Creativity often times drives me crazy, because I don’t follow the rules and I have some trouble staying in the lines.

When I was in grade school, I remember making a paper mache duck for my dad that only had one wing. People thought that was a bit odd but I thought my duck was cool, and just because by the time I got to the other wing I was ready to wrap up the project doesn’t mean it wasn’t artistically significant! Although I have to say the ridicule of my artistic abilities got to me a bit, and I started shielding others from my creative expression.

I’ve come to realize the benefit of art is that it allows you to express yourself creatively, and while people always judge art comes in all shapes and sizes.  Painting and paper mache may not be my thing, but I have found photography to be an incredibly rewarding experience – one that takes advantage of my quick mind and unique perspective.  And then I came across the best creative exercise for me yet – a manifestation board.

I usually like to write productive, meaningful posts about ADHD. I try to keep it positive and be gentle and give suggestions on dealing with this puzzling brain disease. Not today. Today, I just want to rant a little about what this world is doing to my ADHD, with a few reminders on how I can keep afloat.

I’m simply overwhelmed with emotions. Fear, sadness, anger, hopelessness – you name it. It seems to me everyone is running around in circles, reacting to crisis after crisis, and yet the world continues on its downward spiral.

Wars, the environment, homelessness, anger, joblessness, natural disasters, on and on and on.  My mind is full to the brim  – but problems continue to be added and added – making my mind feel like a juggler forced to keep too many balls in the air.

Eventually they will all drop.

I’ve been talking about the upside a lot – and I think it’s important for friends, family and coworkers to all realize there is a MAJOR upside.  There is also something that I think a lot of people would benefit from understanding, in terms of the downside.  And if people did, they could save a LOT of painful, ultimately pointless conversations and conflicts.

Just as the ADHD mind has the ability to go on and on, on positive subjects with new, creative, brilliant, juicy ideas…  the opposite can unfortunately happen as well.  If you aren’t careful and don’t understand this, you can end up making the situation much worse by engaging the ADHD mind instead of finding a way to end the conflict (or save it for another time).