ADHD resources (partial) for 2024:

I have written some blog posts in the past but this is just the most up to date info I have on the topic. 

FreeMind - mind mapping software - free and allows for non sequential note taking (great for taking notes by disorganized speakers/authors, and or trying to do a "mind dump" without ending up with a giant intimidating list since you can minimize nodes/topics.

https://freemind.sourceforge.io/wiki/index.php/Main_Page 

The authors Edward M. Hallowell M.D. and John J. Ratey M.D. 

Of the stuff they have published I have read the following, the first one was recommended by the psychiatrist that originally diagnosed my ADHD at 22 in 2001, (my parents who I was living with at the time refused to read it), it was basically a breath of fresh air and validated how I felt I had been gaslit over things my entire life by school and family.

 - 1995 - Driven To Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

 - 2005 - Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

 - 2015 - Driven to Distraction at Work: How to Focus and Be More Productive (By Hallowell MD only)

The authors had a bit of a falling out after releasing the revised edition of Driven to Distraction in 2011, but seem to have gotten over it for the release of ADHD 2.0 that was published in 2022 (which I only just learned about).

Look into "Acceptance and Commitment therapy" (which can help a LOT with beating yourself up when your brain/hyperfocus forces you to repeatedly rescheduling everything).

Also the book which I found after a mini stroke in 2008 (I cherry picked one exercise and still haven't read the whole book):

"Energy Tapping for Trauma: Rapid Relief from Post-Traumatic Stress Using Energy Psychology" by Fred Gallo 

- ADHD amplifies feelings of rejection, and in my case I figured out that I had been carrying around repressed/very early memory that resulted in me dealing with a bit of internal dialogue that would tear through my mind after every conversation/interaction I had with people "why don't they like me?!". After about 2 hours of sitting tapping going through every memory I had trying to find the interaction that created it, I got all the way back to one from Kindergarten (Kindergarten?! WTF?! Right?) I had gotten worn out and laid down for the night. When I got up in the morning, for some reason I tried doing the tapping thing again, and it hit me... turns out my mother would carry me around after my grandmother would come over and hold me crying "why don't they like me?!" (which also turned out to be a pattern that my grandmother did to my mother as well). It was about 2 weeks after I made the discovery to realize something was missing, the whole "why don't they like me" had stopped and I could finally at the age of 29 objectively assess conversations/interactions. 

The worst thing about finally having answers.

Link to video

Note: Comment I left on this video under Ducknoodle (a username that I have had since before Google bought out youtube).

"Congratulations! and Good Luck as you try to move forward!

Something that I picked up from "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie ended up being really useful with dealing with anxiety about "what could happen" after having a mini stroke when I was 29. Paraphrasing a bit, "sit down and write out clearly what you are worried about, all the facets of it, so you are no longer anxious about some fuzzy/vague thing. Then go about improving on the worst. Ask, Is there anything I can do about it? If the answer is no, sit with the realization until you can at least accept it, then think about how to handle it rationally if and or when it does happen." If I remember right it was a story from an American who was doing business in China in 1937 when Japan invaded.  

The mini stroke ended up worsening some chronic health problems  to the point where any one of them would have been severe enough to be disabling all on their own. (Note: the chronic health problems and how they impacted my ability to earn a living were responsible for the majority of my anxiety before the mini stroke). 

I have learned along the way that managing the process of medical care when your regular doctor visits now include monitoring your state of remission with a specialist and ensuring communication between doctors. Improving this skill dramatically reduces the stress and anxiety that the process can induce.  The checklist in the article on HBR.org "The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through" by Peter Bregman (link below) was extremely helpful with communicating with my doctor, I just altered a few based on the appointment, usually needing to ask only one or two relevant to the current context (I actually have had my doctor read the checklist from the article because I am still dealing with aphasia and word searching problems, and saved me from having to struggle to form the questions I needed to ask because he just said "oh, ok, well this is the process, and no you don't need to come back in before seeing the specialist unless something else comes up.")

Some other books:
 - "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore
 - "The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection" by Raphael Cushnir (this also helped with learning how to process emotions again because of the damage incurred to my brain, I have heard chemo can cause brain damage as well)
 - "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande (the section where he interviewed an architect, and communicating as an equal)
 - https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-secret-to-ensuring-follow - Based on the Checklist Manifesto, refer to the "Handoff Checklist" about midway down the page starting with "What do you understand the priorities to be?" Doctors who aren't lazy recognize questions like these as worth answering and won't be as likely to rush out of the exam room before you get your questions answered, and also helps reduce my anxiety if all I am facing is more tests."