Two years ago, when I started this blog with my one-and-done post, I intended the sole focus to be writing. In my long-awaited second post from earlier this week, I mentioned I had started yet another blog in the intervening years–you know, the one with four whole posts to its name. That one was meant to be a platform for my response to our crumbling mess of a country and world, and how us plebs might work to reorder our reality into something that actually benefits us, not just our corporate overlords.
So when Life 2.0 began recently, once I was finally properly medicated for my ADHD, and I felt ready to attempt blogging again, I had to choose which blog to fire back up. I initially decided on the other blog, mostly because of the urgency and significance of the topic, but then realized I really wanted a platform specifically to discuss ADHD. And not just to help me process my late diagnosis, as it’s been almost exactly a year now and I’ve done almost nothing but process it since then. But throughout that year of coming to terms with the fact that my brain is not neurotypical, what that’s meant for my life trajectory, and how differently things might have turned out for me if I had been properly identified and diagnosed as a child, I’ve come to understand just how much urgency and significance surrounds our collective need to truly understand what ADHD entails–especially outside of the stereotypical model of hyperactive young boys we’ve all come to know.
So why did I end up going with Ware the Words as my ADHD platform?
Well, turns out it just happened to be flawlessly named for this purpose.
One of the absolute most fascinating and regrettable parts of processing my ADHD diagnosis has been using this new lens to reconsider all the classic childhood stories my parents and siblings and other family members have always loved to tell about me. Fascinating because every single one illustrates just how much, unbeknownst to anyone, I was struggling with ADHD–regrettable for precisely the same reason. Case in point: My family has always been big on nicknames, my siblings and I all ending up with many over the years. To this day, no one in my immediate family calls anyone else by their actual name, and the rare times that’s not the case, it’s nothing short of unsettling. And, tellingly, one of my earliest nicknames, bestowed upon me as a toddler, was…
“Motormouth.”
At the age of one, I was speaking in full sentences and apparently the stream-of-consciousness style chatter rarely stopped. My mom says car rides with me when I was very young consisted of an unbroken litany from the backseat of everything I saw out the window, interspersed with my own personal commentary on, as well as curious questions about, said things. And I didn’t even need another physical presence as a sounding board–when no one else was around, my imaginary friends were outstanding listeners.
What makes this relevant to our discussion is that “often talks excessively” is literally listed amongst the diagnostic criteria for ADHD in the DSM-V, and it’s often one of the primary ways hyperactivity is expressed in girls. Girls with ADHD tend to present with primarily inattentive symptoms, which is thought to be the most significant contributing factor to their lower rates of diagnosis. That was decidedly not the case for me, though, making the fact that I managed to slip through the cracks even more regrettable.
And while hyperactivity is harder to diagnose in adults since we tend to become less outwardly energetic as we get older, my excessive talking has remained a constant. I just have a lot of words, you know? And the propensity isn’t helped by having a strong opinion on essentially everything, which works to generate even more words. I mean, my brain is essentially just one giant word factory, and if I don’t continuously find and sort and group and get the proper words on the proper vehicles for distribution, well…
I honestly don’t want to know what would happen in that somewhat terrifying scenario.
I mean, they do just come out on their own often enough. Like when I find myself chatting up some stranger–who just happens to find themselves with the questionable luck of being in close proximity to me in public–without ever having had any sort of conscious intention of saying anything at all. Truthfully, sometimes I realize I’m talking when I really don’t want to be talking, and the supervisor of my high-output word-factory of a brain is screaming JUST STOP TALKING!, but no one on the line can actually hear her over the rumble of myriad packages of vowels and consonants sailing down the conveyer belt, a behemoth piece of machinery that seems to entirely be lacking an emergency shut-off.
OSHA would have a field day with my brain.
And obviously my hands comprise one of those distribution vehicles, as I have been a prolific writer from the time I first learned to write, which, like most everything else for me developmentally, was early (I’m what’s known as “twice exceptional,” or “2e,” meaning I’m both gifted and struggle with a learning disability–the primary reason I wasn’t properly diagnosed with ADHD when I was a child, as, come to find out, high levels of intelligence and creativity can and do make up for A LOT). I was the college student professors both love and hate when it came to essays, because I was always like, “8-10 page paper, you say? Cool, this one’s 16 pages and you’re lucky I only started this last night or it would have been 20.” Texts, emails, online posts. All of them are easily four times as long as they probably need to be.
But seriously, what else am I supposed to do with all these damn words everywhere all the time? They’re clogging shit up around here, man. They gotta go. You know, to make room for the avalanche of words stacked up to infinity behind them.
Because there are always more words.
Which brings us to the title of this post.
Now, if you’re someone who struggles with an extreme overabundance of words, it really behooves you to find a partner who actually enjoys listening to and reading your own particular brand of verbiage. This is just one of the countless ways in which I lucked out in the partner department. According to my husband, listening to me prattle on about various and sundry nonsense is one of his most favorite things in the world. The height of entertainment to him back when we used to do such things on the regular was to wait till I was drunk or high, toss out a topic, and just sit back to listen. He’s not the only one to feel that way, either. I’m apparently even more entertaining when not sober, if you can imagine such a thing. As my husband likes to say, he knows where and how he’ll always find me at a party: drunk as hell, surrounded by other partygoers, loudly entertaining them with some story or other. He calls it “holding court.”
Speaking of substance use, though (unsurprisingly, a significant issue for those with ADHD), my husband (also ADHD) and I were both able to kick some severe longterm addictions a few years ago (alcohol, cannabis, nicotine)–and it was pre-diagnosis and treatment for either of us, making our success particularly remarkable in hindsight. And one exceptionally helpful tool for this achievement was tea, especially for the evening hours when we would have otherwise been getting drunk and/or high. My husband is a big black tea-drinker; he actually doesn’t drink coffee at all. And yes, that’s just as mortifying for me to admit as you might imagine. I mean, I am also a regular black tea-drinker, but I at least start my day with coffee.
Like a civilized person.
Anyway, during this time, I became reacquainted with my favorite tea (and yes, as absurd as it sounds, people with ADHD legitimately forget about even our favorite things sometimes–“out of sight, out of mind” is a basic operating parameter of ADHD brains). That tea is Bigelow’s Constant Comment. One evening, as he was making us yet another round, his curiosity was piqued by the utter bizarreness of the name of my tea. I mean, it is a pretty weird name for a tea. So while waiting for the kettle to heat, he started coming up with synonyms for it, such as “Perpetual Rambling,” “Neverending Blather,” “Unceasing Discourse,” etc. (I don’t actually remember the exact synonyms he came up with that night, but it’s ridiculously entertaining to come up with new ones anyway. I highly recommend trying a few yourself.) But it wasn’t until he got to one synonym in particular that he was suddenly struck with an epic revelation.
The synonym?
“Always Words.”
The epic revelation?
“HOLY SHIT, THIS TEA IS PERFECT FOR YOU.”
So there you have it. An appropriately verbose explanation for why I chose to reboot Ware the Words as my ADHD platform.
Also?
TWO POSTS IN ONE WEEK, BITCHES.
So how’d your betting go?
Ware the Words 