So it's taken a lot of work, a lot of tears and a lot of help from a lot of people (thanks Mom, Dad, Rich, Karin, Adele, Angeline, Colleen and everyone else that helped to keep me going this semester), but I feel like my life is starting to show some progress. It's not just a chaotic mess anymore. Goals that I have had on the back-burner for a very long time are finally starting to come together. I finished my semester having actually performed my first "Evolution of Lady K" concert, got B's in a lot of my classes and had a good argument as to why I would like the school to re-visit the 2 D's I did get. If my appeals are successful, my overall GPA this term would be around 2.4. Not great, but considering how badly I crashed and burned at the end, not entirely poor either.
I learned an extremely valuable lesson this semester. One that I probably should have already known and coming out the other end can honestly say I should have known better. I learned that no matter what I want to achieve in life, no matter how smart, talented, charismatic or funny I am, I CANNOT DO IT ALONE. I tried to rely on my own abilities this semester to manage my homework and life loads. What I keep forgetting is that my abilities are actually impaired. It is clinically diagnosed and as much as I don't want to see myself as having a disability or disorder of any kind, all the wishing in the world will not get rid of it. Unfortunately, it's just the way I am. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I'm just going to flop down and give up on anything I ever wanted to do saying "Woe is me, I'm broken". Au contraire, I am looking at it as just the opposite. I am not broken, I am different. There's nothing wrong with different. It's just different and that's ok. In fact, it means that I can dream of doing things like opening live-in treatment centers for people with Attention and learning disorders and developing a renaissance college of music in the city and not feel strange. If people look at me sideways about it, I just tell them "welcome to life with a dreamer".
I read a book called "The Disorganized Mind" this semester (thanks mom for helping me make sense of it). It is a book about the challenges faced by those with ADHD giving them strategies to manage these challenges in such a way as to be more successful in their everyday life. According to the book, the concept of "neuroplasticity" says a person with ADHD can learn out of their difficulties. That means that a brain never stops learning. Even if a person gets brain damage that stops them from doing something they previously could do, the brain is resiliant enough that by repetition and consistent effort (the same things required to teach anything to a 4 year old I might add) it is POSSIBLE (not guaranteed) that the person can re-learn what it is they could no longer do. The ADHD brain has physical differences in the area that deals with executive function and so those processes don't work the same. With the concept of neuroplasticity, people with ADHD and therefore impaired executive functions (memory, prioritization and attention) can hope to succeed by basically borrowing someone else's executive function to retrain their own. If instead of just sitting there with a mantra of "I want to do it so I can do it, I want to do it so I can do it" spinning yourself into oblivion, "The Disorganized Mind" recommends hiring what they call an ADHD coach to help keep the person accountable. Imagine trying to remember what you didn't remember so you can try to remember it when your rememberer muscle is broke. It's almost as hard to understand as that sentence. It is nearly impossible for someone with ADHD to keep themselves accountable for something. The role of the ADHD coach is to find out what the person is trying to get better at and be their accountability partner. The reason for using an ADHD coach instead of say a family member or friend is because the coach is intentionally trained in the intricacies of the ADHD mind. They understand the impact of self-esteem on a person's ability to do something. They realize that just because the person failed at something doesn't mean they don't care about it, it just means they didn't succeed at it and just because they did it yesterday doesn't mean they will be able to do it today. The coach helps the person with ADHD analyze what went wrong when they did fail at something, kicking them out of old self-loathing habits and helping to start a new language that will re-inforce success instead of failure.
The process is to analyze what stops a person with ADHD from succeeding at what they want to do, keeping in mind that part of it is because of the ADHD, not because they are a defective person or whatever else their mind is trying to tell them (in my case, time-management and prioritizing), analyze exactly where the process they are using breaks down in extreme detail (I get side-tracked by other projects and tell myself I need to work on that project because it is just as important as the other thing I needed to do, when in actuality, this project could wait and I should be trying to be on time for whatever appointment I have), create a strategy to avoid it next time, playing to your strengths. If you are visual, make it visual, if you are auditory, make it auditory (for me, I have a list in my Outlook calendar of what I want to get done in a day with pictures to motivate me. I also check them off each time I finish them to cater to my tactile nature. If what I am doing is not on the list, I change my focus or call my coach to verify it realy is important), apply the strategy over and over regardless of whether it is successful every time (sometimes tweaks are needed but other times, you just have to rev the engine to get it to turn over. For me, it took weeks of frustration to get this happening but it eventually clicked and I am close to having it become a habit), regularly come back to the plan and decide whether it is working. If it could be more effective, this is where tweaks can be applied (I have to do this on about a weekly basis. So far I either call Mom or Richard to do it), then rinse and repeat.
That is where I have trouble. When I complete it one day, I want to say "There, I did it" and not think about it again. The problem is, if I don't, I won't succeed on the next day's plan. That is the basic idea. You then work it over and over again for each of the issues the ADHD brain deals with, but never working more than one thing at once. Right now, I am working my time-management strategy. I am aware of an issue I have with over-planning, but it would overwhelm me to tackle both. I have to factor in my over-planning when making my day's schedule. After managing my day's schedule is a habit, I will start working on reducing the amount of time I spend planning. Once that's done, I will identify the next thing standing in my way. Strangely enough, now that I am actually being conscious of what I am spending my time doing, I am unintentionally beginning to build in time for the things I have been neglecting like exercise and nutrition. It is all working together to make me more successful.
Out of this new-found rhythm, I have realized (with my Spiritual Director's help) that what I am doing here is living out a new Rule of Life. There is a difference between a Rule of Life and a New Year's Resolution. A Rule of Life says "this activity or idea or habit is important to me. I am going to change my lifestyle to accomodate and reflect it" whereas a New Year's Resolution says "This Year I am going to do X". The resolution doesn't affect the value system and doesn't guide other principles in your life. I have decided to write my Rule of Life here where others can keep me accountable to it. Here goes.
I am going to use my life to follow the path that God shows me no matter where it leads. I will do my best to use virtues like goodness, kindness, self-control, honesty, mercy and justice (some of the characteristics of God himself) to guide the decisions I make. I will make sure to set aside the time I need to take care of my own body because if I do not, it will shorten the amount of time I am here to serve God. I will look at myself in the mirror and speak with honesty and truth about what I see, remembering grace that God has granted along with accountability and repentance. I will do my best to be the prism that God uses to refract the light of His love to shine abundantly on those around me.
So there it is. Next step is to see where that takes me. Ithink I have an idea, but that's a conversation for another day.
