I love when there's a good book about ADHD. I am still reading How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe (whose YouTube channel is absolutely amazing), because it is...rather large. And I lent it to my dad. Before I finished it for some reason. I did just get it back and I am making my way through it. It's great stuff...but very long.
I read Kat Brown's It's Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult and loved it. It was her story, combined with stories of lots of other people living with ADHD as adults, many late-diagnosed like her (and like me). She is so witty, and engaging, and I can't help but feel that we could be friends when I read her work.
I started reading a book recommended by a coworker, but I didn't finish that book, which shall remain nameless, on purpose. This is because it filled me with the fury of a thousand murder hornets (remember murder hornets?). It was just so...clinical. Pathological. Negative. Deficit-based. It did not speak to me, AT ALL. Or rather, it said "You are defective and it is hard to be around you, and look at these cool images of brains and where they don't fire as much in these areas, but yeah, your life is going to be difficult." So I chose not to listen so much to what it had to say. Maybe it gets better. It made me feel shitty enough while reading it that I didn't care to find out.
But, I did find this one, which is the exact opposite of that Negative Nancy book: ADHD Is Awesome: A Guide to (mostly) Thriving With ADHD by Penn and Kim Holderness. Yes, the couple of the crazy videos and songs and current series on Perry, Perimenopause. I felt like, OK, it's a celebrity book, but I'll give it a try. I am SO glad I did. It is so much more than a "celebrity book."
The book is mostly written by Penn, who has ADHD. He was diagnosed in college, so relatively late for a boy. It also features "Notes from Kim" that are peppered throughout -- she does not have ADHD, but gives excellent perspective as someone who lives with a person with ADHD, for better and for worse.
The text is nicely broken up, it's not too long, the pacing is swift, and the formatting of the pages...it's the most ADHD-friendly setup ever:
Each chapter is assigned its own color, so you can set mini-goals while reading. "I'm going to finish this orange section! Oh look, I'm in the green, I may as well finish that too..." It is VERY motivating. I do not need motivation to read most fiction books, or memoirs. But nonfiction books? It can feel a bit like a slog. Even when it's very, very useful information. Nonfiction books are the ones I most frequently do not finish. THIS format? I flew through it. It was beautifully, visually chunked.
What I love about this book is that it's practical. It focuses on not just "this is how your brain works" but also "this is how your brain is an asset, and this is how you can manage the dingdong things your brain does to get in your way, and by the way, just because you do dingdong things doesn't mean YOU are a dingdong." I felt very, very seen.
I also felt very, very sad for the young me who was not given a whole lot of grace for ADHD-related behaviors that no one recognized as ADHD. Because I was a girl, because I did well in school (although if you look at my transcripts you can totally see where it was motivation-driven), because there was a lot going on in my family and I felt an insane pressure to "be normal, be good." This book actually prompted me to make a list of things throughout my life, starting in childhood, that I thought were me just being a weird, irresponsible hot mess, but are actually part of my differently-wired brain. Not an excuse, but wow is it freeing to realize that there are things that ARE definitely harder for me, but it's not a character flaw. I can develop skills to manage them. My list became so numerous that it quickly turned into its own dedicated post.
I love ADHD Is Awesome so much for that grace, and for the information both on ADHD and living with someone with ADHD, and looking at challenges through a positive lens. I love it so much I want to do a professional development on Neurodivergence, and the novel idea that not all brains are wired in the same way and that's actually a GOOD thing. That even though there are challenges and difficulties, there are strengths -- creativity, thinking outside the box, being good in constantly changing/high-stress situations, having lots of energy (until you don't), and hyperfocus. Apparently teaching is a common profession for female ADHDers, go figure, which makes sense because everything is chunked in increments, you're constantly solving the puzzle of how to get students to "get it" and think critically, and it is NEVER the same. On the flip side, I see students with ADHD get labeled as noncompliant, lazy, unmotivated, blurty, and distracting. And while they (and me) can be all of those things, imagine what would happen if there was grace given. If deficits were looked at as "skills not developed yet" and not willful disobedience or sluggery.
Imagine if there was a greater understanding of different brains, and it led to working on skills while celebrating successes, and above all, giving people the benefit of the doubt. I did not enjoy feeling like I was inherently a hot mess express. I do not enjoy when I feel like a failure or do something real dumb. It is amazingly freeing to realize that there are reasons why some things are particularly difficult, and I am not a lost cause -- I can learn strategies to help me capitalize on my strengths and accommodate my areas of need. Which obviously goes for students, too.
I really think this book can help, as so many books do, build some empathy and be a toolbox for helping people of all ages strive to be their best selves, despite and maybe even because of the challenges.
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