
Writing in a Loud World
It took me years to realize that no matter where I lived, there would always be noise. That is the nature of sharing this world with other people. Short of living in a soundproof dome there was no way I could escape it. It baffled me that my friends and family weren’t as overwhelmed by the noise. They never understood why I couldn’t adapt to it. They seemed to just brush it off as if it wasn’t that big of a deal.
While they could adapt, I would become overstimulated and extremely angry at the evasive noises of life that interrupted my ability to concentrate, feel calm, or sleep at night.
It wasn’t until after I learned I was autistic that I understood my inability to adapt to the unavoidable noises of everyday life resulting from sensory processing challenges.

An AuDHDer’s Writing Essentials
Writing used to be so hard because I was repressing my stims, masking heavily, and struggling with auditory processing in busy social settings. No wonder I had little energy left to be creative. Since being diagnosed with autism and ADHD, I’ve developed a toolbox of essential aids and systems that support my creative process. Here are some of my favorites.

How an autism + ADHD diagnosis helped me reclaim my love of writing
I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer. What I didn’t understand is that all the traditional advice about how to discipline yourself to write consistently and produce new work would never work for me. So, for years I struggled to finish even a short piece of work. I could not understand how I could have moments of hyperfocus when I completed a project usually when there was an external deadline involved and yet when it came to other projects I would start with a burst of excitement and inspiration and then my motivation would take dive off a steep cliff into a bottomless pit never to be seen again.