Surviving

I passed my MFA with Distinction and am still quite shocked, a couple of years later (the fact that I stuck it out, and the fact that I got a distinction). As someone who has often started big projects but rarely finished, I’m proud that I did. Even more so, when I realise that I’ve been struggling with undiagnosed ADHD my whole life. There were signs all along but it’s only recently that women were even included in that diagnosis, so I had spent my life thinking I was just a horrible, lazy person with no willpower, terrible with money, maker of bad decisions and no self confidence. I developed coping mechanisms along the way that helped me not be a complete failure at everything. How else was I going to raise two children, hold down a job for any length of time, or function as an adult (the jury is still out on the adult part)?

I don’t have an official diagnosis, of course. I would have to get my arse in gear and do the work to obtain one (not so easy, I fear with the NHS in its current state). But my adult son was diagnosed with the same set of attributes that I had thought were simply character traits he inherited from me and it made me wonder, and investigate the subject more deeply. He was given medication to help but I don’t want that – after all, I’ve survived this long without it – but it would be nice to know for sure that ADHD is the reason I am like this. To be able to tell the child inside who was a daydreamer, forgetful, accident-prone, too giddy, too talkative, too easily distracted and a bit too weird to fit in, that it wasn’t her fault. To be able to tell the teenager who was rebellious, argumentative, impulsive, still talked too much, could not look after money and still a bit too weird that there was a reason for all that. To be able to tell the young mother who still could not look after money, whose house was always a mess because she spent far too much time playing with her children, or daydreaming, or reading, or anything other than housework, that she couldn’t help being that way. That her brain was wired differently and there was no dopamine in housework (well there was, but she did not figure out the way to get it until much later).

Of course, being true to form, I have not yet managed to do anything with the novel I produced for the MFA. Nor have I written much else of note – I did have a story published in Wyldblood 12 last year, but that’s about it. My other half has had a rough time health-wise over the past year or so, my full-time job can be mentally exhausting, and we moved house last autumn into our very own flat (which needed a LOT of work). Life has all been a bit ‘much’ and I haven’t had the peace of mind to just sit and write. Those are all excuses, I know. If I want it bad enough I’ll sit down and get on with it, right? Well I would if not for the ADHD. By the time I’m done with work, the flat, worrying about everything else, there’s not much executive function left for creativity. I’m starting to do better, as some of the worries fall away, and the flat is in less of a state of upheaval, and I’m starting to think about what to do with the MFA novel, and the one I started after. In fact, I’ve written a few thousand words in a new plot thread that I think really adds to the suspense and brings the whole thing right into the here and now, and in particular some of the perils of social media. So maybe I’m coming out of the slump? We’ll see.

I have said before that I plan to talk about the MFA, what I gained from it, and some of the books I found valuable for studying creative writing. So look out for those blog posts coming soon-ish. Hopefully.