ADHD, Queerness, Chaos & Categorization

Musing on the useful limitations of understanding

Primordial Chaos & Clarifying Definitions

Growing up, people were often surprised at my ability to multitask listening and singing along to music while fully engaged in other activities. During the pandemic, they found it hard to believe I could walk while simultaneously playing Pokémon GO and actively listening to audiobooks & podcasts.

I've since learned that seeking these types of secondary stimulation is common for people with ADHD as it helps us reach a place of focus while also helping to drown out random distractions. I think the key is that we can engage with those secondary sources of stimulation passively: as soon as we need to actively think about and respond to two things at once, the situation can get messy. On my walks it just took an errant message, a sh*tty driver or a rare Pokémon for me to miss minutes or chapters of whatever I was listening to, and it was always hard to return to my rhythm once pulled away from it.

The paralysis that comes from having two or more things demanding my attention is frustrating in the short term, but utterly debilitating in the long term when they start to build up. Messages I want to send, phone calls I need to make, blog posts to plan and write, the job search, household chores – they pile and pile, every added item adding to the guilt and anxiety associated with the whole. It feels impossible to isolate and tackle any one thing, because then I'm not addressing the rest.

It's a storm, a maelstrom, forever wanting to grow and liable at any moment to lash out with feelings of guilt. And while I've been bolstered by some useful tactics I've learned in therapy – mindfulness, breaking problems down, focusing on one thing at a time, making SMART goals – I've only found one weapon truly effective against it: writing.

Listing and defining these things pulls them out of the primordial chaos and gives them a tangible shape. Seven points in my phone's notepad feels a hundred thousand times easier to deal with than the storm, despite their ultimately being comprised of the same parts. (Whether you have or don't have ADHD, how relatable is this for you? Incredibly curious!)

Lately I've been watching a lot of Angela Collier's videos on science and data, and I've been reminded that this therapy-inspired method mirrors any rigorous scientific problem-solving: you define the parameters and sketch out the situation before attempting to tackle it, otherwise your attempt will probably be useless.

'The Fruiting Body', by Molly Devlin

Sociality & Alienating Definitions

In my piece last month about 'Dystopia & Privilege', I questioned the usefulness of hard definitions. I think the vast majority of our social ideas and constructs are more context-dependent than we tend to admit, yet we so often cling to them as though they were as rigid as the laws of physics. (Does this make it sound like I'm about to launch into some crazed take on gray morality? Not today – and besides, been there done that.)

I suppose I'm following up on this post about empathy I wrote a few days after [that dipsh*t]'s inauguration in January, in which I argued for remembering our shared humanity and against forever perpetuating the 'us vs. them' dynamic. (And I stand by that, while also believing in self-defence and standing up against corrupt evil *********s.)

Our society constantly pushes us to fit into these perfectly defined little boxes. Hogwarts House, Myers-Briggs Type, Zodiac sign, political party, gender; the list goes on forever. It's (ab)using the principle of in- and out-groups, which innately foster a sense of belonging and rivalry, to stop people thinking for themselves and instead simply accept external categorization. All the easier to fit us into their advertising/consumer categories – like the thousands of hidden codes that each define a type of Netflix customer and determine what content and even thumbnails you see.

Ascribing to any of these ways of self-categorizing builds us up to alienate people who are unfamiliar with it even while making us closer with those who are. This is often discussed with regards to the queer community, where there now exist sub-categorizations as complex and unique as some medical conditions. (I once wrote about neopronouns and the thousands of variations people use for their online personas.)

Is that a problem in and of itself? No, but I think there is a point at which our pursuit of self-understanding and -definition becomes a fetishization of uniqueness. Similar issues exist in the broadest sense, with certain letters within the LGBTQIA+ community believing others should be excluded for any number of reasons.

It's a million miniature 'us vs. them' situations that place tiny differences above our shared humanity. And half the time the differences aren't even real (let alone meaningful) – instead imposed by the broad category our birthday or feeling about parties slotted us into for the sake of convenience.

What if instead of squeezing into these societal boxes, we could just be ourselves? What if we chose our own people, based on things that actually matter? What if that was the whole human race?

Art by Molly Devlin

A Decisive Conclusion

... will come if and when I find it. It would be so nice to say 'Definitions are good' or 'Categorization is bad', but I've been mulling it over for a while and I really think – as I hope I've demonstrated above – that it depends on context. They have their uses, but they are also dangerous when used in excess. There you go! Definitions are opioids. My work here is done.

What's your take on any of this? Would love to hear it!

Thanks for reading and until next time <3