Autism

How to Be Composed and Focussed: ADHD edition

• Step 1: throw away self help books that are aimed at neurotypicals. The advice in them is probably not helpful for us, and will just exacerbate internalised ableism. Not only will it take different strategies to get there, but "composed and focussed" will look different for you than it will for neurotypical people.

For example, a friend I had found that she was only able to complete her university essays when she engaged in an odd sort of task circuit-training, where she had multiple different tasks that she could cycle between as soon as she found herself losing focus. To an external, neurotypical observer, this looked like absurd chaos, but that was how she found her focus.

• Step 2: try your best to work against the aforementioned internalised ableism. This, unfortunately, is an ongoing task, because even once we throw away unhelpful frameworks, we can't escape from the unreasonable expectations that the world places upon us. That is not your fault, and you are not broken just because you can't fit into the pre built mould that society offers you. It is possible to build new frameworks that will comfortably fit and support you, but we're going to have to do a lot of that work ourselves. This is a task that will be an ongoing one, so proceed to step 3 whenever you feel ready.

• Step 3: find neurodivergent community. This is the most important step, because it can do wonders for helping with step 2; it gets tiring to have to constantly remind ourselves that we're not broken, so it's helpful to have other people help remind us of this sometimes. Plus ADHD folk often find it's easier to care for other people than for themselves, so you might find it easier to affirm other people than yourself. That can be a good starting point for learning how to extend that same grace to yourself.

It doesn't matter whether it's online or irl, a space specifically dedicated to discussing ADHD/autism or just a hobby community with lots of neurospicy folk — just find your people. It's daunting to feel like you have to build an entire mode of living from scratch, but you're not doing it alone. Ask people what strategies they have found useful for coping, and if you find anything, share that with others too. We're not a monolith, so not everything will work for every person, but having these conversations about what works and what doesn't is super useful.

• Step 4: Remember that there is no silver bullet here, no single strategy that will fix everything. I'm sorry to have to emphasise this, but the best tool is the one you use. Try not to fixate on the next shiny thing, because that's a false comfort. I know that actually using the tools and strategies is the hard part, but that's why we need to keep working at it. You will struggle with this, but that's not failure, it's part of the process. Refer back to Step 2 if you need to.

Step 5: Remember the big picture. What we're building here is social and informational infrastructure. My own experience has been improved by having access to resources and communities online that are made by and for neurodivergent people; if I were born 100 years ago, I might've ended up in an asylum. It often doesn't feel like it, but things are getting better. It's overwhelming and scary to be building something new on the margins of society, but we have the ability to improve things both for ourselves, and the people who come after us.

We're trying to do something radical here, and that will take time and a lot of work. Most of us were only taught how to be successful neurotypicals, which is something that we can never be. We are having to learn from scratch how to be successful neurodivergent people, but there isn't a simple guidebook for that. We have to muddle along as best we can and write that guidebook ourselves. In this way, learning how to live as ourselves is a powerful form of political praxis^[1] (which may be a helpful thing to remember if you tend to beat yourself up about being too burnt out to engage in as much activism as you'd like).

[1] : Praxis can be generally defined as the process of putting theory or ideas into practice. In this case, we can say "we deserve better than to live believing that we are no more than failed neurotypicals", but then there's the tricky question of how do we put that ideal into practice? That's the ongoing quest. Praxis in this context also draws from how it's used in Marxist thought, which is that praxis is about actions that are oriented towards changing society.