This is exactly what ADHD is like for me

Once upon a time, there was rolling chaos.

Welcome Friend! I’m Mia Freedman and this is my newsletter where I write things. Babble is a reader-supported publication so if you would like to support my work here , that would be so appreciated.

It started so well. For a couple of years, I’ve wanted to attend a Pub Choir event. For those of you who don’t know, I did singing for my HSC and I love it a lot. Some say I’m quite good at it and by ‘some’, I mean me.

I’ve wanted to join a choir for such a long time but the number of steps involved in actually doing that - locating a choir, deciding which one to join, actually joining it, going to rehearsals - feels like the Mount Everest of organisation. A Great Wall Of Impossible. And so I never have.

Pub choir though - where you go to a pub or a theatre with a group of strangers and the organisers teach everyone a song which you learn and perform in the space of a couple of hours - seems like the kind of simple, condensed experience that was made for me and my brain.

Except for the fact that Pub Choir events are incredibly rare, you have to book tickets and it sells out almost instatntly. You see, I am a basic bitch whose taste is incredibly mainstream which makes me very good at my job (knowing what women want and providing content to them) but when combined with a disorganised brain, also means I usually miss out on anything of which there is high demand and limited supply because I’m rarely organised enough.

A year or so ago, I joined the Pub Choir mailing list which is something I have learned to do as a way to delegate reminders to myself. Every so often, the announcement of a new Pub Choir date will land in my inbox, meaning I don’t have to remember to be checking their website or hoping the stupid social media algorithm serves me up their posts on Instagram. How smart am I. That’s called a work around and it’s one of many I have implemented to make my life more manageable.

Back in September, an email arrived announcing a special fundraising Pub Choir event in Brisbane on December 14th.

Because my beloved friend, Bec Sparrow, lives in Brisbane and we see each other almost never, I’m always looking for excuses to visit her. And so an idea immediately took hold. Another beloved friend, Sally Hepworth, also selfishly lives in a different state to me and we are have been talking lately about taking a trip somewhere together. So I decided to book half a dozen tickets and also invite two other close friends in Brisbane I never see, Lise and Sarah.

Sarah, Bec and Lise: Brisbane here I come.

Sally also has ADHD and this is more helpful than I can possibly explain because she is the only person in my life who explicitly understands what it’s like. Many people believe that ADHD means a lack of attention but it doesn’t. This meme sums it up best:

If you can find a way to make the thing you’re interested into your job, success can follow because your focus and passion are intense and can be sustained over long periods. This is called hyperfocus and for me, it has resulted in a long career in women’s media because the level of my obsession and ability to screen out everything else in my life is uncommon. Hyperfocus can help you become really good at something.

For Sally, it’s the same with writing fiction. It’s no accident that she is a New York Times best-selling author many times over and one of the most successful novelists Australia has ever produced.

But simultaneously, other aspects of my life that interest me less- like life admin - will often be a bin fire.

Let’s continue with our story.

So I book the tickets for Pub Choir, congratulate myself on my supreme and supremely rare victory: having organised something I really want to do, well in advance. I’m going on an interstate adventure with Sal to spend time doing something incredibly fun and life affirming along with women we both love.

I reached out to Sal, Bec, Lise and Sarah and a plan instantly took hold. Sally and I would fly to Brisbane the day before Pub Choir and spend two nights together at our favourite hotel. We had an aborted attempt at this kind of Brisbane girls’ trip a couple of years ago during the Brisbane Writers Festival but I had to cancel at the last minute for reasons I can’t recall.

A whatsapp group was immediately established and Bec, Lise and Sarah were all in. Bec recruited another mutual friend, Frances Whiting because we had a spare ticket and plans quickly came together.

I would go straight from the pod studio to the airport after recording Mamamia Outloud on Wednesday lunchtime and meet Sal in Brisbane that afternoon. On Wednesday night we would all have dinner, the next day Sal and I could hang out and on Thursday night we’d all go to pub choir before we flew home to our families on Friday morning. Oh what fun we would have. Mentally, I began planning outfits. The other thing Sally and I share is taste in clothes and we love to surprise and delight each other by wearing ridiculous things.

Restaurant reservations were made, flights and hotel rooms were booked. This was going to be great.

I first realised something was up when the Mamamia Xmas Party was announced. The date seemed vaguely familiar: December 13th.

I checked my diary: it was clear. I wondered if it was one of my children’s birthdays? I’m terrible remembering numbers and dates always stump me. No. There is one in December but not that day. I went about my business until I received a reminder about my pub choir tickets - December 14th.

I was meant to be in Brisbane the day of our Xmas party and holy shit oh no.

In my defence, this wasn’t my fuck-up. As hard as that is to believe, I had asked someone to book my flights and accomodation and they had forgotten. However the fact Pub Choir wasn’t in my diary was probably on me. Ok it was definitely on me.

So anyway, chaos. I flagged with the organisers of the Xmas party that we had a problem. Venues had been booked. Deposits made. Catering organised. 150 people had been told and flights had been sorted for people in our interstate offices.

Could I miss the Xmas party? I could not. It’s not that I am a huge fan of parties. I usually enjoy myself when I’m there but I can only ever stay for a couple of hours max before my brain starts to scramble because I find socialising in groups to be incredibly mentally taxing. But as the co-founder and namesake of the company, I need to be there and also I want to because it is lovely to catch up with a lot of people I don’t see day-to-day and thank them for all their hard work.

So…..we changed the date of the Xmas party. Massive hassle but problem solved. Annoying, inconvenient, time-consuming but solved. Crisis averted. My long- awaited girls trip was intact.

A week later, while talking to my daughter about her upcoming birthday, I asked when the HSC results were coming out.

Oh fuck.

Pub choir.

At the time of writing this, I have not yet been brave enough to tell my group chat of the epic, rolling nature of my fuck-up. I know they will understand. Especially Sally who shares my chaotic brain even though she has already booked and paid for her flights and accomodation. We will laugh about it. I will find a way to be there but it won’t be when and what we’d planned and I feel nauseous about it.

Having ADHD is like this for me. There are the extreme highs of getting shit done, moving mountains with your passion and hyperfocus, being in flow when you’re doing something you adore with ever fibre of your being.

There are also the crushing lows of shame and anxiety and bewilderment and guilt and despair. Knowing the negative impact your actions have on others due to your inability to manage basic tasks like arriving somewhere on time or keeping track of dates, appointments and commitments. The steps required to complete tasks, both basic and complex are often insurmountable. Cooking a meal. Making an appointment. Organising a holiday. It can feel like trying to read hieroglyphics while you’re drunk. Even the fundamentals of remembering something important; sometimes it’s just so hard.

I’m writing this by way of apology and explanation. To my friends who I’ve inconvenienced yet again. To my children who I feel like I’m constantly letting down. To the people I work with who are often tasked with dealing with my being late because I simply can’t ‘see’ time and am mystified by people who can.

And most of all to my husband who has had to carry the weight of this for decades both at home and at work. There are lots of good things about me, I know, but the way my ADHD impacts on those closest to me is not one of them.

So now, I’m off to work out how to change my flights and hotel bookings and ask for grace and forgiveness from some people I love and who deserve better.

(This may sound like a very sad and bleak note to end on but one of the good aspects of ADHD is that you tend to bounce back from setbacks very quickly. ONWARDS)

If you want to know more about how I was diagnosed with ADHD and what treatment I’m on, you can read my essay about it here……

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