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A review by emilyrainsford
It All Makes Sense Now: Embrace Your ADHD Brain to Live a Creative and Colorful Life by Meredith Carder
hopeful
informative
3.75
This was a pretty nice and easy reading book about being ADHD.
As an AuDHDer, I can struggle to connect with pure ADHD content, as I don't experience externalised hyperactivity and my autism interacts with my ADHD to create its own unique experience. This one resonated a lot more, having been written by an adult-diagnosed woman, and covering more than just the standard diagnostic traits for ADHD.
Having said that, the very thing that made the book resonate with me is also the thing that irritated me a bit. Because there are a few chapters where it's like "this isn't one of diagnostic criteria but a lot of ADHDers experience this..." and then it goes on to describe... an autistic trait. The book felt like the book I've been wanting to read about AuDHD, but it thinks it's only about ADHD. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people seem to be trying to expand the definition of ADHD to encompass autistic traits. ADHD is a disorder with very specific diagnostic criteria. Sensory issues are not ADHD. Black and white thinking is not ADHD. They're autism. My personal, possibly controversial opinion is that a lot of adult women's ADHD diagnoses are missing the "u".
The chapters are structured the same: based around a certain trait, such as time blindness or rumination, they begin with a personal anecdote from the author, move into discussion of the trait, and end with practical tips.
I'm not at a point in my journey where I'm interested in tips and I know myself well enough to know that I'm never going to look at them again, let alone implement them. Plus they're all pretty standard, logical things. So I honestly skim read the tips and I don't think I took anything new or practically useful from the book.
But I did find it a very validating read, and that's really what I read this type of book for. Not to change myself, but just to see myself in the pages, to know it's an experience I'm not alone in. For that, this book definitely served its purpose better than another popular ADHD book I tried.
As an AuDHDer, I can struggle to connect with pure ADHD content, as I don't experience externalised hyperactivity and my autism interacts with my ADHD to create its own unique experience. This one resonated a lot more, having been written by an adult-diagnosed woman, and covering more than just the standard diagnostic traits for ADHD.
Having said that, the very thing that made the book resonate with me is also the thing that irritated me a bit. Because there are a few chapters where it's like "this isn't one of diagnostic criteria but a lot of ADHDers experience this..." and then it goes on to describe... an autistic trait. The book felt like the book I've been wanting to read about AuDHD, but it thinks it's only about ADHD. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine that people seem to be trying to expand the definition of ADHD to encompass autistic traits. ADHD is a disorder with very specific diagnostic criteria. Sensory issues are not ADHD. Black and white thinking is not ADHD. They're autism. My personal, possibly controversial opinion is that a lot of adult women's ADHD diagnoses are missing the "u".
The chapters are structured the same: based around a certain trait, such as time blindness or rumination, they begin with a personal anecdote from the author, move into discussion of the trait, and end with practical tips.
I'm not at a point in my journey where I'm interested in tips and I know myself well enough to know that I'm never going to look at them again, let alone implement them. Plus they're all pretty standard, logical things. So I honestly skim read the tips and I don't think I took anything new or practically useful from the book.
But I did find it a very validating read, and that's really what I read this type of book for. Not to change myself, but just to see myself in the pages, to know it's an experience I'm not alone in. For that, this book definitely served its purpose better than another popular ADHD book I tried.