Hello all,

I'm a lawyer. I do a TON of writing. I write memoranda and briefs, and I LOVE what I do, truly enjoy it. As a result, I'm reasonably good at it. But I have a pretty big problem that I have to fix, and I'd be interested in others' suggestions about how to fix it... Please accept my apologies in advance that this is such a long post.

The issue is deadlines, not that I miss court deadlines (knock wood) but that they drive me, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult as I age (I am now 41) to produce a draft sufficiently in advance of a court deadline to give my law partners and clients the chance to weigh in.

That I'm deadline driven relates to the way that I write, which has been consistent since I was 6-7 years old. I write in one long stretch, usually overnight, sometimes over more than one day/night. My psychiatrist says that I get into a hypomanic state when I write. And now that I know that, I can see what he's saying. I get pressured speech, a sort of euphoric high, become very creative, and just generally think that I'm the bee's knees. (This is all without medications, by the way, and if I am cyclothymic, I do not get accompanying lows, generally, so these hypomanic states don't come at the usual "price," if you will). When I get into these states, I am able to "see" the structure of the thing that I am writing. I see it so completely that each paragraph naturally flows one to another, and each sentence fits squarely within the paragraph so that it all holds together. I rarely make major structural changes after the first draft. This "seeing" always comes from this hypomanic state.

But I don't seem to be able to induce this state until VERY close to a hard-and-fast court deadline. Internal deadlines do not induce it for some reasons. And when I try to write outside of this state, everything that I produce is mush. That was ok in my teens, 20s and 30s because I had plenty of physical stamina to be able to pull repeated all-nighters, but now my brain starts to conk out when I've had way too little sleep, and thus I'm losing my key hyperfocusing hours between 8:00 pm and 4:00 am or so.

After a lifetime of fighting this issue and thinking all along that I merely lacked discipline, I was diagnosed in June 2007 as ADHD, primarily inattentive. I've experimented with various stimulant medications and anti-anxiety/anti-depressants, and am currently on 100 mg Luvox plus whatever of my assortment of stimulants I decide to take on a particular day. I find that 10 mg Adderall XR seems to work best. Higher than that and I get shaky/a little high-ish. I figure that I've wrung as much out of the medications as I can, and now I have to modify behavior to accomplish the rest of what I need to do. The medications also seem to work against me on some of the key components of producing a written work product.
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I've identified four "phases" of writing, if you will (borrowing HEAVILY from Bryan Garner, a legal writing expert), as well as the way(s) that ADD seems to affect each phase for me. I'm wondering if others agree with these categorizations, and then if anyone has practical tips about making this process smoother, more organized, and most importantly, making the break from one phase to another in a timely fashion. Ideally, I think I need to try to induce the hyperfocus earlier, and then somehow wrest myself out of it with just enough time to get a minimum amount of sleep.

So ok, so here are my four phases:

Researching. I'm a natural at this part. I'm like a kid in a candy store. I LOVE digging around on the internet, so this is just a variation on that theme. I'll research until the cows come home, if I'm allowed. This is, in fact, what I'm doing as the deadline approaches. I'm not actually "procrastinating" in the sense that I AM working on the project, but I'm still dinking around opening and closing doors until the eleventh hour. So hyperfocus causes an inability to shift attention away from researching, and thus stimulant medication makes this problem worse;

Cramming information relevant to the project into my brain. This part is very hard for me. I become very sleepy as I try to read the relevant material and tend to "fall" for any distraction, internal or external (can't tune them out, in other words). This part feels tedious, but it's also where I tend to develop my ideas about structure, etc. So distractibility causes an inability to maintain attention when reading relevant material (factual or authority). Stimulant medication helps remedy this problem;

Outlining/organizing written work product. This part is a piece of cake when I'm in a hypomanic state, and near impossible outside of one. Poor working memory creates the need to induce hyperfocus/hypomania in order to bring on this “vision” of the document, so that ideas are organized within a cohesive framework. Although this is induced by a hypomanic state, it seems to me that stimulant medication does not help with this part;

Crafting the written work product. Here I'm referring to the process of stringing sentences and paragraphs together, working from the outline, etc., and putting in citations to authority as I go (which I find I need to do because I craft the statements around the evidence or around the authority). This part is tedious again. The process of finding just the right quote in just the right evidence or authority is very time-consuming. If I don't have a deadline breathing down my neck, it is extremely difficult to keep going with this part. Stimulant medication should help with this part, but in the past it has not seemed to for some reason (I may have just become too tired at this point in the past);

Editing the draft into a final work product. This part is tedious, but not terribly difficult. Once I'm to this phase, I generally do not have difficulty sustaining attention (unlike a lot of ADDers, I guess) but that's probably related to the fact that I'm usually reaching this phase VERY close to the deadline. If my drafts were done well in advance of the deadline, then I might struggle with this. Stimulant medication should help with this part.

Please tell me your thoughts about this structure. Does it square with your experience? Have you hit upon any tricks or techniques that help you turn off the hyperfocus from certain things and switch gears, and then turn the hyperfocus back on to do other parts?

Boy, if you've made it this far, you now see why it's a misnomer to call what we lawyers write "briefs." Thanks for having the stamina. And thanks to all in advance for their input,

Sandy

Thinking outside the box: is there any way you can delegate the task of writing briefs and save yourself the hassle? (and yes, I read your whole post).

Well, Driver, you raise an excellent, and probably obvious point. Most lawyers with my experience don't write their own briefs; they delegate to younger lawyers who bill out at lower rates. I have on occasion worked with drafts from other lawyers, but I almost find it harder than writing the brief myself, probably because I'm diving into the organizational aspect without the benefit of the hyperfocus/hypomania.

In any event, usually when I'm brought in to work on something, the client or my partner is looking for my written work product. So yes, I could delegate, but it wouldn't likely do me a lot of good. This is what I do, if that makes sense. And I love it, too.

The only thing I can figure is to start your research asap and since you like that and dont need a stimulate do this maybe more in your down time. Like you I love researching anything, spent hours on what vacuum to buy, oh this is about you :o. Then for cramming info, do this: right when your stimulate really peaks, and etc....... Maybe if you work more with how you are instead of against it. As far as the getting started on the research you probably have no problem, but after that is where you will have to catch yourself at peek performance time. You could always get a coach, or teach the legal assistant how to coach you. Or break your draft down into even really small steps. One of the posters had this great idea of putting all her to do's and projects on index cards. When she had problems she broke it into even more steps. I dont know how long you usually have to do this but if you did it this way to where its not soooo much work and incorporated it into your other daily work so you dont get so bored with it.

I'm afraid I can't offer you any advice on this, but I did want to comment because I very much recognize the hyperfocus way of writing.

I'm not a professional writer, actually still a student at University, but I do enjoy writing short stories and such. The first three weeks that I started on Concerta, I didn't feel like I was able to write anymore... I couldn't develop a storyline, the events didn't make sense, etc. Then, at one day when I was at a restaurant at the airport, trying to study, I suddenly got inspiration and started writing - it almost felt like I was possessed. It was amazing to see what I put on paper, because it was written in a completely different style than I normally write. When my focus dropped after a while, I decided to go home and continue on my computer - where I finished the story, then went to edit it.

It was like I could see the construction of how sentences should be, in a much clearer way than before, I could also spot errors right away, basically - I really understood how it had to be, technically, and gave it some twists that I'd never done before in writing. When I was done, I showed it to a friend and she was utterly amazed. She asked me if I really wrote this, because it was almost perfect in every technical and grammatical way, and that it completely seemed that English was my first language (which it's not at all, since I'm Dutch, but for some reason, I really like writing in English). She was also very surprised about the different style, and really raved about it - which of course was a great compliment, but made it all together a really interesting discovery.. that on medication, I could get into a totally different level of hyperfocus.

But yes, just like you, I always lose myself in projects with researching, writing etc - I love it, discovering all the information and fitting it together. Often I keep going on for a huge amount of hours, without breaks, and especially now I'm on concerta, I often will forget to eat. In the end, that's not always the best thing, especially not when it turns into an all-nighter, but it's fascinating! I love that flow.

Thank you, Precious,

I've been on several different types and dosages of stimulant medications. I think all totaled we've tried Adderall IR at 2.5, 5, and 10 mg, Adderall XR at 10 and 20 mg, Focalin XR at 10 mg, and phenteramine at 10 mg (I think). It seems to me that the Adderall works best, and probably best at the lower doses. Ideally, I think I'd get a 5 mg XR. I much prefer the XR.

The higher doses of Adderall and the other stimulants seemed to cut off my creativity and vision somehow. I'm not sure how or why. But it seems to be that I need to take the stimulants only for certain tasks and not for others, and that means that the tasks need to be on different days. Up until recently, I would often end up researching right up until I had as many hours before the deadline as I expected to have pages. At that point (when hours left WITHOUT sleep = expected pages) I'd HAVE to switch over to writing because it always took about one hour per page to write. So a 50 page brief would be at least 50 hours, just for the writing. (And for those of you who are business people and doing the math there, yeah, I generally don't get brought in in low dollar figure cases unless there's something bigger on the line than just that one case.)

Thank you to people for their comments (including those who have PM'd instead of posting).

Yes, I've also been playing with the idea of maybe not using my medication for a day when I really want to write. A friend of mine described it really well, she mentioned a friend of her who is taking anti depressants, but who said that "she writes best when she's in a manic period". And I can relate to that, because since it's creative writing, it does help when you really get emotionally involved in what you're writing, no matter that it can be an rollercoaster of heights and lows!

Dear Sandy,

Ned Hallowell here. I HOPE I am doing this correctly, as I am new to this site and to this technology. It would be a shame for me to write a reply and for it not to reach you!!! Please let me know if this reaches you.

What you describe is a complex problem, to put it mildly. You have broken it down into its component parts brilliantly. Let me make some comments and suggestions. But first, let me commend you. You are awesome! You are tenacious, extremely intelligent, creative, brave, and full of the kind of never-say-die attitude that convinces me you will beat this problem. You are a phenomenal person, and you ought to feel extremely proud of yourself and the work you are putting into realizing your dreams. It's my bet they will come true!!! Here are my suggestions:

First of all, medication. Medication is best for re-creating the high you get from deadlines. In fact, one of the reasons people with ADD tend to put things off is precisely to get that kind of high, which is caused by the adrenaline the you secrete when you are panicked and under the gun. Adrenaline is nature's own stimulant medication, chemically and functionally similar to the stimulants we prescribe. The reason people with ADD do so well under pressure is that adrenaline helps them focus, while it can make others spaz out. If I were you, I would not give up on finding the right dose of the right medication to be taken at the right time. You so clearly identify in your posting the times when meds do help and the times when they donot help. That leads me to believe you ought to be using short-acting meds, so as to avoid carry-over into the part of the process that meds impair. Have you tried short acting Ritalin? Say, 5 or 10 mgs? I'd give that a try. Make sure you use BRAND NAME Ritalin, not generic methylphenidate, as it tends to work much better for most people.

Second, fish oil. If I were you, I would take a daily supplement of omega-3 fatty acids in the form of fish oil. Make sure you get pharmaceutical grade fish oil. The two brands I know well enough to recommend are the brand manufactured by Barry Sears (order it online at zoneliving.com and take the dose he reocommends---most people take too little) or the brand manufactured by Carol Locke (you can order it at omegabrite.com---same advice, take the dose they recommend). Both of these brands are top-notch. Fish oil is good for you in many ways, but it is especially good for the brain, as the brain has lots of lipids, and some of these are essential fatty acids, which the body cannot synthesize, you must ingest. Fish oil has these. It is also especially good for ADD and for mood. Get on fish oil now!!!

Third, physical exercise. My friend, John Ratey, just published a book called Spark, which detailed the myriad ways in which exercise helps the brain. If I were you, I would get on a regimen of physical exercise at least a half hour 4 times per week. In addition, I would use physical exercise when I hit the roadbolcks you mention in the writing of the briefs. Just get up from your desk and run in place as vigorously as you can for 2 full mintes, then do 25 jumping jacks as fast as you can, then do 10 push-ups fast, then catch your breath for 30 seconds, then sit back down. The whole process will only take 5 minutes or so and it will truly reset your brain.

Fourth, encouragement. Do you have a friend who you can call when you are fogging up? Some people hire a coach, which you might need to do. But, before doing that, try getting a friend to work with you. You'd be amazed how helpful a minute or two of rah-rah encouragement can help.

Fifth, diversion. Sometimes it is good to get your mind completely off the topic. Keep a joke book in your drawer, a book that will truly make you laugh. This is also a good brain refresher.

Sixth, reminders of people and places you love. Keep photos in your work area of people and places you love. I have a mobile over my desk of photos of people and places I love. When I get bogged down I lean back and look up at it. Soon I feel better.

Seventh, music. The right kind of music helps many people, myself included, work better.

Eighth, sleep. Make SURE you get enough sleep. Enough sleep is that amount of sleep it takes for you to wake up without an alarm clock.

Ninth, I would refer you to my book CRAZY BUSY: OVERBOOKED, OVERSTRETCHED, AND ABOUT TO SNAP. It has many suggestions in it that I think could help you.

I hope this reaches you, and I hope it helps!!! I know you can win this battle. I know you WILL win it. Please keep me posted. You are an awesome person!!!

Best wishes,

Ned Hallowell

You are an awesome person!!!

that's what I keep telling her, and it can not be said too much! :)

Dr. Hallowell,

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I was diagnosed in June 2007, and have worked on this relatively steadily since then, doing all of the things that you describe. I actually did many of them already, long before I knew that I had ADD. In fact, the exercise, fish oils, photos, and diversions (I'm partial to Spider Solitaire and YouTube) are lifelong things. I felt last summer that I was very, VERY close to re-working my writing habits, so to speak. But then in August I had something personal happen that derailed my work on this for a while. After that, I believe that I just got into a pattern of getting very little sleep, and everything blew up on me. My law partners essentially wrote me off (which was heartbreaking for me, to be honest, because I saw them as family), and that created a bad scene for me, too.

But I'm taking a break at the moment, re-charging the batteries, so to speak, and I'd been feeling that I was close to being ready to dust myself off and get back at it. Your post has made me feel very, very, VERY good about that. So thank you again.

I'll be at the ADDA conference in Minneapolis in July. I'll come find you and say hello and thank you in person then.

Sandy

Dr. Hallowell - thank you for your post, these are definitely things I can use as well!

I'm an illustrator, but those steps correlate almost exactly with my own approach and difficulty with my work. each project I have presents those same difficulties for me, too.I try to do sketches, a 'rough draft', now that I have a team under me, one day before deadline, meet with them, then spend the eleventh hour finishing the big creative steps alone with my coffeepot late at night.I now have 2 deadlines- the sketch/proposal meeting, and the finished work.maybe arranging a meeting timefor the day before... and taking notes, to share at it, as you're absorbing the information; would this help you?

Yes, Reesah,

It does. For those who are unfamiliar with Bryan Garner's writing seminars, he breaks the writing process into four phases, which he calls "madman, architect, carpenter, judge."

The madman is the creative phase, in which you're ironing out what you want to say. In my work (but it seems to me that his methods are equally applicable to any sort of writing other than maybe PURE creative writing, but perhaps they'd even work for that), the madman part is the researching, reading, thinking, and brainstorming. I end that process doing something that he calls a "whirligig," which is a form of "mind mapping" (thanks to QueensUGirl for suggesting the phrase "mind mapping").

The architect phase is the process of outlining, which is greatly enhanced (for me) by the hyperfocus/hypomania that seems to be induced in the madman phase.

The carpenter is the process of constructing paragraphs and sentences working from the outline. There's a bit of creativity there in word choices, phraseology, etc., but it's a very tedious process, in general, because it's so slow going.

And the judge is the final editing process.

Bryan Garner recommends that one have a deadline for each phase. I tried that with the most recent brief that I wrote, but it was an unusual situation in which I wasn't "allowed" to do any of the madman work (because we'd done it all before) and I was therefore having a very hard time "seeing" the brief for the architect phase. I was also absolutely wiped out, because I slept very inconsistently in the two months leading up to that point. So I can't say that following Garner's approach worked smashingly for me in that go around, but I think that the overall methodology is sound, in part for the reasons that you state, Reesah.

Sandy

Ok from what's been described here it sounds as though when you people write etc, you're unlocking your creative brain and turning off the logical brain (hence the reason why you just see the sentences and paragraphs etc and the whole thing just appears to write itself; and also why it tends to only happen when stressed or emotional and you don't notice the passage of time).

Sandy, I'll recomend and approach from left-field. Get your hands on the book, "Drawing from the right side of the brain". In there are exercises to help you shut off the logical brain and turn on the creative brain.

Driver,

What an outside-the-box idea. Are you SURE that you don't also have ADD?!

Just ordered it from Amazon.com. Thanks so much for that tip.

Sandy

When you say constructing grafs and stringing sentences together is tedious, sounds like you're talking about the actual writing process...the point when you put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard). Have you tried using a tape recorder and then transcribing what you've dictated? Often the hand just can't keep up with the brain and its constellation of thoughts, here in all its clarity one minute, flickering out of existence the next.

Also, an editor once suggested I "vomit" out my report. Don't think and try to be fancy, just write. WRITE DAMMIT! Even if all you can get out is jibberish. The important thing it to physically be in the act of writing. Fix things later. There's a book called Writing Down The Bones that talks about that.

Alternately, you can tie yourself to your desk and set up a contraption that zaps you with 10 volts every time you stop typing...;)

Most of the time, I look at writing assignments I have to do as though they're kryptonite...and I'm a news reporter! I can't do it I tell you until I've brought it to the one-minute-to-deadline crisis point. **sigh**

Thank you, Passenger,

I've followed the "vomit" approach (and dictating). Those approaches work for things like reports, some letters, etc. But writing briefs is different. It comes from the whole "show don't tell" concept. The structure itself ends up being driven by what you can pull from evidence or authority for support, if that makes sense. I suspect that reporting isn't too different, which may be why you also are an up-to-the deadline writer, eh? I've just lost the ability to sustain the all-nighters anymore. Otherwise my methods aren't that bad, it turns out. If I could just turn it on a little sooner, it would all work out ok.

The suggestions in this thread have been outstanding. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and hope that it helps some of the other folks (students and the like) who are struggling with this issue.

Sandy

Hi Sandy,

Thanks for your very interesting post on writing! I can identify 100% (I should be working on a conference paper right now, deadline is in three hours, so I can't go into detail); my writing process is EXACTLY the same, including the "bee's knees"-feeling :D. The only thing is: I don't think I have ADD. Mind you, I was diagnosed with it, but recent developments have led me to think that my various "ADD-symptoms" might stem from different causes, part physiological, part *shudder* bad habits. Procrastination just works for me. Granted, the stress is horrible, but the boredom is worse. Plus, subconsciously, I often do not want other people (= co-authors) to fiddle with what I think is a great product. I honestly wonder if you should take medication. Sure, the forum is very pro-meds, but I found that coaching worked very well for me. But then I don't know if I have ADD... Mmm, anyway... Just my 2 cents.

PS: Reading what passenger wrote: the "vomiting" approach works quite well for me, too. Had to get used to it, but now I can see the benefits.

Thanks for the feedback, HeyaBird.

You know, the thing that the medication seems to help with the most is the process of digesting the results of my research, which may be a bit.... mmmmmm..... specific to law, though I may be simply ignorant of the ways that other fields do the same thing. In fact, it may even be specific to the type of law that I practice, which is to say that I don't specialize in any particular subject matter, so I have to learn new areas of law all the time (that's why I love what I do and do not get bored).

In any event, that part of the process was always especially slow-going for me because of the distractions, and it's hard to bill a client for all that extra time. So the medication speeds up that process quite a bit, and that's a good thing.

Thanks for your other suggestions.

Sandy

Wow! You're so lucky to have Dr. Hallowell reply to you... I didn't even realise he was on here. It goes to show how committed he is. I loved his book.

And he's right, you are awesome! I will be your rah-rah girl!

Wow! You're so lucky to have Dr. Hallowell reply to you... I didn't even realise he was on here. It goes to show how committed he is. I loved his book.

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52066 (http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52066)

Aloha,

You are such a cutie pie. I'd love to have you as my rah rah girl! (Bet Driver would like it, too, wouldn't you, Driver? Dress Aloha up in a sweater, mini-skirt and pom poms? Heh heh...) The feedback here has been excellent and I'm really thrilled (and lucky) to have y'all to work through this issue with. It's 6:40 am my time and I just got back from a run. I realized that one of the biggest changes between how I was in school (including college) and now is that I used to exercise strenuously 1-2 hours per day, so I'm going to try very hard to reincorporate that level of exercise in my life because I think that that probably helped quite a lot.

Sandy

Aloha,

You are such a cutie pie. I'd love to have you as my rah rah girl! (Bet Driver would like it, too, wouldn't you, Driver? Dress Aloha up in a sweater, mini-skirt and pom poms? Heh heh...)

Remains to be seen: dress her up and I'll let you know. ;)

Sandy pointed out to me this thread a few days ago, and I've been formulating a response in my mind ever since. I just got back from my daily exercise, so I can't think of a better time to do the actual writing (ugh!).

I am a newspaper writer. I left the news desk last year for features, which has fewer deadlines and a wider variety of subjects to write about.

I'm not sure I have any great suggestions for your problem, Sandy, but I have some observations about how you write, how I write, and some of the ideas mentioned in this thread, and out of all that I think we might be able to make a little progress in understanding and controlling our writing. So let me describe my writing process, so you know where I'm coming from.

I can classify the kinds of writing I do in two kinds: creative and work/school. I go about them quite differently.

Creative writing — fiction and essays I write on my own time — is by far the more dysfunctional of the two kinds. I have never really gotten past the architect stage, yet I keep trying because I love storytelling, I’ve studied the craft all my life, and I know I’m a good writer.

There are at least three sources of trouble for my creative writing. Probably the easiest to overcome would be waning interest. If I could make better progress on my stories, I don’t think I would lose interest so readily. Also, from what I have read of others’ experiences, the drive to care enough to get things done is a lot easier on ADHD medication, which I am not using yet.

A bigger problem is that I, too, depend on a hypomanic state to do my writing, but only rarely will it happen spontaneously, perhaps most often after I’ve just seen a show or movie that deeply moved me.

I do know of one way to make hypomania happen, although it’s not easy to get right, and it has unwelcome side effects. Heavy drinking. After my third or fourth stiff drink in about an hour, sometimes I can get into a hypomanic state so good that even God trembles in fear of my writing prowess.

In this state, I feel “on.” My mind is so quick, so sharp, and writing is not only effortless, it’s incredibly pleasurable. But I’m just drunk, you say. Drunks feel overconfident when in reality they are impaired. Yet my writing holds up the morning after. It’s so damn good. I don’t even make typos or spelling errors in that state. It’s the only stuff I write that I will show to my writer friends, and they say they wish they could write that well and it’s a shame that I don’t write more often.

I tell them I don’t write more often because I can’t get into that inspired state easily. Spontaneous hypomania is rare for me. I don’t hit the hard drinks more than a couple of times a month, and only a fraction of these occasions will induce the right mental state.

So after I heard you describe this as hypomania, Sandy, I read up on it. I find it interesting that several of us can identify with this experience. I’m not sure this is hyperfocus. I think it’s stronger than that. Hyperfocus on steroids, where a sense of confidence is especially bold.

Hypomania’s symptoms include feelings of grandiosity and racing thoughts (and grandiose esteem for those racing thoughts), which compels me to wonder whether I am in fact not so inspired in that state, I’m just quicker and confident. Since I first read this thread, I have been wondering whether I’ve been a fool to wait around for those hypomanic states — the talent is already in me, I just need to apply myself with more confidence and patience in my normal state. But I don’t even know if that’s possible, which brings me to my third problem with creative writing.

“The carpenter meets the brick wall, but the contractor vomits.” If by some chance I’ve done enough brainstorming and planning for a story and I’m still interested in it enough to write it, sitting down to begin the carpenter stage is nevertheless an exercise in pure frustration. The words do not, will not come. The carpenter finds a brick wall surrounding the building site. Eventually I give up.

But writing for school/work is different. I like thePassenger’s “vomit” description: “don’t think and try to be fancy, just write.” This is the only way I ever got anything done for school or the newspapers I’ve worked at. And it really feels like vomit — slapdash work that is possible only when the deadline looms large enough to get some adrenaline flowing. Preparatory stages of brainstorming, researching and planning are kept to the barest minimum. It’s all carpenter-stage writing because there’s never really any time for substantial revision.

I guess the writing I produce this way is good enough to get by. Teachers always loved it, even when it was late or incomplete, but I always knew in my heart I could have done much better if I could have given proper attention to all four stages of writing, and if I could have achieved that hypomanic state during the process. Having tasted the intoxicating sweetness of hypomanic writing, my bland “vomit” writing tastes so much worse. Others’ praise of this writing means nothing to me. It’s like hearing my mom tell me I’m handsome after I’ve gotten a bad haircut. I know what a stinking pile that writing really was.

So what am I getting at? Bottom line, I think a big part of the problem for me at this point is confidence and trust in my writing. With hypomania, the confidence and drive is there in spades. Outside the hypomanic state, I won’t work unless if I have to, and it feels like vomit. But now I can tell myself with some authority that the writing is actually a little better than the piece of s--- that my paranoid, stressed out little heart fears it is, and I should stick with it because I cannot wait for hypomanic states, and I cannot force them.

On the other hand, this isn’t just a problem of feeling confident enough to have the drive to get the work done. There is still that mental block, and attempting to undermine it with vomit will only get me so far. I cannot deny that there are SOME genuine qualitative differences in my work, not just my work ethic, when I’m in a more stimulated mental state.

But even if hypomania is out of my reach most of the time, I think I can reliably find middle ground. I recognize now that I have an acute need for stimulation in order to work well. Stress (good stress, bad stress, sad stress, ANY stress) can sometimes make it happen, but the bad kinds are unhealthy. However the good kinds are worth more exploring, as far as their potential to benefit ADHD writers as a natural stimulant to be used before work.

Perhaps intuitively I’ve understood that all my life. Perhaps this is part of why I procrastinate and why I’ve been branded lazy so often — I often feel like I have to play before I work, and now I can see why. I need to achieve a more stimulated mood or I can’t work. Of course, being ADD, it’s hard to remember what you should be doing after the fun starts, and it’s hard to switch focus from fun activities. But I honestly think I can do a lot better now that I understand playtime’s function as a means of stimulating myself into an elevated mood and mental pace. I understand consciously now that it is vitally important to do something to stimulate my mind before I work, and once I’ve reached a more stimulated level, I know it’s time to get to work.

All of Dr. Hallowell’s suggestions, from exercise breaks to supplements and medication, will also help me to be more stimulated.

So to speak to your issues specifically, Sandy, it sounds like you’re already well on your way to nourishing your stimulation needs, although part of me wonders if you’ve really found the right type and dose of pharmaceutical stimulant.

But I wonder if your reliance on the hypomanic state may be to your detriment. Your all-nighters are as terrible for your health as my benders are for mine. Both of us are paying a heavy price for something I suspect is overrated. Born with stimulation-starved bodies, hypomania is the flame to our moths, something we feel driven to chase after when, in fact, we could probably be a lot more productive if we could trust our work during more common mental states.


But there are lots of little tricks to at least loosen up the mind and get it more stimulated so that the vomit stage goes easily. So I pledge to learn how to tolerate the vomit stage better. To just sit down and get the job done and not listen to my fierce internal critic so much. And I pledge to do everything HEALTHY that I can think of to keep my mind stimulated. Omega 3. Short walks around the neighborhood when my mind poops out. The right music. No distractions. That’s what I did today, and this monstrously long entry I have now finished is living proof. ;)

Writin',

Thanks for your post. I'm giving it thought. I believe that thePassenger is also a newspaper writer, if I recall. I think she has it on her profile page.

I'm going to go for a run now and then will be traveling for the rest of today, but I'll try to get back to you very soon about how I think we can, in fact, "induce" something akin to the hypomanic states with exercise. The more that I've thought about this issue, the more that I'm realizing that one big difference between me today and me several years ago is that I exercised quite strenuously in the past and don't do nearly as much of it anymore. So I'm hoping that adding that back in, and doing it at opportune times (i.e., taking a break in the middle of the day to go to a gym that is near my office) will help quite a lot.

I wrote one brief entirely outside the hypomanic state and although the final work product was good, the interim drafts were not very useful. So the quality work product did not come together until the end anyway. It also ended up taking more time to write it that way, and that's always a bit of a concern when one bills by the hour, not the piece (not sure how you guys bill, but I know that my hubby's newspaper writing is billed by the piece).

I'll respond more fully later. Thanks again for your post. It's given me plenty of food for thought for my morning run.

Hi Sandy4957,

I'm an attorney, too. I actually taught legal writing for a few semesters, until my second child was born. Now I just work part-time, which I think works better with my ADD. I tried Straterra for awhile, but I just didn't like it and didn't think it helped much. I think you're on the right track with exercise. I've started doing Yoga about a year ago, and have found it to be very helpful.

You were saying you couldn't use the "vomit" method when writing briefs. I know what you mean, but have found a way to make that work. I will do an outline based on my research. I group the key cases together and then I can dictate, section by section. My poor secretary types it up and then I end up moving things around, re-organizing and re-writing on the computer. I do know what you mean about getting into a state and being able to see the whole structure of the brief. Once I have that, if I can turn that into some type of outline, mind map, whatever, I can come back to it and dictate different parts of it.

It has been hard for me to stop procrastinating, but now that I'm part-time and have children, I just can't do all-nighters. I've done it just once since my kids were born and that had more to do with the other lawyer on the case, than me. I force myself into believing the deadline is earlier than it is, so I can get the work done.

I'm thrilled to find another attorney that has ADD. I haven't come out to my firm and I don't plan on it. I don't think they'd understand. I'm anxious to hear how your experience is after telling. I haven't found most lawyers to be very open to new and different, so I'll be curious to hear how lawyers and clients react to you.