In Which Our Heroine Remembers Something She Forgot To Say
In my last entry, I did a sort of wrap-up of 2023. It was quick and I tried to remember everything important, but I forgot something!
In 2023, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD (Inattentive Type).
No, the irony has not escaped me.
That said, being diagnosed has actually been a relief. I’m not just silly or scatterbrained – my brain literally works in a different way. Not only that, but lots of other people’s brains work in a similar way, and we have so many tools now to help us live in society without driving the people around us (and ourselves) absolutely around the bend.
I already had a lot of coping mechanisms, but I’ve been working on working with my brain instead of being mad at it for not doing what I think it should do. All of this goes along with managing my anxiety (which is often triggered by feelings of lack of control and forgetting) and working on giving myself grace. I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting (hello, Digital Bullet Journal!) and figuring out things that work in general, as well as things that are working right now but could be tweaked. I’m using the “Oooh! Shiny!” part of my brain to play with attractive organizational systems (both digital and physical) and visual cues that make me feel like I can find things and remember things.
Which leads us to my newest hobby: 3D Printing.
This ticks all the boxes for me. It’s compact. It’s useful. It keeps my phone up off my desk and very accessible/viewable for me. It’s also quite sparkly and all the different colors of the Bisexual Flag (which also happen to be my favourite colors anyway). When I expressed an interest in 3D printing, Alex bought me this filament. He knew I would love it.
I’m still learning what goes into doing this successfully, but I have so many plans. I love the idea of having a customized physical organizational system that works for me. (Let me be honest – I just love the idea of customizing and organizing and having lots of things in the colors I want.) I love sorting and putting things in just the Right Place, and then knowing that they’ll be there and that they have a Home where I can find them anytime I need them.
This is going to take time, of course. Setting up Digital Systems is easier than setting up Physical Systems. (I’ll show you some of my Digital Systems in a future post.)
This is only the beginning.