(Gracefully) Overwhelmed: How To Live Creatively with ADHD

Grace and poise? Overrated. When you’re an artist with ADHD, you have a lot more to offer than you might think.

Note: The terms ADHD and ADD are used interchangeably in this piece.

A Wild World of Labels.

Weird. Hyper. Quirky. Lazy. “God, you are so ADD.” Sound familiar? For those of us with ADHD or ADD, our external traits are often misunderstood. People see someone who can’t sit still, can’t stop talking or moderate their voice…someone who is always either Go! Go! Go! or totally deflated. For both parties, this can be frustrating. Internally, those of us with ADHD can often be summed up in one word — overwhelmed.

Officially, the National Institute for Mental Health reports that about of adults in the U.S. have ADHD. Realistically, this percentage is probably much higher. ADHD is often mixed in with other psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, or PTSD, and this can make it difficult to diagnose, especially in adults. Even more specifically in adult women, as ADHD and ADD have traditionally been considered a “male disorder” due to the diagnostic criteria involved in identifying it.