I notice that Sandy Naiman, fellow Psych Central blogger whose blog is entitled Coming Out Crazy, is down with the word “crazy.”

Meanwhile, fellow Psych Central ADHD blogger Kathryn Goetzke recently waxed eloquent on how much she detests the word in her post, Please, Don’t Call Me Crazy!

I’d like to weigh in on the whole crazy debate (with thanks to Kathryn for giving me the impetus to write this).

Photo by ©Zoë Kessler, 2009

“Wish I could stop those hands of time – Just till I stop Wandering”

~ Paul Antonio

A friend of mine wrote a song called Lost Soul Wandering (song recorded by the Paul Antonio Band). We were talking about the possibility of his having ADHD, when it suddenly struck him that this, and every other song he’s written, could have been written about ADHD.

I couldn’t disagree.

Quotient® ADHD System

One of my predictions for 2011 is that we will be inundated with new gadgets, gizmos, and diagnostic tests.

Sure enough, mid-January I got my first e-mail inviting me to a webcast about a “breakthrough test for ADHD called the Quotient® ADHD System.”

Today’s post will introduce the Quotient ADHD System, which can be used for ADHDers of any age. The system is manufactured and marketed by BioBehavioral Diagnostics Company, a private company in Plymouth Meeting, PA.

Zoë freelancing at CBC Radio One, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Do I have a great career or what?

I’ve been thinking about how perfect journalism is for me. I’ve already blogged about how many jobs I’ve had, but writing is my career.

Writing is the one thing I’ve even remotely done consistently.

My writing guru, Natalie Goldberg, stresses the value in deep commitment. She’s practiced Zen Buddhism for decades, she should know. But in my undiagnosed ADHD state, even writing came and went, in spite of my passion for it.

Am I lune-y? Or does this make sense?

Ha! I KNEW it!

Maybe that’s too self-congratulatory a way to open a blog post, but I admit I was ecstatic, just now, when I looked up the word distraction in my good ‘ol Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:

Distraction (n) 1 : the act of distracting or the state of being distracted; esp: mental confusion 2 : something that distracts; esp: amusement

I was thinking about distraction today at work (!). Or, rather, while I was dusting shelves (yes, I dust shelves at my part-time job; I like to think it keeps me humble while I’m working towards being a world-famous author and ADHD expert, ha ha)… anyway, here I was dusting and I noticed a new Globe sitting on the shelf.

ADHD brain jam - 400 words, 4,000 ideas!

It was with growing panic that, since last Thursday, I have been entertaining the idea that I was suffering from writer’s block.

Wake me up and I’ll write something…or not…

Why couldn’t I sit down and write anything? (I mean, besides the fact that I was stricken with a double whammy of hormonally-induced sleepiness, thanks to PMS AND  menopausal symptoms… geez, body – make up your mind! 22 or 52? Give me a break!  …but I digress… see what I mean? This is EXACTLY how it’s been for a week!)

Four hundred words…that’s all I have to write for a blog post …400 words… what was wrong with me?!

Zoë's in an ADHD haze

Hi everyone.

This is an apology of sorts. I miss you.

I feel like I haven’t written in ages. I’m a mess. I’ve been off my medication for 2 days now. Will be back on tomorrow – hurrah!

In addition to that, I had a birthday (52), I have PMS (at 52?!) and my birth mother’s lung cancer has advanced and I’m worried sick. In short, I’m overwhelmed and haven’t been able to get it together enough to sit and write anything worthwhile.

ADHDer Zoë Kessler teaches you how to play the telephone game all by yourself!

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the “telephone game.”

You know, it’s the one where you’re at a party and you sit in a circle. One person whispers something to the person beside them, then that person whispers to the person sitting next to them, and so on around the circle. The last person to hear the whispered phrase or sentence has to say what they heard out loud.

Invariably, what comes out of the mouth of the last person is wildly divergent from the original phrase or sentence. And hilarious.

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille...

WARNING: This blog post is NOT for the faint-of-heart.

Two days ago, I found myself in a hospital emergency ward, where I waited six hours for treatment.

Finally, at four in the morning, the doctor came in and began the excruciating process of lancing my infected finger. Good thing I didn’t know beforehand that something infected can’t be anesthetized. That didn’t stop him from trying, so the process began with an extremely painful, yet useless, needle to my throbbing digit.

Fruit of my labour

About a week before Christmas, I made an especially hard push towards the goal of organizing my office. I made headway: I can now walk from the door of my office, directly to my desk. No maze-like maneuvers, no bruised knees, no objects falling as they’re jostled from their resting place at the pinnacle of a mountain of papers.

The psychological freedom of being able to make a beeline directly to my office chair – in and of itself – is a palpable improvement.

With my mind thus liberated, I experienced a new sense of expansiveness. I was able to sit and calmly scan the office for one or two more concrete steps that I felt I could handle.