One of my most frustrating traits is that I find it impossible to stick to a routine. I do not do the same things every day in the same order, even the most basic things. I regularly forget to put on deodorant! So when I realised I wanted to write, every single piece of advice to get from being a beginner writer to a writer writer was to write every day.
I tried to get up earlier but I just ended up hitting the snooze button. I tried buying All The Notebooks, digital options, Day One reminders, WordPress reminders… nothing worked. It made me feel like a fraud. A fake writer. A wannabe. If I really wanted to do it, I would just do it, right?
However, while on my journey to get to know myself better, I am starting to realise that perhaps my brain just doesn’t work in the way that it does for everyone. Without wanting Instagram to diagnose me, it made me realise that it is possible that I could be neurologically different. It is also possible that I have started perimenopause which can apparently exacerbate ADHD traits. Dr Shepard wrote on her blog about ADHD in women and how it can often go unnoticed. Here are some of the ways it can manifest:
- Difficulty with organization and time-management – people can be labelled as ‘lazy’ (a label I definitely give myself);
- Unstable mood and sensitivity to criticism – this includes emotional dysregualtion, something which I am trying to come to terms with as just the way I am and not a sign that I am ‘broken’ (another label I have given myself until I realised I was just wrong about that);
- Feeling easily overstimulated – not one that particularly speaks to me but I do find myself struggling with general home noise when I am feeling particularly delicate (I say that I am a Victorian lady who needs to manage her ‘nerves’);
- Imposter syndrome – just re-read the second paragraph for proof of this!
I don’t know whether I do have ADHD but just accepting that my brain does not work in the same way as other peoples’ is a huge weight off.
All of this brings me to the reason for my post today which is despite all this, I have managed to blog every day in January. Today is the last day of the Bloganuary challenge and for once, I have managed to write every single day for 31 days. It gives me hope that it is possible for me to maintain a daily writing habit – or at least a semi-regular one – and it has reinvigorated my blogging. I had thought that blogging was so 2008 but I guess I was wrong about that too.
Notes From My Day 