my 10 mm hook this morning) But sometimes I need something that is more challenging than that, I turn to Amigurumi.
Amigurumi is the Japanese art of crocheting or knitting yarn creatures. Some are mythical such as dragons, they base some on cartoon creatures such as bears or rabbits with stylized faces. A person with ADHD on a good day would find these challenging and could get lost in them, great practice in staying present. Whereas on a bad day, these would become frustrating.