Are you an endlessly creative human or entrepreneur who often feels discouraged by being "bad at adulting"?
Same.
I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 40. An experience a lot of adults who were diagnosed with ADHD as full-blown (sort of) grown-ups have that I relate to is that we tend to look back at out lives with new recognition that so many life events that we chalked up as part of our stories, or personalities, were inseparable from ADHD.
You may, or may not, also be an ADHDer. If you're up for going along for the ride, in more ways than one, we'll get into it. We're going to talk about riding in cars and the ride of having an occupation, which for me and many ADHD people, looks like entrepreneurship
The ADHD struggle with adulting
For a decade, my main 4-wheeled ride has been a 2012 Mazda 5. Mazda calls this a "sports wagon". Mazda 5s might be the smallest, lowest clearance vehicle built this century with 3 rows of seats. I call mine Sylvie. Sylvie was exactly what I was looking for in 2014, with enough room that I could transport my very small kids and their very small friends. I had this *idea* that it would work really well that when they got bigger their friends would no longer want to ride in Sylvie's very cramped back-seat. I imagined my inner wicked-witch cackling, "Goodbye, children!". Ultimately, what I imagined in 2014 that future-me would want, isn't what works for actual-me in 2024.
Last week, I got a new car.
Two days after the new car acquisition, I drove over a curb, popped the front driver's side tire, and was back driving Sylvie.
Three days after the new car acquisition, I ignored my body's cues and rushed to get food in the late-afternoon between sessions to stave off being hangry while also being a therapist. I tried to eat a burrito while driving Sylvie back to my office and ended up with beans in my hair.
It's difficult to feel like a functioning adult when you're on your way to meet a client and have beans in your hair.
It's common for ADHDers to feel chronically behind which sometimes feels like being "bad at adulting". There's a part of me, as I'm writing this, that's self-conscious. I can imagine you might be thinking, This food-wearing car-damaging shit show of a person should not own a mental health practice.
ADHD and Entrepreneurship
Speaking of owning a mental health practice, let's get into the other ride: that relationship with occupation that some people call a career.
Despite my being a very messy, frequently food-wearing, human; I do own a mental health practice. I also relate hard to ADHD memes that reference things like struggling with laundry, rejection sensitivity, and boredom being equivalent to my personal doom.
Please note: relatable experiences are not diagnostic. If you're reading and relating please know that ADHDers don't have the market cornered on being disorganized or having our feelings hurt. If you find yourself relating to a lot of information on ADHD, it could be worthwhile to talk to a trusted mental health professional, or your primary care physician, about a diagnosis.
Back to this ride called an occupation: Much like the chain of events (hyperfocus on interests, disconnection from hunger cues until they are a problem, hurriedly eating while driving related to poor time management) that led me to be at work with beans in my hair, my strengths at work are also very related to my ADHD.
My hyperfocus loves to run with a novel idea. My sensitivity (which stings in the form of rejection sensitivity) can be an incredible asset in understanding my clients. A pervasive drive for autonomy fuels independence and creativity. If you're familiar with PDA you know the medical-model name isn't as fun, but the experience absolutely is about autonomy.
People who start businesses tend to be interest-driven humans that devour novel ideas. I'd wager comfortably that many, if not most, entrepreneurs have ADHD.
Meeting ADHD Entrepreneurs' Support Needs
All neurotypes (the sort of wiring we have) have strengths and weaknesses and my own neurotype, as I understand it today, is Autistic and ADHD (or AuDHD). Sometimes I think my mental health practice would be better served if my Autism didn't counter-balance my ADHD. That is a deep-dive for another day but the first reason that comes up is that my Autistic inclination towards analysis can result in slower decisions. We could view this as a trade off, but there's enormous business-value in being able to make quick decisions and easily pivot (not Autistic strengths).
The strengths and weaknesses of ADHD both create assets and come with particular support needs. Being an entrepreneur creates built-in support for the ADHD drive for autonomy (which might look oppositional when the need for autonomy isn't supported).
I want to acknowledge that accommodating support needs involves privilege. Being a person in the context of capitalism and meeting your basic needs requires money. My personal experience of moving from working for an employer to working for myself came with significant financial risk. Our personal resources, which are inseparable from privilege, inform our risk tolerance.
Depending on your own neurotype, life experience, and privileges: you may have more or less risk tolerance. Acting on creative ideas, the heart of entrepreneurship, is inherently risky. If pursuing your creativity is something you want for yourself it's important to ask what support, or accommodations, you need.
To determine what accommodations you need, you can start with an inventory of your current internal and external resources. What do you already have? What do you need to cultivate or connect with?
If you're a creative ADHDer, managing executive function challenges is most likely a support need.
Ready for a hard truth? You're not going to think your way into better executive function.
While ADHDers tend to have an abundance of novel ideas and creativity, they tend not to have awesome working memory (that reliable internal running list that tells you what just happened and needs to happen next) which impacts executive function. If you're struggling with follow-through, this often needs external accommodation and a system.
I'm hesitant to offer strategies because my brain and yours are different. My own recipe for managing my executive functioning challenges involves:
External reminders of personal values (why stuff matters)
External prompts for what I need to do (daily checklists where I can see them)
Loads of accountability (other people I have a commitment to and follow up with)
This is all about creating traction. Without it, I can easily freeze, faced with overwhelming options and possibilities, and do nothing for... some time.
A starting place could be to brainstorm the following:
What are my resources?
What are my challenges?
How can I leverage resources to accommodate challenges?
In case people don't come to mind with the word "resources", here's a gentle reminder. Your resources include both current and potential relationships.
Common passengers on the ride that is ADHD are other mental health challenges, or ADHD comorbidities, which can compound challenges with memory and executive functioning. When evaluating your personal accommodation needs, you might consider if there are mental health accommodations you need.
The Need for ADHD Creativity
Where these rides, my ADHD experience and entrepreneurial journey, are presently merging in my personal experience is in imagining how Divergent Path Wellness, the Charlottesville mental health practice I started in 2020, will grow. Sometimes I catch myself in the mirror, with beans in my hair, and think "Really? You?"
Yep, ADHD self-doubt. Really. Me.
If you too have a creative vision and ADHD, there isn't someone who can realize your creative vision other than you. No one else can actualize your own creativity.
I look at how Divergent Path Wellness has grown in a year. It was a practice of one before Hannah joined the practice in August of 2023: offering psychotherapy to neurodivergent folks (including ADHDers), LGBTQIA+ people and individuals with a history of religious/spiritual trauma. It's now a practice of 5 and while we continue offering psychotherapy we also offer groups and couples' services. The relationships I've discovered with my team, those are both resources and necessary accommodations to support the creative vision. The reality is that I could not do this alone.
What I imagine Divergent Path Wellness growing into (we're not there yet as of August 2024) is a practice that continues to offer therapy and expands to include integrative medicine practitioners who collaboratively work with clients to address physiological aspects of ADHD and mental health diagnoses. I also want to incorporate ADHD & Autism assessment and executive functioning coaching to support neurodivergent folks' awareness of their needs and developing systems of accommodation.
That's the vision.
Since it's probable that I'll continue to be me, I'm likely to sometimes have flat tires and be wearing my meals. Boring tasks will continue to mostly be soul-crushing (and I'll be trying to develop the resources to delegate them) and thoughts are likely to show up like, Who approved you doing this? Professional credentials don't quiet ADHD self doubt.
ADHDers are often disorganized, messy, and sometimes filled with self-doubt about this thing called "adulting". We can also be interest-focused innovators with unmatched creativity. Engaging with our creativity is likely to be a wild ride.
A final note:
On Sesame Street, the PBS children's show from the mind of neurodivergent creative Jim Henson, the show came to a close with, "Sesame Street was brought to today you by the letter..." and I find myself reflecting on this. The wild ride of realizing our creativity, for many creatives and entrepreneurs, is brought to you today and everyday by the letters A.D.H.D.
Helen Dempsey Henofer LCSW, ADHD-CCSP
Founder, Psychotherapist
Divergent Path Wellness
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