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Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.

World Soil Day

First ape to go to the watering hole with a container and put some of the water in it so that they could drink more later without returning to the watering hole must have been lauded as a fucking genius.

What instruments do you play?

Him: yes

You remember that post about the homestuck t-shirt design contest collaborating with hot topic? And how Hot Topic are the biggest art thieves?  This is recent.  As you can see above, I stumbled upon Hot Topic’s website and they are selling a very popular fan art put on a t-shirt, and did not ask permission from the original artist (rismo).

This shows Hot Topic still continues their art thievery.  Hot Topic are still taking art from artists without their permission.  This is disrespectful and appalling.

Weird peeve time. Calling lab grown gemstones “fake” is stupid because it’s the same shit just not formed naturally. An artificially grown diamond is the same shit as a natural diamond it is the exact same material bro it’s all fuckign carbon

Many people seem to think it is foolish, even superstitious, to believe the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter is still sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say ‘What do I care if there is a summer, its warmth is no help to me now’. Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.

Vincent Van Gogh (via hope-for-the-planet)

Holly berries!

The pharmacy got some of my ADHD meds in!

After weeks!

I took ONE full dose and 20 minutes later was uncontrollably yawning and had to take a nap.

Stimulant meds are the first line, most effective treatment for ADHD, being remarkably effective in 70-75% of people with ADHD.

People with ADHD do not get high from their stimulant meds.

Becoming relaxed after taking them for the first time or after a long time off them is a sign that they are working and is an indicator that we DO have ADHD, though most doctors don't seem to know that this happens. We relax because we are closer to a normal state than we were, initially our bodies literally respond with relief.

Again. That is not what you would call even remotely a "high". Unless you are one of those awful people who believe naps are a crime.

They make our brain chemistry more normal, not less.

For those they help, we genuinely need them. Yes, both children and adults. It's fine to take them. It should not be a controversy (nor should ADHD itself be as controversial as it sadly is).

Medicating us does not lead to abuse. We are not addicts in waiting. Treating us as such is repugnant. (And treating addicts like shit is repugnant as well.)

Forcing us off medication with no support does, however, cause serious problems and can lead some people to seek them through illegal avenues, which is dangerous. Also understandable. The medical profession blames us and does not take responsibility for their part in this situation, even though they should.

We have every right to use whatever means works best for us free of censure, disapproval, and overzealous gatekeeping. If that's stimulant meds, so be it.

More respect for us please.

Especially now as we are facing rolling shortages of meds for the next few weeks or months. Your ADHD friends are struggling. Be patient.