Hyperfocus can feel like both a gift and a burden, yet within its messiness lies the beauty of discovery and growth on the AuDHD journey. In this reflection, I share both the struggles and quiet victories that shape my healing.
Right now I am in a painful state. Midst dust and dishes piling up. Laundry on the floor and toilets to clean. I hate chores on a good day, and I really hate them when all I can think about is writing you. I’ve waited my whole life which means there is a lifetime I want to tell you about. Share.
I don’t even want to eat lunch.
I have no food aversions like some do, maybe even you. My grandfather taught me how to cook, Gifted Neurodivergent. He was the one adult in my entire life I connected with who saw the potential in me and didn’t try to squash it. He fostered my gifts. I had no idea I shared his Gifted side until a year ago I took a test with tears streaming down my face. It was the first neurodivergent assessment I took. I had always thought I was stupid. You can read more about that experience here. It would be another year before I discovered my AuDHD.
The ADHD side of my brain loves to eat. It fills me with great joy and creative interest connecting me to other cultures through taste. While satisfying my Autistic side that wants to do it from my house.
My grandfather was a world traveler who did so on the back of mopeds and chicken coop vans. A real life Anthony Bourdain who taught me to love tasting new things and appreciate the humanity behind them. I miss them both.
Today, I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to stop what I’m doing to clean last night’s dishes or wipe countertops. I don’t want to dig through the fridge to fill my stomach.
Today, these necessary tasks to living feel like a big pain in my well you know ass.
There are no kids in my house anymore so to be real I do have a slip of the tongue here and there. My faith is big enough now I know I’m forgiven.
Autistic inertia: the difficulty autistic individuals may experience in starting, stopping, or switching tasks.
Yet wanting order and a clean house. To feel settled. Unable to stop seeing the dust and crumbs and mess. Knowing I need to, but being completely overwhelmed. Let me know if I am using this wrong?? I’m still learning.
I guess where I feel trapped is not wanting to switch. My ADHD side is well feeling pissed. That life needs to get done. To be a functioning member of my household (and why do they need to eat yet again, the animals, my husband) knowing I will need to stop the creative flow of my hyperfocus to do the menial. Life!
Feed my family and clean up after them. Seriously. Again.
Dogs whining to be let out again. How many times do you have to pee?? To my fur babies I normally spoil who get a lot of my attention and love, I now growl.
ADHD Hyperfocus: a state of intense and prolonged concentration on a specific task or activity.
Writing YOU. The creative juices flowing that have been pent up for way too long. I love writing you.
I wrote my 500 page memoir in three extremely hyper focused months this winter. All from a trauma only perspective believing it was going to solely be about Complex PTSD.
It did cause me Autistic Burnout. (I didn’t know it. I was just familiarly drained not wanting to get off the couch.)
Then I discovered Neurodivergence. First Gifted then AuDHD.
At some point I will go back to that memoir stuffed in a file to add my neurodivergent lens with new hyper focus energy. But not for a while. It’s going to stay in its file.
Right now all I want to do is write you. On this blog. To share with you my heart. Experience. Love.
That seems way freakin more important than stupid dishes in the sink that need to get washed I can’t stop looking at while typing, but don’t want to lift a figure to do! Start.
Now you see it. An inside look in my brain. The literal lobotomy of living with dual competing neurodivergences playing tug of war. Constantly.
Remember the fur baby story? When my kids were small, I stopped using all my gifts and hyper focused on their needs. Knowing how much I hated transitioning from my creative expression. Never wanting them to feel my fiery frustration, I quit. No more writing for years putting my babies first.
I also entered a deep depression.
We must find the balance. Somehow and maybe with some help from outside. Learn the tools to transition to do life and art.
This one I don’t quite have figured out. Obviously. My brain is a hot mess and I am ending this post to go do my chores. But this time, I know I’ll be back. And that eases my brain. Some.
One more thing I now know: God loves us in our mess no matter how hot it gets.
We do not need to carry the shame of having a hard time to transition. God did wire our brains by the way and that shame is just toxic. Let’s be real.
I can’t wait to if Proverbs 31 is one woman or several in heaven. I have my gut, but can’t wait to find out if it is right. I have parts, but not the whole, and I am coming to realize and accept that is by God’s design. Stopping putting the ridiculous pressure to measure up to a woman for whom I have a lot of questions. How about you?
I choose resting and working within God’s design even if that to everyone else it looks like a mess. God knows my heart and how hard I try to the best of my ability.
He sees you too. You can rest. Selah.
I’ll see you after the dishes.
Love,
Raya
The Gentle Rise 