This tattoo was definitely an impulsive decision. I plan to get it covered up some day.
What Took Me So Long
Before I start this shit, let me just say right now that I am not a therapist, doctor, or anything like that. I’m a college dropout with a lot of traumas and many misdiagnoses along the way. This is my lived experience and what I’ve done that works for me. Take it with a grain of salt or a fistful. Just don’t forget to throw the dregs over your left shoulder to get rid of what doesn’t resonate.
Whenever folks that don’t know a damn thing about ADHD hear about it, they just think about that little boy in class who would not sit down at his desk because he was too busy trying to lick the class gerbil’s cage. Little man had impulse control issues, most likely. Or maybe just some parents that didn’t teach him any manners. My parents’ leather belt and backhands taught me plenty, so a lot of my life’s impulsivity manifested internally or in the snack cabinet. I tried to minimize the ass whoopins to the best of my ability, but I wasn’t always good at that.
If you’re new here, I’m almost 40 and I got my medical diagnosis of ADHD Combined Type at 36. I was in denial for days when my therapist, who is an ADHD specialist with a lot of fancy papers and letters behind her name, officially diagnosed me with it. I knew it ran in my family, but I just didn’t think it ran through me. Finally, after a lot of TikToks per my therapist’s suggestion, quirky Instagram stories, and scholarly article deep-dives from more people with alphabet soup on their names — I realized I’m them and they’re me. I wasn’t broken or lazy. My mind is on overdrive 24/7/365.
Now, I am a firm believer in everyone going to therapy (yes, even you) and always taking your medicine. I tried a few supplements, and I tried the stims that I thought only college kids ate for a final because they stayed up too late partying the night before. The silence after taking my first dose was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I should have known when I dropped molly in college (that was laced with coke) that something was wrong with me. I didn’t feel shit from it. ADHD didn’t even ring a bell as I watched two of my friends lose their minds over washing their hands, drinking orange juice, and listening to Mariah Carey on repeat for hours. I just thought it didn’t hit because I was fat as fuck. I’m not on stimulants any longer, but I do still get help from medical professionals for my condition. I don’t want to go back to who I was before I did.
Long story long, ADHD comes with a lot of symptoms and one of the most intrusive and debilitating ones is impulsivity. It can worm and weave its way into your daily life in the oddest of ways. From yelling out lyrics to some song you heard at 7 years old in elementary school while you try to figure out why you walked into the kitchen to texting your ex at 3 AM after too many vodka Redbulls. Well, that could be something else, too but for the sake of this blog post, stay with me here. There are also so many more symptoms that I won’t even get into here.
1. Add to Cart: The 3-Day Rule
I used to have a shopping problem, like most red-blooded Americans. Maybe it was because I grew up poor and I didn’t know what it was like to not be worried about the lights getting cut off or how we were going to eat in the cold months when there weren’t any houses for my dad to paint. Even as a little kid, I knew the struggle. Later in life, I got into tech and the money was very good for where I live. Back before the bubble burst, at least. Shopping was my drug, once I’d kicked alcohol and pills. Substance abuse is a common dopamine seeking behavior, by the way.
I wasn’t hurting financially, but I damn sure wasn’t comfortable enough to buy Bezos another yacht. Eventually, I stopped. Science says that the dopamine release hits from the anticipation of the reward more than the reward itself. I’ve bought plenty of things and left them in the package for days on end. Forgot what I even ordered, most of the time. When the debt started piling up, it was time to put the cards down. Eventually, I got rid of all that and found my favorite thing. A workaround.
I still like to shop. I like to look at pretty shit I’ll never hang up in my house and clothes I probably won’t ever fit in. Shiny kitchen gadgets I’ll never use that will just get caught in my junk drawers and make me cuss. I love it. These days, it’s hard to sell me anything because of this trick right here. I just take all my little wishes and add them to my cart. I look at it, look at that big ass number, and then I… you guessed it. Close the browser or shut down the app.
Sometimes, I can’t stop thinking about those squirrel-triggering shinies all day. The fantasy of how it’d look on me or around me just permeates my every waking moment and becomes my hyper-focus. Until I add it to the cart, at least. I have a three-day rule. If it sits in my cart for three days and I don’t think about it, know I don’t need it, or most certainly can’t afford it, I will hit “Save for Later” if it will be genuinely useful in the future. If not, I just delete the shit entirely. I already got my sweet, sweet brain chemicals from all that anticipation. I don’t really need them, and I know that. I will try my hardest not to feed the overconsumption machine. Less shit I have to dust anyway.
Add it to the cart and walk away.
2. Real Hunger or Dopamine Seeking Behavior? The Body Check.
I mentioned above that the snack cabinet was a friend of mine growing up. Some days in adulthood, on those harder ones, when I hadn’t slept and someone pissed me off, it still was. Again, medication has helped with that for the current version of me most of the time. But I’ve still got a connection to my mortal coil and I’m still a fat bitch with a skinny girl trapped inside, so we get right back to the workaround. When I start getting what I call, “Snackish,” I stop and do a check. Today’s dietary specialists coined this term “food noise,” but I once named it for myself as psychological hunger.
The first thing I do is check the clock. For as much as I like to eat sometimes, I forget to do it. I skip breakfast, lunch, and hell - sometimes dinner, too. Couldn’t look at me and tell, but it’s true. If it’s been… well, all day at some points, since I last ate and I start craving popcorn or beef jerky, I know I need to put some grilled chicken in the air fryer because I haven’t eaten. Yet sometimes it’s just a lack of dopamine. Eating less-than-insta-worthy food triggers that little chemical that us neurodivergents lack so much of. A lot of folks that become overweight will soothe their emotions with food. Stress depletes that chemical and the brain will do whatever it can to replenish it, whether it harms the body as a whole or not.
Because of this, I have to check in with myself. I look at the clock, think back to what I ate last and how much of it. I check my mood to see where I’m at and then I center in on my body to see if my stomach is actually empty or my brain is. Then, I do my damn best to try to make good choices. I’m a work at home momma with a neurodivergent kid myself, and sometimes I’m just too damn tired. I aim for protein and fiber first, whenever I can. But sometimes, I just need convenience. Quick airfryable foods save the day for me here. Grilled chicken in some foil with seasoning, air fried veggies, or a roll of deli meat. Fast, easy, problem solved.
3. Quieting the Fiery Rage of a Good Southern Woman
I don’t know why it is, exactly, that ADHD’ers experience the fieriest, hottest rage the human body can muster, but we do. And while I’m not a fighting woman, my tongue can know no bounds. Until I set them, at least. Being pissed off and getting that delicious revenge of putting someone to your level just feels too good. But the repercussions, guilt, and emotional hangover afterwards are rarely worth it. I’m not really a Petty Patty because, as mad as I can get, I know what it’s like to be on the other end. My empathy stops me a good bit, but it doesn’t always take the wheel.
The first thing I do is remove myself from the situation. If I need to physically bite my tongue and clench my jaw while I excuse myself, I will. But heaven help ‘em if they follow me. I make myslef take the space to bring my emotions back down so that my impulsiveness does not grab those time-worn Southern reins and make even their dead ancestors cry. Being emotionally dysregulated can make this even harder, but again, doing a check in my body and clearing a path for my feelings is very helpful.
I do not want to deal with the consequences most of the time, and I promised myself I would remain accountable and responsible for my actions. I’ll tell y’all about setting boundaries and burning bridges in my podcast soon, promise. But chewing someone up one side and down the other is not the way. It requires a sense of mindfulness and there are a lot of practices you can do. I’ve mentioned one above. We’ll save that discussion for another day to talk about the ins and outs. But that’s the first thing I do. I step away, take some deep breaths, and shift my focus on anything else but the person who’s committed some transgression (real or perceived) against me.
4. Scene Changes for a Mindset Shift
Walking away can play a bigger part of the process. Sometimes, a change of scenery isn’t just for when you’re about to go off on somebody. If you’re itching to buy the shit, eat the shit, or beat the shit, you can put yourself into another environment to encourage your brain to shift its focus and slow down. When it gets extremely bad for me, I just leave.
Scene changes can look like a few things. It’s hopping in your car to go for a drive in the country with your favorite podcast. It’s stepping away from the computer or your cell phone to go grab a book. Taking a walk or getting on the treadmill stimulates the dopamine signals in your brain and pushes out a lot of other feel goods that I don’t know the names of or can’t spell. I read the articles at some point, I’m sure because I didn’t make all this shit up myself.
If you’re struggling to connect with yourself in the moment to realize that you need to shift environments, talk out loud. Hell, cuss out loud if you have to. I’ve gotten into plenty of imaginary fights where I always win just so I don’t do it to the person. I’ll take care of that on my treadmill, in my car, or live it through a good fictional character that kicks everybody’s ass. The podcast drives and the treadmill are my current favorites. I do my best rounds of thinking on a long country road in the middle of nowhere.
5. Tell Somebody or Cancel It
So many of the worst, most impulsive decisions I ever made were the best secrets I ever kept. Until they came to light and my Momma asked me, “What the hell were you thinking, girl?” That’s the thing. I wasn’t. Nineteen times out of ten, I know that if I’m thinking that I shouldn’t tell someone because it shouldn’t be spoken aloud, it’s a very bad idea.
For example, in my early twenties, I packed up all my shit and gave short notice to my job the night before moving to another state entirely on a whim with some boy from a video game that I didn’t know. He ended up cheating on me with someone uglier than me and told me what I knew all along. I shouldn’t have done it. These days, I run my mouth. I have my compartmentalized confidants, and they each have their set of topics they get to hear about. I’d hate to wear out just one with everything. And I know when I’m wanting to isolate and keep it all away, that it’s time to shatter the shell and open my mouth.
I talk out my big decisions with folks who have the spoons for it. Which is another thing, always check with whoever you’re about to run down with a bunch of word vomit. Make sure they can hold the space for you. And if you’re always holding space for them and they don’t give it back, cut ‘em out. But that’s another piece of content for another day.
Basically, if you’ve only thought about it for the length of a fly’s fart, don’t do it. And if you really want to, tell someone and see how it sounds out loud. Stupid? Don’t do it.
Work’s Not Pretty, But It’s Mine
I might be recently diagnosed, but these are lessons I’ve had to learn the hard way for a long time. Now that I’ve got shiny labels to stick on all my problems, I use my intellect to find better solutions for them. These are the five that I use the most in my daily life. This little round of growth hasn’t been the prettiest or the cleanest, but damn, it’s real. It’s making moves for me and I’d love to know what you do. So, get out there and give me those Instagram story dots you know I love so much or send me a DM and let me know what works for you. I’d be happy to share it with permission so we can show up for somebody else. And to my therapist, I’m sorry that you’re so good at your job, but thank you for helping me work through all my brain garbage after nearly 40 years of not knowing what the hell was wrong with me.
That’s it. Y’all be good. Talk to ‘ya.
