Hello everyone who scrolls to the bottom of the website and/or subscribes to the blog!

Now taking new clients

I’ve opened up my books for limited availability – currently I’m only putting slots up for the free 20 minute Meet and Greet on my availability calendar – if we go on to work together I’ll book you in separately – but if there’s slots there, it means that I should have availability for coaching sessions in the next month or so.

I am running sessions on Mondays and Fridays.

If you can’t find a slot, but want to check for cancellations, please email me at off.piste.adhd@gmail.com

Group program coming

I’m also putting together a program for small groups that I am hoping to run later in the year. These will be at a lower cost and themed – currently I am looking to run two seperate group programs:

• Late diagnosed ADHDers
• New or expecting parents

If you are interested in hearing about these groups when I am getting ready to run them, or participating in an even lower cost ‘test-run’ of the group, please fill in this form.

Look after yourself

Every now and then there is a damaging interview or editorial in the news where the negative phrases and second guessing about ADHD that you already have in your head are suddenly taking up column space.

At the same time, the country is talking about how desperate the mental health crisis is.

Bizarrely, as a country, we are excellent at following this up with comparisons and equivocations, anecdotal stories about people who don’t ‘really’ need help, clogging up the system.

We platform people who have the same message – they evoke a fictional person whose problems are worse than many, whose desperation is more desperate than most. This fictional person is the one with the ‘real’ problems, and it’s implied that others are taking up this fictional person’s place.

There is an implication that the mental health crisis isn’t because of deep societal issues, inflexible institutions, and lagging mental health infrastructure. It’s that the waiting lists and rammed systems are because of the people who have inconveniently sought help in a manner not in line with official data projections.

An issue of data and policy is made to look like an issue of people.

The problem then deepens with ADHDers, who have empathy coming out of their ears. These empathetic, community-minded people may listen to this damaging rhetoric, and may say to themselves that reaching out for help will be taking away from someone else – and they won’t finally look for help until they too are absolutely desperate.

Please (and I’m not trying to sell you something), you deserve to get the support you need.

The scarcity mindset can be damaging to ADHDers – it can draw us into indecision, into freeze, into accepting our problems being dismissed. The idea that there is a scarcity of social connection keeps us in friend- and relationships that are bad for us, a scarcity of opportunities when they do come keeps us overwhelmed with the things we want to do now, and the idea of a scarcity of support keeps us from picking up the phone and booking that appointment. The idea of scarcity makes us think that we should be grateful for what we have.

We of course should be grateful, but reaching out for help is not the opposite of that – it’s not greedy to search for answers.

Next time this damaging rhetoric comes out, ask yourself who this person is and why they may be saying what they do. Your curiosity about their motivations and values may help you when taking the next step.

For support around ADHD:

AADPA Resources for individuals and families

ADHD Coaches Directory

ADHD Support Australia

Resources:

Information on getting a Mental Health Treatment Plan

Lifeline – 13 11 14

and here’s a further list of Mental Health Helplines for a range of issues.