Tag: Inattentive type

Time

“I’ll be quick!” I tell my partner as I walk into the bathroom preparing for a shower. I can hear her skepticism through the silence. I close the bathroom door and realize that I did it again. I forgot my towel!

“Oh, Andrew! Why am I like this?” This is a joke because I know my ADHD effects executive function. Executive function is what helps people organize, plan out and carry out their daily tasks. Some people like to think of it as if your brain had an office manager. In a nutshell, executive disfunction for people with ADHD feels like a never ending to-do list without a work-plan or task management system. You know you need to take a shower, but you may not always be prepared with everything you need.

But this post isn’t about executive function or my hygienic routine. It’s about time.

Months before my official ADHD diagnoses, I attended a spiritual gathering with family. We call these gatherings Misas Espirituales, where we use prayer, faith and intuition to communicate with our spiritual guides. At this gathering, spirit had informed me that I needed to have working clocks throughout my home. I say luz y progresso, light and progress to that spirit because that message was well received.

As an oral historian and anthropologist, I am learning that time, or what we might think about time in the west, hasn’t always been thought about linearly. In my research I think about time- or the spaces between time -that I relate with my encounters with spirit and liberation. But how we think about the present, the past, and the future depends on our own social and cultural contexts. When does a memory get conjured up to inform the future? How does the present trigger a past emotion?

One time I had the distinct blessing to dance afro-cuban music with an elder, who was mounted by a spirit who lived during enslavement. I was dancing with an elder Black women, AND dancing with a spirit who did not live in my perceived present who used her ancestral spiritual gifts to provide guidance and healing to her community. Our drums, ashé and faith reconstituted our understanding of time in a way that is more cyclical or counter-linear. It grants us access to ancestral practices required for us to survive.

But that doesn’t mean I can outright refuse the general conventions of time.

My relationship to time is complicated. I have moments where I am time blind. Sometimes I underestimate how long it would take for me to get to a location. A masking technique I learned along the way was to always leave 15 minutes earlier than it would take to arrive 15 minutes early. This usually works, but sometimes, occasionally, I lose track of time and leave 15 minutes AFTER I should have arrived. But really, what is time?

Back to my shower, where I try to convince myself that I’ll only take 5, 10 minutes tops, I close the door, and listen to the newly installed wall clock that my partner gifted me. It reminds me that time is moving. If I wanted to catch my next appointment, I need to be present. But as soon as I turn the faucet the soothing sounds of the crashing water drown out the racing thoughts-the liminal spaces between time that my brain constantly inhabit go away, and I can finally think. I get my best thinking done in the shower.

But before I get stuck, I listen with intention to the metronomic noise coming from the wall. Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. It’s time!

Positionality statement, or About Me

My name is Andrew Viñales. I am a Queer Black Puerto Rican and Dominican Bronxite. This blog is mainly for me to make sense of my ADHD. I am learning that everyone’s journey is different. I realized that I was looking for someone with my specific experience but I couldn’t find it out there. We typically hear about ADHD through the lens of the stereotypes of White Boys acting out in school. While many can relate to the Hyperactive type of ADHD, I and many others cannot. It is important though that we do not cast out the ADHDers in our lives who live with hyperactivity. We all have our struggles that we can come up with tools like behavior changes, routine settings and medication to navigate our symptoms.

I am learning that I exhibit more Inattentive Type symptoms. People with Inattentive type often stay undiagnosed or are diagnosed later in life for various reasons, including gender discrimination, racism, and ablism. I hope my story can be helpful for others. But this blog is mainly for me to process.

When I am not writing about my ADHD experience, I am probably figuring out ways to change the world. I am a newly initiated priest in the Afro-Cuban Orisha tradition known as Lukumí or Santería, my current title is Iyawo. I am a PhD student learning extensively through the Black Feminist tradition. I am a working Oral Historian, and cultural worker. which means I am committed to learning from experiences and narrative as well as cultural knowledges. ADHD is not my only story but it effects every aspect of my life. It makes me a better spiritualist. It makes being a PhD student very difficult. But it makes me passionate about the work I love.

I get time blind. A lot. Sometimes this looks like me getting stuck in the bathtub longer than expected. Sometimes this looks like me hyperfocusing on a new skill or project, and before I know it hours have passed and somehow I’ve created a new blog.

Image description: This photo shows Andrew smiling while holding his hands against a blurred out Gazebo. Andrew is wearing a Blue Blazer over an orange and Blue printed button-up shirt. He is wearing glasses andpeaking from his shirt are colorful beaded necklaces. In frame is his right shoulder up to his head with treens and greenery in the background. His hair is tied back but you can see his locs twisted on his head.

ADHD is a disability. Some people are resistant to the idea that ADHD can be a gift. I happen to believe that there are things about my ADHD that I couldn’t imagine living without. It is also true that I experience emotional disregulation, and I can get really sad, very easily for reasons that don’t always make sense. Sometimes I get stuck. There are things that I know I must do to be a good partner, a good son, a good brother, a good friend, a good person, but I have trouble getting started or moving. I’m finding ways to work through that.

I be buggin out sometimes (Don’t come for me!) This feels like I am not fully present in my body. It looks like me walking around aimlessly in my apartment not knowing what to do. It sounds like me stuttering and struggling to get words out. Sometimes this makes me panic. Other times it makes me love myself even more.