Surprise! I have ADHD. (No one is surprised).

I was diagnosed with ADHD last week, maybe the week before. I can’t remember (on brand).

I write about creativity. I write about the importance of art. I speak to creatives and I remind them that it is time to fucking make stuff, because their art is fucking important. I’ve been doing this for ten years now. Over the past decade, I have been inundated with messages and comments from ADD / ADHD creatives saying that my work leaves them feeling left out. Worse, that my work was ableist. This sort of response was especially loud whenever I would share that I finish books by writing small amounts each day (300-500 words). When I share about the magic of consistency and baby steps, I am told that I am making ADHD creators feel bad, because consistency isn’t possible for them.

I’m a sensitive girly. These comments, emails, DMS, they upset me. I didn’t want anyone to feel left out. We need neurodiverse art!

It took up a lot of brain space. I stopped sharing so much about the magic of consistency and I spent a lot of time thinking about and researching how to support ADHD creatives.

Ironically, I’d been supporting one my whole life.

It turns out ya girly is ADHD… but this is not a GOTCHA essay.

The thing that broke my heart about these messages, was that these creators really believed that they couldn’t do it. That they couldn’t finish their projects. They couldn’t create. They couldn’t be an artist. It makes me emotional just typing that.

I feel like, now that I finally have this diagnosis, I can talk to ADHD creatives without feeling like I am overstepping.

I want these creators to know that it is possible. That they can have incredibly fulfilling, joyful, successful creative lives as an artist with ADHD.

This is not an essay where I say ADHD is easypeasy, get over it.

Having ADHD is not easy peasy.

I sleep minimum 10 hours a night. I am a chronically tired person, who can’t hold down a normal job and has to ask her partner to read emails and summarise them in bullet form. People from the government have come to my house because I have been so bad at filing documents…

Understanding my life through the lens of ADHD allows me to have a stupid amount of compassion for myself, because fucking hell I have battled.

But I have also thrived.

My ADHD is the reason I am so successful, so joyful, so creative.

I see that now. And I want that for other ADHD creatives.

My hyperfocus, my ability to juggle multiple projects at once, my curiosity, my instincts, my drive, the way I have gamified creativity - these are just a few of my ADHD’y things that have allowed me to build a fucking lovely life as a full time author.

We are all going to need different levels of support, and we all need to figure out ways to create that suit our brains. I am not saying that just because I have figured out a way of doing it, that it’ll work for you too. I’m saying that something will work for you. I am saying that your art, ADHD artist, is fucking important and it’s time to fucking make it. In YOUR way. I am saying that I have a ridiculous amount of belief in you. I am saying that WE NEED YOUR ART.

Art isn’t the corporate world. Art isn’t school. Art isn’t a system. There isn’t one way to be an artist. There are billions of ways to do this. Whether you are neurodiverse or not, you need to find the way that works for you, so you can take up space, make art, finish art, share art. So you can live an artful, beautiful, delicious, life.