Dealing with
executive dysfunction and ADHD becomes so much easier when you stop trying to
do things the way you feel like you should
be able to do them (like everyone else) and start finding ways that
actually work for you, no matter how “silly” or “unnecessary”
they seem.
For
years my floor was constantly covered in laundry. Clean laundry got
mixed in with dirty and I had to wash things twice, just making more
work for myself. Now I just have 3 laundry bins: dirty (wash it
later), clean (put it away later), and mystery (figure it out later).
Sure, theoretically I could sort my clothes into dirty or clean as
soon as I take them off and put them away straight
out of the dryer, but
realistically that’s never going to be a sustainable strategy for me.
How
many garbage bins do you need in a bedroom? One? WRONG! The correct
answer is one within arms reach at all times. Which for me is three.
Because am I really going to
get up to blow my nose when I’m hyperfocusing? NO. In
allergy season I even have
an empty kleenex box for “used
tissues I can use again.”
Kinda gross? Yeah. But less gross than a
snowy winter landscape of dusty germs on my
desk.
I
used to be late all the time
because I couldn’t find my house key. But it costs $2.50 and 3
minutes to copy a key, so now there’s one in my backpack, my purse,
my gym bag, my wallet, my desk, and hanging on my door. Problem
solved.
I’m
like a ninja for getting pout the door past reminder notes without noticing. If I really don’t want to forget something, I make a
physical barrier in front of my door. A
sticky note is a lot easier to walk past than a two foot high
cardboard box with my wallet on top of it.
Executive dysfunction is always going to cause challenges, but often half the struggle is trying to cope by pretending not to have executive dysfunction, instead of finding actual solutions.
would anyone be willing to make this easier to read?
@thatpunk-rockkid here’s a TL;DR version. Let me know if another format would be better.
MAIN POINTS:
Executive dysfunction makes some tasks hard to do the “normal” way.
Don’t worry about how you “should” be able to do something.
Find solutions that work for you, even if they seem silly.
“Try harder” is not a solution.
EXAMPLES:
Extra garbage bins: If you can always reach one without getting up, you won’t throw trash on the floor.
Extra House Keys: Copies are cheap. Keep one in every bag and coat. No more time wasted desperately searching.
Impassible Reminders: Make reminders that physically block your exit so you can’t ignore them. Like a note on a big cardboard box in the doorway. Or putting items you need to bring inside your shoes.
3 Laundry Bins:
Dirty: If you know it needs washing.
Clean: So they stay clean even if you don’t finish putting them away.
Mystery: Keep clothes off the floor by having a specific bin for “deal with it later.” If it gets too full, dump it in the “dirty” bin.
So one thing I’m not seeing mentioned much but that I think is really important to acknowledge is: not every member of a hate group is equally radicalized.
See, a lot of our rhetoric re: dealing with them assumes that every member is a hardened lifetimer. But there are always many, many lackeys to every kingpin. Not every terrorist sympathizer is Osama bin Laden. Cultlike movements are largely composed of people who are isolated or gullible or otherwise vulnerable. Their leaders know this. They capitalize on an underlying dysfunction and turn it into something monstrous. In any such movement, there will be people who have doubts but fear being crushed for their dissent. And those are the people it’s critically important to reach out to.
I think a lot of people assume that compassionate outreach is about, like, nicely asking hardened leaders to stop. It’s not! I frankly resent seeing pacifism strawmanned so badly. It’s about undermining those leaders’ bases. It’s about getting through to people who aren’t yet in too deep. When we write them off as exactly as bad as the people recruiting and manipulating them, we’re implicitly yielding ground. We’re ceding a huge number of potential allies to hateful causes, and I am not willing to do that. I want as many people on the side of good as possible. To do that, we have to be willing to get in and help deradicalize.
It’s laughable to expect that someone like S p e n c e r will just wake up one day and realize he’s wrong. It’s not impossible, but it’s not worth banking on. But what about an eighteen-year-old flirting with dangerous ideologies? Isn’t giving up on him implicitly ceding him to S p e n c e r ‘ s side? Do not conflate the psychological profile of someone who’s just beginning to become radicalized with that of someone who’s been entrenched for decades. That difference matters.
That’s a point well taken but I think a question that gets lost in this perspective is “to whom does it matter?” Because I personally can afford to distinguish between an eighteen-year-old who makes ugly jokes about Muslims and say “well he’s flirting with dangerous ideologies” – but my Muslim friends do not have that luxury. My gay friends do not have the luxury of parsing the depth to which the person who just told them they’re going to hell honestly believes it. My Black friends do not have the luxury of deciding that the kid who threw a rock through their window is amenable to being deradicalized. And I, a Jew in the middle of Texas don’t have the luxury of reaching out in understanding when I get a swastika painted on my front door.
It’s important to try and speak to people who may be on the fringes, but it’s also important for me and you and everyone who isn’t immediately vulnerable to their bile not to expect those who are to be the ones to do the speaking. If someone wakes up one day and realizes he’s wrong, that’s great, but it is not the responsibility of any of the people who he denigrated to forgive him or even accept him. Realizing that you’ve been part of a hate movement does not entitle you to kindness from those you enjoyed hating.
“Don’t trace” originally started as a warning against tracing as art theft (as in, tracing someone else’s art without permission or credit is art theft) and then over the intervening years turned into “you can’t use references because it’s cheating” and I think that’s one of the worst cases of the telephone game I’ve ever personally experienced
you are allowed to trace as practice
you are allowed to trace your own work (for example photographs you took yourself or to keep architectural consistency)
you are allowed to trace things the original artist is encouraging you to trace
you SHOULD use references
you SHOULD be allowed to pick up other artists’ artistic tics you like (…as long as they’re not offensive, like blackfacing, but that’s a different kettle of fish)
you SHOULDN’T go around moralizing at other people about how they learn best because you can and will lose friends that way and you can and will hurt other artists’ development that way.
Also other than art theft there IS no such thing as cheating in art okay use sparkle pens and fan brushes to your heart’s content why is that even a thing I have to say (…and yes I’ve had conversations in the analog world about fan brushes as “cheating” I’m so tired of snotty artists who think you shouldn’t be allowed to use tools that make things easier because they can do it the hard way)
But honestly, this need to be said louder, as an artist you end up feeling like you aint getting better, trying to draw in perspective without having a guide line . And when others shame artist for using references its like they are expecting the artist to know by memory how everything works on every perspective.
To Consider that fan brushes, or custom brushes are cheating and expecting the artist to do everything in the “original” way is like wanting the cashier to charge you without using a calculator to do the sum. Tools are invented to be used.
“tools are invented to be used” well put
Not allowing using references is same as telling to a chef they can’t use recipes but they have to pull any dish in the world out of their asses just like that.
The first thing, the very first thing my photography teacher told us was “When photographing was invented, ARTISTS took pictures of cities and traced them on their paintings because hey – easier work! Why bother to work hard when you can make it easy for yourself and save your time and energy?”
