And perhaps the opportunity

Hello World. Again.

To Elizabeth, STQ, Slai, Molly, and Maria, who have always encouraged me to share my voice, and who have always celebrated my difference.

If you didn’t already know I had ADHD (coz until last year I didn’t know for sure either), the fact that I have more blogs than I have fingers should give it away. Remember my feedlisa.blogspot where I created a centralized feed for everything I was writing in different spots?

Well, here’s yet another blog. It’s okay if it gets ditched in favor of another subject in the future, right? I’m reclaiming abandoned projects as worthwhile experiments in their own right.

Today, I’m creating a home for all my thoughts on ADHD. (I recently, at age 36, got a diagnosis for ADHD. It explained a lot of things, and continues to do so.) I’ve wanted to further explore how it’s affecting my life and growth but didn’t want to alienate the readers of my other blog(s) with all this randomness. (Why am I so embarrassed by my randomness?) So now it’s here!

This first post is about what motivated me to actually start writing this today. (Challenges with task-initiation is one of my ADHD traits.)

It all started at the public library last night, where I go every Tuesday and Thursday evening to “study.” (I called it “going to school” so Cori can understand why I leave the house.)

I was googling “Command Centers for families with ADHD.” There weren’t a lot of results, and the only ones that were remotely relevant were TikTok videos.

I was a little scared to go down that rabbit hole, but I took a deep breath, set a timer, and watched a few.

One or two were super helpful.

I’m sure you’re hoping for me to share what was helpful, but for now I’m going to keep you in suspense and talk about how a children’s story I read aloud during breakfast made me think more about those TikTok videos. (You come here for the meta-discussion and stay for the cute anecdotes about my kids, right?)

Korey Watari’s I am Able to Shine tells a powerful and whimsical story about a Japanese-American girl who learns how to show up in the world despite being different. We watch Keiko face the challenge of feeling invisible and learn that she is “always able to shine, no matter what anyone else thinks.”

It was a very sweet book which needed no further exposition, but I’m still glad I read the author’s note because Watari explains her story behind the story. She defines “gaman”, a Japanese word her grandmother would use to encourage her to “be patient, persevere, or be tolerant.” She goes on to say, “Because of this, writing a story that reflected aspects of my life was difficult; I’m not used to being so open about my own story.”

Isn’t that everything? This san-sei author struggled to see the validity of telling her story because she was raised to not complain about challenges, but rather to endure! It’s not always boring old fear or shame that keeps us from sharing our stories, though there’s those, too. Sometimes we hold back because it’s been enculturated in us to do so.

I was suddenly hit with the realization that of all the ADHD TikTok videos I had watched the night before, NONE of these videos featured Asian-Americans*.

And I bet that even if there were Asian-Americans with ADHD on TikTok, what’s the likelihood of them being a parent in my lifestage? In my (dark) little corner of the PNW? Publicly posting on social media? (Bringing dishonor to our families?? J/k but no really.)

Herein lies the paradox and perhaps the opportunity: I want to see myself represented, but I shy away from representing myself.

Which brings me here, to beginning again (with a shiny new cover because I’m ADHD like that), to sharing more of my story.

So that others like me, who are looking for faces like mine, can know that they’re not alone.

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*I’m sure they’re out there (they’re everywhere**), but it wouldn’t be a good use of my time to find out.

**I’ve been asked if there are any Asian people in my neighborhood. My answer is, there are more of them than it appears, because/but they are never outside.