Stroud ADHD Group-Reflections of Me

I have some work included in this group exhibition at Lansdown Gallery. Put together by Stroud ADHD Support Group. I don’t talk about this a great deal because there is so much involved in unpicking the perceptions we have of each other and of ourselves, the ideas and experiences of how life is and should be and so much more. It makes for big conversations.  How it presents in women and girls is very different from the common understanding of what ADHD looks like and blows right in the face of facets of life that are assumed to be ‘easier’ for us. In conversations it’s important to protect, respect and support each other’s experiences and be kind.  

As is common with undiagnosed women it seems I reached a point in my life when I had to just stop. Stop, reassess, acknowledge my struggles, exhaustion, capacities and uniqueness. I am now on a waiting list, years long, for ADHD assessment. I knew things were not quite right since I was a child.  I do not hold tightly to a label, because who knows how neuroscience will develop or how we will be talking about this nuance in years to come? For me ADHD identifies a bunch of human who have common struggles in the context of how our society works today. Right now the frame of that collective of responses to life stimulus gives me structure, insight, understanding, acceptance and compassion from myself towards myself, and that bit I would wish for everyone.

I am doing a workshop on Sunday 12-2pm on how to create when we believe we don’t have space, time, materials or ideas!

On Now until Sunday 3pm.