The writer and theater manufacturer Jo Randerson about the 40 -year diagnosis.
How do you distinguish which parts of your personality are a “condition” and what is genetic inheritance? What aspects of the self come from with whom you grow up and with what parts do you invent?
My life felt like I was an archaeologist unexting me, ask for a piece and slowly stacking my bones in a skeleton that I recognize. Sometimes I learn to put bones seeing how someone did – “Oh! This pulse connects to the elbow!” But sometimes I have pieces with which I don’t know what to do. “Should I put these two lumps in my head? Are they ears extra? Or fingers?”
Here are some of the identity pieces I could never put:
- I hate sitting for more than 20 minutes, I don’t know how someone would like to go out to dinner. Am I really really impatient?
- When left alone, I start about 12 tasks at the same time and, if left alone, can end most of them, if someone brings me a meal and no one interrupts me, which never happens because I parents two young people.
- I “go very fast,” people always tell me that. This includes how I speak, I think, physically move the space and the speed I believe creative projects can happen. I am also “very tall”, “too much” and “very intense”, apparently. Or isn’t our society great with strong -mind females?
- The activity in my brain is relentless. I would like to say that I am having great ideas, but it is often really boring, like: “If I stacked all the furniture against this wall, could we fit a springboard in the room?” My best resolution is to exhaust me physically, so when my body beats my brain has to follow.
- I can find objects that no one else can. Is this mania? Narcissism? How can I feel, as if by magnetism, where are the lost items at home, on a beach, in a forest?
- I was very angry between 9 and 14, in a way that took over my whole body and, to be sincere, scared me. I remember being possessed and shocked to see me punching or kicking someone. That’s when I learned to suppress many of my feelings, like many teenagers. Is this just adolescence?
When I started reading about ADHD traces, many of these extra parts of identity found a home. I felt the same feeling as when I learned words like Manaakitanga, or enniu: words that gave life to a state of being that I was already familiar. Learning about ADHD helped me feel seen and see me.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8, which led to my diagnosis in my 40s. Growing alongside him helped me learn more about me and my needs: just watching it, I realized how stressful social situations, especially in crowded rooms without any light or natural air flow. Now I use headphones with noise cancellation.
Since the age of 20, I thought that many of these feelings have been an integral part of being an artist. I know that not all artists feel that way. But the arts and the nga toi maori are kingdoms that receive the diversity of thought, in fact their unique expression is a strength here.
Many Western words put ADHD as a “problem” or a difficulty. A feature of ADHD is “sorting failure,” which means the inability to progress in a linear way from beginning to middle to end. This is a very negative framework. I like my unusual order of events and my aversion to binary categories. I mean, non -linear enigmatic sequencing is literally the definition of poetry. Is it a flaw in doing things differently? Or a necessary answer to a world that is in essential tremor?
One of my favorite words about neurodiversity is Tākiwatanga, which explained to me as “in space and time itself.” It resonates totally to me. I see my neurodiversity as a gift, not to mention that it is easy: it takes time and energy to manage this identity, but I would not like it otherwise. I feel lucky for being the way I am. Diagnoses are not for everyone, they can single or fail to explain other parts of our experience. But they can also help give language to feelings and access support.
Femmes can learn to mask more easily and go through the cracks in our porous health system. I’m not concerned about ADHD’s “excess diagnosis”: what is important to me is that those who need help can access it, which, unfortunately, is not the case now.
Glad to use the label’s ADHD, but there are many other parts for me too. I want to keep exploring how to use this superpower/disability/how you want to call it, continue to make room for everyone to be in the fullness of our identities and compassionate with others (a challenge with which humans have been fighting for centuries).
Arts and ngā toi maori can help us communicate through and between our differences and express the deep feelings buried within us. If we can’t do that, we will explode.
See Jo Randerson Speed’s show is emotional with the Silo Theater at Q Theater, from April 16 to May 3 as part of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival. Jo is also releasing his new book, Secret Art Powers, in July.
