Clarion is a highly-renowned training ground for sci-fi/fantasy writers, so naturally, I wanted to make an impression. Hence, I introduced myself to my cohort and award-winning instructors by writing a recursive metafictional time travel story. The main “plot” was only about two pages, followed by another thirty pages of footnotes, each with multiple internal references to other footnotes, all to explain the theoretical science behind the causal loop that lead to the main characters’ spacetime-crossed romance. This had the effect of taking the reader on a self-directed non-linear journey through characters’ pasts, presents, and futures, in an endless circle of effect-cause-effect that was unique to each reader.
That was 2013. Me and the other 17 members of my cohort still talk regularly; some of them have already become award-winning authors in their own rights. And to this day, not a week goes by without at least one of them giving me shit for that story. But I have a good excuse for my obnoxious ambitions:
I have ADHD, so it made perfect sense. To me.
Read MoreWhenever I'm working with my family, friends, or colleagues, they always ask me how I'm able to get so much done.
My answer: "I have ADHD."
Read MoreI read an article by a man named Ronald Chase, a neurobiologist (and apparently gastropod sex expert?) who made the decision to pursue his field instead of going to law school after his brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia:
"I began to believe that mental illnesses—at least the major disorders like schizophrenia—are not in the mind but, rather, in the brain. I reasoned that no nonphysical thing, a mind, could possibly govern a physical thing like the brain, and it was the brain that mattered, because it controls behavior. The mind, I concluded, must be an aspect of the brain’s function."
This got me thinking about the differences between mental and physical health. I thought about the 24-year-old woman who was recently found to have been living without a cerebellum, and my friend's token "crazy ex" in college whose irrational behavior towards the end of their relationship was found to be literally caused by a benign tumor in her brain that was putting pressure on the part of the brain that controls reasoning. As much as we like to think of our personalities and intelligence and higher processes in general to be something ethereal or mystical, the truth is that we are all organic machines, and our brains aren't that different from computers — or, for that matter, any other organ in our bodies. The difference between depression and Irritable Bowel Syndrome is really just about which part of your body the problem exists in (one makes you feel like shit, and one makes you literally shit?).
Read MoreA friend of mine recently contacted me about a friend of his who had been diagnosed with Adult ADHD (and no, not in that "asking for a friend" kind of way). As I'm generally very publicly and ashamed of my condition, I was delighted to give him some advice, and as I typed to him and organized my thoughts, I realized this was something that was probably worth sharing with other people as well — especially those who don't have ADHD, but know someone he does, so they can better understand the daily struggles, including the mental and emotional exhaustion of basically having your brain on overdrive 24-hours a day.
Despite what you've been told, living with ADHD is not all fun and games and shiny objects. It's both a challenge and an asset, and often at the same time. Our brains don't work in quite the same way as everyone else's, which isn't necessarily a bad thing — it's just different. This is probably why people don't tend to take it as seriously as other learning disabilities or forms of mental healthcare. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, "being really annoying to go grocery shopping with" is a far cry from, say, being bi-polar (although that can sometimes be a symptom as well). But that still doesn't mean it's easy.
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