May 13, 2024

No Doubt – A tale of my lifelong romance with low self-esteem

People who write for artists have a lot to say on doubt. Self-doubt, projection of doubt, the general fetishisation of doubt. Doubt, it seems, is an artist’s foremost skill. Even as I write this I’m fighting the doubt that I can or should have anything useful or insightful to say on doubt. And perhaps I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t talk about it. And why am I? Because I decided I needed to write a blog post, and it was the first thing to spring to mind, which isn’t that surprising really, since I’m spending most of my time lindy-hopping with doubt right now. She is my nemesis and my muse.

Yesterday I woke up full of confidence and positivity. Doubt only whispered, and I chose not to listen to her. This morning she is screaming at me. I cannot ignore her. So I’m going to try and write her out of existence. At the very least I will expose her in the hopes I can shame her into quiescence. (Shame is another companion of mine, and a close confident of doubt, but we will deal with the shame wizard another day).

As I’ve said many times before, I took up making art again after a long hiatus as a prescribed means of managing persistently poor mental health caused primarily by unrecognised Autism and ADHD. I have always had a forceful creative drive, but never really saw creativity as the sole purview of the various creative practises (the visual arts, creative writing, music, performance etc.). For example, coding (or programming) is, for many, a creative endeavor, and indeed well conceived and written code can be quite beautiful, much like an elegant equation, a well designed bridge or building, a delicious plate of food. I have had many creative outlets, and tended to gain new ones all the time. This is a common mode of operation for ADHD and AuDHDers like me, who tend to cycle through hobbies like a rabbit cycles through offspring. These have included academic excursions (psychology and maths) as well as more traditionally creative ones (guitar, sing-writing, creative writing, photography, film making to name but a few) and I’ve forgotten more programming languages than most people have learned. The upshot of this is that I tend to never attain much mastery at any of these, although I was, and in some cases still am, half decent at various of them. But I was always just visitor, and rarely stayed around for more than a cup of something hot and a scone. Never having got close to my 10,000 hours, or transcended my latent Dunning-Kruger has left me with a chaotic splattering of knowledge and skills, many of which are occasionally, or even frequently, useful. So, am I able? Yes, well, probably. Confident? No. And neither should I be, I didn’t earn it. I’m cool with that. I’m cooool with that. But. There’s always a but, isn’t there?

It’s been said that children with ADHD “receive a full 20,000 more negative messages by age 10, on average”, than neurotypical kids. There are similar stats out there for autism (as well as dyslexia, dyspraxia and all the other neurodivergent profiles). It’s a generalisation for sure, but I think that most neurodivergent adults can relate. This leaves its indelible mark. A patchwork of psychological scars, some barely perceptible blemishes, others gnarled, callused welts, that all add up to a complex pathology of trauma, that can manifest in what’s these days referred to as Complex PTSD (cPTSD). There’s a whole bunch more nuance here, and I won’t get into the probable influence of various “comorbidities” (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, Pathological Demand Avoidance) which some would argue are really just trauma responses anyway. But it tends to leave one a bit, how can I say, sensitive to criticism, and chronically lacking in self-esteem. Combine this with the autistic inability to process human interaction in real-time (or at all in some cases), and the aforementioned restless spirit, and you have a recipe for chronic, pervading and persistent sense of doubt.

Everyone has moments, or even extended periods of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, low self-esteem. But not everyone carries the weight of lack of expectation and nagging, latent low self-opinion that comes from a lifetime of failing at being normal. This leads me to question, sometimes unhealthily, almost everything I do. Every task, human interaction, word uttered or written. It leaves me constantly anxious, like a chicken pogosticking in a minefield. This is definitely not a recipe for Trump-level narcissistic self-regard.

Doubt is an old acquaintance, but in reality it’s a defensive tactic. A way of discounting my performance, good or bad, so that I won’t disappoint myself, or anyone else.

So is Alex the Jack of all Trades is the Master of None. The Master of Nothing. Including writing code, painting pictures, raising kids, eating pizza, speaking words in the English Language, sleeping, breathing (seriously, sometimes I get so anxious I forget how to breath!). This is not the kind of doubt that can be overcome with a course of talking therapy, CBT, journaling, daily gratitude, meditation, manifesting, etc. etc. although I have tried most of these (except for manifesting, which is just wishful thinking monetised). It’s fair to say that they have helped to some degree, or at least helped me recognise and frame these behaviours. But what I live with is doubt taken to a new level, turned into an artform. A life’s length magnum opus of self-effacement. At least that means I good at something, right?

And I’m awesome at it. You might enquire, rightfully, how I can even raise myself from bed each morning while beset by such levels of exuberant masochism. But it’s always there, the diffuse, ringing tinnitus of low-expectation. It obscures everything, and creates friction, but my ADHD brain still wants to do stuff, and lots of it, all the time. There is dopamine to be mined! And you can’t have doubts about things you didn’t, or don’t intend to, do. So I haven’t overcome my doubt, I’ve not conquered it, I’ve just learned to ignore it. Most of the time anyway.

This is made somewhat easier by the fact that I’m actually pretty good a few things. I’m good good analyst and python coder, and I’m preternaturally good at spotting patterns in data that few others would. I’m a decent cook, and it turns out I’m pretty articulate and write quite well (despite getting a D grade in GCSE English twice!). And I make good work in the field of the visual arts. I know this because:

a) I like lots of my artworks, and I also like other people’s works, and therefore have some ability judge and,

b) other people tell me so and even, sometimes, purchase my art

The latter isn’t the slam-dunk it seems. Just because someone says that like my painting, doesn’t mean that they really do. They might be lying, to be polite in the hopes that I take my horrible canvas smears away. There’s a level to which I have to trust other people over my own propensity for self-deprecation. And people do buy my artworks – folks don’t tend to spend money on stuff they hate, although I suppose they could despise my works so much that they feel compelled to spend money of them so that they can take them home to derive pleasure from burning them. If this is the case I do hope they’re using them to heat their house, rather than merely as a ritualistic sacrifice. But I’ll take the money either way, since I need to eat.

It’s also worth noting that a bit of doubt isn’t always bad. Sometimes I have doubts about whether an artwork is particularly good. And sometimes I’m right. Doubt drives quality and stops me from saying stupid shit, and stops me from replying to Nigerian princes. I’m not particularly susceptible to scams and am great at spotting week spots in plans.

So how do how do I bring this probably overly-long, poorly written, boring, meandering, self-pitying, indulgent snorefest to a conclusion? Well I’m already questioning whether I should post this at all. Maybe that makes me a good editor?

Writing this has been cathartic, and although my aim to browbeat Dutchess Doubt into subservience hasn’t been a success, I do feel perhaps a little more in control. Like writing a withering hate-letter to an ex that they’ll never see – it’s important the the universe knows! It’s the thought that counts. Was it good thought? Probably not, but then my thoughts never are.

ArtLife
My Studio
February 9, 2024

My studio today and what to do when you’re too close to the edge…

Here’s what my studio looks like today:

My Studio

It’s always a bit of a mess, and since I’m ramping up for an exhibition, it’s particularly chaotic. You’ll note my “washing line” along the back wall. This is actually a washing line chord, but I don’t tend to use it for drying paintings, or clothes for that matter. It’s where I put my works-in-progress or works-on-hold or works-that-might-be-finished-but-I’m-not-sure-yet-so-keep-them-somewhere-visible-to-marinade-on-them-for-a-while.

Also on the line currently are some larger pieces with which I’m experimenting to test a new way of mounting my works – as posters on hangers. This came about as a byproduct of how I create my work, as well as a bit of dumbassery. Let me explain.

I like to paint on canvas, and tend to like painting quite large works. Up until a couple of years back, I assumed this meant that I needed to buy pre-made canvases, already on stretchers, and just get whatever was in my brain down on those. This didn’t really work for me for a variety of reasons:

  1. I don’t really plan my work. My ADHD brain gets bored if I work on the same concept for too long, so by the time I get to the point of putting stuff on a canvas my enthusiasm has likely pointed itself at some other shiny thing. So I tend to just get stuck in. This, predictably, leads to a lot of misfires. I’m fine with this, it’s what you might call an occupational hazard. I tend to let these little failed experiments lurk for a bit, before either painting them out and reusing the canvas, or taking them in a new directions. So far so awesome. Except it means that I’ve always got loads of half-finished artworks sitting in corners gathering dust which is a) an expensive way to work and b) leads to the next problem:
  2. I churn out quite a lot of work, and when you combine works-in-progress, finished works, and primordial soup mentioned in point 1, it amounts to quite a lot of fairly large artworks on stretched canvases. Apart from those that I can find space for on my walls, the rest sit in piles in whatever space I can find, where they seem to mysteriously multiply.
  3. As much as I see the value of creating works in uniform dimensions, the reality is that I’m not very good at it, and finding stretched canvases to suit my whims at any point is problematic and often expensive. Related to this point and said expense:
  4. When I get an idea in my head I like to work really quickly and can get seriously twitchy if I don’t have the basic things I need around me RIGHT FECKING NOW!!! Refer to points 2 and 3 for why this is problematic
An artwork depicting a pill blister pack stapled to a wood panel

In my last house I had no studio and relatively little spare “piles of stuff” space, so I needed to find a solution. It occurred to me that it’s actually the stretchers that take up the bulk of the space. Since I usually work in acrylics, a medium that is both flexible, fast-drying and durable, I could in theory just pile them or roll them up if it wasn’t for all this pesky wood. Then, if I wanted to display them or whatever, I could just stretch them, on-demand as it were. So I set about figuring where to buy stretchers, canvas and primer separately (and all the other tools and bits) and figuring out how all this would work. And so I have my solution: I cut out bits of canvas, staple them to bits of wood where I prime them, make may creative juices flow all over them, then unstaple them once they’re dry and deposit them in much more manageable piles in the aforementioned corners. Woo hoo!

Canvasses rolled up and piled in a box

Any way, back to my original thread: the whys and wherefores of canvas paintings on hangers. You see, if you want to work this way, you need to prepare your painting in such a way as to make it suitable for stretching. What this means is that you need to compose your picture in such a way as to leave the bits of it that you want to be visible, visible once you stretch it, and not round the back, callously pierced with staples. The trick is to not paint up to the edge of the canvas. Simple enough you might think, simply mark out the visible portion based on the dimensions of the stretcher you intend to use, and keep the bits of the image you intend to be facing the viewer within these. Well this assumes that you are not the owner of a swiss-cheese, impulsive and slightly vindictive avian-brain! I always start out with good intentions, but often only remember that I needed to think through the stretching problem after having lovingly crafted an artworks for days or weeks, at which point there’s no turning back! This has happened quite a few times, although I will defend myself by pointing out that this is a error that I have not made in quite a while!

But what to do with the gorgeous artworks that received this bird-brained treatment? I can’t stretch them. At best they’ll look odd, at worst they’ll be ruined. So they’ve been hanging around on my washing line, or rolled up in piles for months or even years, until now, when I cooked up a solution to the problem: don’t stretch them, transform them into tasteful and practical posters! This involves cutting thin wooden strips to size and bolting them to the top and bottom of the paintings (I’ve only done the bottoms so far). I think it looks pretty neat, stylish even, and it makes them a bit more practical since they can be rolled up like any normal poster and stored away (presumably because you’ve invested in another one of my artworks and you don’t have space for both!).

The moral of the story? Adversity breed creativity. Also, creativity breeds adversity. But what breed birds? We’ll never know.

ADHD Studio
August 18, 2018

What Makes Us Stronger

 

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?!” I asked, panicked and confused. A genuine question – what should a hiker do when posed with such a predicament? Having no experience, I genuinely didn’t know. The worried glances of my friends did nothing to calm me. They knew this was bad.

“Get the hell off the mountain,” one of them said, and we immediately began our frantic, stumbling descent, across boulders now slippery from the melting hail.

“Take care,” someone said, “you don’t want to break an ankle up here, cos then we’ll be in real trouble”.

Real trouble? What the hell was this if not real trouble? As the adrenaline started flowing The happy spell cast by the first half of the day was broken and smashed, and I was dragged writhing, to the the dark side of my brain.

 

This is an exceprt from a guest post I did recently for mental health blog Seeds in the Wasteland which can be found here.

ADHD
December 20, 2017

Do Small Things

You have an aunt, or a sibling, or a bezzie don’t you, who you love to pieces but is basically an anal douchebag? You know, the one that, when they walk into your house, tries to conceal palpable distaste at the general disorder and disarray. Like they’re suppressing the mental gag-reflex. You kinda don’t want them to come round, and actively avoid the situation if possible, but they keep inviting themselves because apparently they delight in bringing to your attention the physical manifestation of your chaotic ADHD mind – stuff in places where it has no right to be; evidence of daily/weekly chores procrastinated and postponed into festering piles and dusty sheens; the general sense that, while there is clearly a place for everything, that place is EVERYWHERE. This person thinks that they hide their disdain while making cheerfully wistful comments about the “shabby chic” of your “charmingly lived in” house, perching on the edge of sofa like it might swallow them up, and surreptitiously tidying things away to places from which they may never emerge.

You don’t want to live like this, but there is so much to do, and you have that assignment to do for the qualification you decided to take on a whim, and you need to buy some cheese making equipment because, you know, cheese making, and then there’s that short story to finish writing, all those magazine you bought at the weekend that won’t read themselves and, and, and, and…

THERE JUST NO TIME TO DO ALL THAT OTHER BORING HOUSEWORK STUFF!

You know all these boring chores need doing. You don’t need Lord/Lady Meticulous to project this down their nose at you. It’s like telling a homeless person to get off their lazy arse and get a job – patronising, ignorant and superfluous. Now, no one knows more than you that sorting out the kitchen would make your life so much easier (you have to wash a bowl and spoon EVERY MORNING just to be able to eat breakfast) but it is a BIG JOB. Clearing and thinning down that bookshelf really needs doing (books keep falling off onto your head) but it will TAKE AGES and risks making even more mess when you inevitably fail to finish the job. And then there’s the house work. Don’t mention the housework. It never ends. Every time you get some done more turns up! It’s best to just leave it and do it all as one BIG JOB once a week and then it’s out the way. But that’s such a bloody CHORE.

I hate chores (even the word is tiresome, boring and a bit grotty, like verruca or nasal). They suck. But I also don’t like living in squalor, regardless of how it might have appeared for most of my life. But how do you get round to doing all these BIG JOBS? The answer is actually quite simple – don’t. Don’t do the BIG things, just do small things.

You just thought “ah I see, you’re just another one of those patronising smart-arses like my mum/sister/cat”, didn’t you? But bear with me, I’ll rejoin you in the seething resentment in a short while. But first, here’s something you need to understand.

Stop lumping all the vaguely related tasks into giant unwieldy categories like CHORES, or SH*T THAT I DON’T WANT TO DO. By bundling all the small things into BIG CATEGORIES you conflate them and increase their collective intensity. Wasps are pretty much just annoying on their own, but if you’ve got a swarm of them, THEY WILL STING YOU TO DEATH. It may seem sensible to batch things up into tidy categories, and less stuff is always tidier right? That may be so from comfortable perspective of observing these categories from the outside, but once you delve into any one of them all you’ll find is a assemblage of vaguely related junk that’s gaining entropy and somehow breeding. It’s a bit like that drawer in the the kitchen that’s used to store “stuff”, there’s some things in there you’re certain you never owned in the first place. From whence came they?

Take a simple task – Cleaning a kitchen surface. Cleaning a kitchen surface is just that, purging a worktop of debris and grime. It is not the same as “make all the kitchen clean”. You may claim that “if I just clean that surface, then it’ll look weird and I JUST MUST clean the rest, so best not to start at all.” This is a valid objection, especially for an ADHDer. Not a lot of people know this, but ADHDers are perfectionists, it’s why they never get stuff finished, they set their sights too high. But in this scenario you need to take control of your inner obsessive and calm the voice that screams “I MUST CLEANING ALL THE KITCHEN WITH UNHINGED INTENSITY!” and instead, paradoxically, think about all the other stuff you’d rather be doing. The key here is that cleaning the kitchen surface is easy. It’s small. You can handle small things, right? Don’t conflate it with other small things unless you have reason to. Ask yourself instead, “why must I clean the kitchen surface?” and the answer you will find is “because I didn’t clear it down when I made that BIG SANDWICH earlier”. The small “kitchen surface” task is not related to the big MUST CLEANING KITCHEN task, it’s related to the MUST EATING BIG SANDWICH task from earlier. If you’d cleaned up after yourself you wouldn’t have this task getting in the way of whatever wacky adventure you’re on right now (probably just making dinner). “Ah!” you’re now screaming at your tablet/laptop/phone/cucumber, “you’re telling me to stay on top of stuff, no sh*t Sherlock, but I still MUST CLEANING ALL THE KITCHEN, before I can get myself into the position of staying on top of that task.” This is indeed an astute observation, and so we need some defining principles to get past this apparent impasse. Here’s what you need to do, and do habitually for the rest of your life (seriously, as long as you live. It’s not that big a deal though, keep reading, pleeeease):

  1. Do exactly one more action than you need to achieve any given task, every time you do a task
  2. Break down BIG JOBS into small tasks and only concern yourself with these tiddlers
  3. Make a specific time that is free to do stuff you don’t want to do, and work through your small tasks at that time
  4. Make a specific time to is free to do the stuff you do want to do, and use it frivolously, with impunity and without guilt

Continued after this short digression from my brain

Chronicles of an ADHD Brain Part 1

Let’s break those down a little shall we?

Item 1: Do something extra

Using the scenario stated above you would

  1. Clear/clean the surface
  2. Make the tasty treat
  3. Clear up after yourself

See what happened there? You got a task for FREE! Where you would usually only do 2 tasks (clean and make food) you now did three. So what happens next time you need a BIG SANDWICH? Regard:

  1. Make the tasty treat (since the surface is already clear)
  2. Clear up after yourself
  3. Put the dirty item you just used in the dishwasher

There, another job done – filling the dishwasher! Here’s some other examples of “buy one get one free” productivity magic.

  • Take the rubbish out to the bin when you take the dog for a walk
  • When you read an email, file it or delete it
  • Clear your desk while you’re on a boring conference call
  • When you make dinner, fill a sink of hot soapy water, and wash up as you finish using stuff

Now, you may be tempted to do a cheeky few extra tasks for each main task, and that’s cool, but be careful you don’t accidentally slip into “MUST DO BIG JOB WITH UNHINGED INTENSITY” mode. There will be plenty of other opportunities for claiming your free extra things, no need to gobble them all at once. Patience is needed. Stay calm. Mind like water. Etc.

Once you get into the swing of things, you’ll find that everything is done all the time and you’ll be free to explore the vagueries of crochet. Except, hold on…

Item 2: Make small numbers of monolithic BIG JOBS into a proliferation of small jobs

But what about those jobs that don’t sit snugly around daily routine, like clearing out the garage or, god forbid, THE GARDEN (shivvers cascade down spine). This is what item #2 is for. You’re never going to get around to the BIG JOBS, at least not until forced to (in a moment of weak will and unbridled enthusiasm you invited most of the office around for a dinner party, and now you have to purge the dining table of last year’s Warhammer obsession, not to mention that your attempt at a Banksy style mural on the adjacent wall looks like the faecal smears of a deranged, captive chimpanzee). Assuming this isn’t the case (you don’t really own a chimpanzee do you?) then you’re better off not attempting the doomed project all at once, but instead break it down into lots and lots of quick little tasks of which you can do a couple of a day. It’s like breaking down a big immovable iceberg into cute little ice cubes that you can pop into your vodka and Diet Coke. Do this for ALL of your big projects. Let’s use the dining room situation as an example. The way you could break it may look something like this (do one a day):

  • Buy some sort of storage for your Plague Orcs and Blurgg Marines
  • Put half the little models in said storage (the ones you got around to painting)
  • Put the other half of the little models in said storage (the ones you will NEVER get around to painting)
  • Clear away all the manuals, boards and 19 sided dice and stuff
  • Buy a poster depicting an actual Banksy mural
  • Put said poster on top of chimpanzee scrawl

Write all this down as a list before you attempt doing any of it. Make a plan for doing each item, and then do them sequentially. Merge this list in with the equivalent ones for all your BIG JOBS. Make some time every day to do a few of these tasks. Which brings me swiftly onto items 3 and 4, which I’ll tackle together, since they’re intrinsically related.

Items 2 & 3: Make special times to be productive and frivolous

Here’s the thing, as an ADHDer, you’re actually good at making time for stuff, and you’re frequently weirdly effective at planning and using your time to get obscene amounts of stuff achieved. It’s just that that version of you turns up unpredictably, and only if you’re immersed in one of your focus fits. But here’s the good news, you actually posses those magical delivery skills ALL OF THE TIME. Seriously, you do. You just have to accept the fact that you can only engage them for short periods in situations where you’re not interested in the task at hand. That’s cool, because you only really need to engage them to short periods, but you need to do it consistently, habitually, quasi-religiously. Every. Single. Bloody. Day. Find thirty to sixty minutes a day to do the snoresville tasks. What I don’t mean by that is ‘allocate’ thirty minutes at 9 pm when you usually ‘waste’ your time watching Stranger Things and thus will probably continue to exactly that. I mean carve out that time at a point in the day that you’re likely to be available to do some boring stuff, in the location where it needs to be done, and when nothing else is expected of you. This is not necessarily an easy task in itself, but it’s important. There will be trade-offs and compromises, but believe me, it will be worth it. Find the time, make sure you will not be distracted (thrust some Taylor Swift or Morbid Angel or Kenny G through your earphones) and get cranking through the stuff that needs doing. Start with the routine stuff, then chip off a couple of the ice cubes you carved out of those big icebergs.

And here’s the reward, go through the same exercise to carve out some time for doing ALL THE OTHER FUN STUFF. I know what you’re thinking right now. I do. You’re thinking “but as it is right now, I can use ALL my time to work of all that tasty shiny fun sh*t”. This may well be the case, but how is that working for you eh? Do you really feel relaxed and guilt free? You’re sure you’re not feeling a little torn, guilty, shameful, lest I say it, inadequate, at not having done the stuff that you think you’re actually supposed to be doing? The stuff that needs doing? If you do what I say, you can get on with building that aquarium complex GUILT FREE, knowing that you’ve done exactly enough of ALL OF THAT OTHER BORING CRAP to relieve yourself of the nagging burden of inadequacy. Make the time to do both the fun and the frustrating. Make more time to do the fun. You can do that, it’s OK. It really is. Set yourself free. I DARE YOU.

Here’s what it boils down to: if you’re forcing yourself to constantly trade-off BIG JOBS, you’re having to make BIG DECISIONS which is stressful and tiring and you’re unlikely do the “overhaul the kitchen” project and instead do the much shinier “learn how to make cheese” project (which is actually going to make the kitchen project even more arduous). Do both projects, do all your projects, but for the kitchen project (and its never ending multitude of interbreeding siblings), break them up, divide and conquer, habitualise them into submission.

Back to the unencumbered spite and contempt I promised earlier. Unfortunately, all those annoying adages proffered by those annoying, self-satisfied, meticulous douchebags gain a little credence at this point – “a stitch in time” and “if you look after the pennies, the pounds will look after themselves”, blah, fecking, blah. As with most metaphorical memes, despite the fact that they’re trite, over-worn and generally lame, there’s almost always a grain of reality in there, no matter how irritatingly phrased and asserted. Consequently your sister/vicar/gimp was at least in part correct. If you find her/him/it’s whiny voice echoing around your skull reciting these pithy one-liners and saying “I told you so!” daring you to tell him/her/it to p*ss off, then simply do that. Go on, DO IT. Tell those voices where they can stick their condescending dribble. It will feel good. Then get on with what you need to do because, quite frankly, actually getting your sh*t done is a much bigger smite-to-the-cobblers to people like that than continuing the disarray that they derive so much perverse titillation from deriding you about. Your success is their pain, remember that. INFLICT THE PAIN.

So in summary. Break stuff apart, make time to gratify yourself, inflict pain. Goddit? “When you put it like that,” you’re saying out loud, “what’s not to like?!” And you are correct.

ADHD