My Brain on Squirrels

Or - How does this quilter utilize ADHD to her advantage. Between 15 and 18 years ago, I was sitting with my psychiatrist when she jumped out of her chair and excused herself to grab an evaluation tool. Something I said clicked, and after completing the tool, there it was - ADHD.  This tool fit into a larger picture after months of work together, so it wasn't a fly-by-night diagnosis. So I headed home to learn more figuring "oh, it must be adult onset." Nope, no such thing.

One of the early books I read was Driven to Distraction by Hallowell and Ratey. There is now a revised edition available. As I read the book, I started to understand pieces of my childhood and saw myself in so many of the stories they share. (I would take a picture of my well-loved book, but I'm not quite sure which box it is in...)

You see, ADHD presents differently in girls than boys and often goes undiagnosed. When we think of ADHD, we think of hyperactivity and bouncing off the walls. My sweet son is the picture of hyperactivity! Might be why he excels at athletics, and he comes by it honestly. The lesser known variant is inattentive. Inattentive looks like a limited attention span, distractibility, forgetfulness, and/or procrastination. I did lots of daydreaming and majored in procrastination throughout my childhood. I had to set up my studies very differently from my sisters. And I developed a multitude of coping strategies to succeed as a child. Some of them carried me through college. In grad school they started to break down. Add on a job that requires great attention to detail and the distraction of motherhood and you have a brewing mess. ADHD in women is often co-morbid with depression and anxiety or may be misdiagnosed as such.

This is how my life feels - jumbled together jumping from place to place, projects half done, and moving on to the next cool thing. I have my squirrely days, and amongst co-workers describe them as such when I catch that I am getting distracted. Currently I am shifting boxes and stepping over piles in the Mom Cave because I'd rather quilt than sort those last 6 boxes from the renovation. Eventually the detritus in front of my books will go away and the missing books will rejoin their brethren. I only know a few are AWOL because I wanted to refer to them, and my Amazon account confirms that I have purchased them (one of them at least twice).

ADHD isn't just about distractibility - it can also show up in hyper focusing on tasks. The fun and enjoyable tasks may demand our full attention. The tasks we don't like can trigger avoidance behaviors.

The task of sewing borders onto a quilt is a triggering task. Let me take you on a quick journey of sewing 8 strips of fabric onto a quilt...

• Saturday Evening - pressed quilt, measured fabric in the kit, sigh of relief that there is more than enough to accommodate for my seam allowance which resulted in the quilt coming out a bit larger than expected (side note, worrying that I had enough fabric supplied delayed me starting this task for at least a week - okay who am I kidding, I last worked on the quilt in March 2019).  Measured and cut strips for the long sides. Sewed them on, opened a Bold Rock White Cranberry Cider and decided I was done.
• Sunday - blogged, thought about my quilt and borders, played on the internet, loaded Monkey into the car because her current favorite thing is car rides and drove to JoAnn fabrics for a curbside pickup for batting and muslin, dropped of fabric for backing for the Lutheran World Relief Mission Quilts with The Joyful Quilter, enthusiastically responded to the FedEx delivery and had the guy shaking his head when my table arrived, measured and attached the short/horizontal inner border strips. Stopped to assemble new table and have a zoom call with family. Thought about mitering the outer border strips. Didn't.
• Monday morning (MLK day) - decided this delay was silly - mitered strips for long/vertical sides, pinned to quilt body. Stopped to look up supplies for the FMQ course I'm getting ready to take, remembered I had seen at least one glove when I was reorganizing - stopped to search for gloves to see if that would make it easier to control the quilt while I sewed on the strips. One glove was on Molly's table, another in a drawer... and as I dug deeper into the drawer, I found a second pair. Excellent, one less thing to order. Started sewing on border. What is this debris shedding all over the black strip. Surely it isn't chalk, no the chalk is only at the miter, what can it be... oh, apparently gloves can dry rot the finger tips if you leave them stuffed in a drawer for 5 or 6 years... or maybe it is dust from when they sanded the ceiling, or maybe it is dust from the drywall - no that dust was finer - must be dry rot.  In the meantime, I'm now 2/3 of the way through the strip. Many bad words are now being said as I realized my miter is facing the quilt instead of facing me, so I've pinned it on the wrong side (the fabric is black and doesn't have a right/wrong side that is obvious). Stopped to place order for new quilting gloves.
• Monday Afternoon  (still MLK day) - painstakingly seam ripped the seam (I'm now on the second of the Thor movies), and repinned. Thought about the hand turned seam ripper I'm using and wondered if I managed to buy two identical ones as there is one in the living room. Headed out to find the one in the living room, stopped to tell Mike a funny story. Found the seam ripper - nope not the same. Back to ripping out the seam. Forced myself to finish sewing on the vertical borders. Time to measure the horizontal sides. Also getting close to dinner... so off I go to the kitchen.
• Monday Evening (still MLK day) - cook dinner, experiment with seasoning - enjoy dinner with Mike. Clean kitchen (to avoid having to go back to borders). Finally push myself back to the Mom Cave, turned on Thor-Ragnarok, and soldier on through the last two border strips.  Then happily press the quilt top, photograph it, and start looking for my binding kit so that I can move on to a more enjoyable task. The bulk of my flimsies need borders.

I assembled an entire quilt in less time over Christmas Break - though snipping the rag quilt did take 4 days - but that was more due to number of seams than distractions.

I am pleased with the finished project. And I am back to battling the squirrels who keep raiding my feeder (and providing welcome distractions - perhaps it is better when my desk isn't next to a window). So what is the advantage - creativity. During all that daydreaming and procrastination, I do come up with cool ideas for the next quilt. I've got lots of quilts in my head and doodled on paper. And I've got ideas for how to finish the projects half done. I just need to refocus and slow down to move from idea to finished project.