ADHD and Your Creative Side

Have you ever noticed that people who have ADHD often possess a creative side to them? That creativity is what keeps us motivated, and excited about life. 

Yet when life gets too stressed,  we tend to box up our creative side and tuck it away for another day because we can't handle another thing! 

However, unleashing our creativity has been known to both reduce stress and help manage ADHD symptoms like distraction and procrastination. 

But even with that knowledge, we just can't seem to find the time to create! Instead, we are focused on keeping our ADHD symptoms in check so that we can push through all of the important stuff like putting food on the table for our family and keeping a roof over our heads. 

And between the never-ending battle of our ADHD symptoms, work, home, and life, by the end of the day, we are beyond exhausted, so the idea of creating something feels anything but fun!   

Then, we are constantly being told that our fatigue is an everyday feeling everyone experiences and we need to deal with it as the rest of the world does. 

Unfortunately, not everyone has a diagnosis of ADHD, so they don't understand that we can't just deal with it like everyone else. With ADHD, fatigue can cause irritability and depression, which can eventually lead to serious health problems. 

However, that creative side we tucked away because we already have too many pickles on our plate is an essential part of treating the fatigue caused by ADHD. 

If creating something sounds a little intimidating, start small with your favorite hobby or anything you are passionate about. Try to incorporate your creative side every day, even if you only have five minutes to spare on it. 

Just remember, success doesn't happen overnight. It may take some time before you start feeling less fatigued or notice an improvement in your mood and even your health. 

Not convinced? I have always loved expressing my creative side even as a child. My love for writing began when I was 5 years old. I would sit in school and write stories about the shows and characters my mother and I would watch together. One television show that I remember writing about was the 1983 sci-fi tv series, Voyagers, which starred Jon-Erik Hexum and my childhood crush, Meeno Peluce. At 10 years old I had written a script for the series and by high school, I had written and published a poem that led to even greater accomplishments like publishing my science fiction novel, The Generation.  

But there was a time when I stopped expressing my creative side because I had too many pickles on my plate and I had started to experience burnout mode. After taking two weeks off work to do nothing, I realized that not only was I bored, but I still felt drained. 

Then, one day I felt an urge hit me to work on a story I had started writing several years ago. Since then I have noticed an improvement in the way I feel. I have even taken my creativity to another level with paper mache that has earned me a bit of money. 

For those of us who live with ADHD, we can't be compared to those who don't have the mental disease because we are not the same. We think and act differently. Yet, we forget about the important things like being creative. 

Learning to express our creative side every day isn't just another task on our to-do list or something others see as unproductive. Expressing our creative side gives us the motivation to do others things and it makes us feel confident that we can take on any challenge in life! Our lives are less chaotic and more at peace when we can express our creativity. 

So embrace your creative side no matter what and make something!