(A)lready (D)oing (H)er (D)ardnest

Focus isn’t really my strong suite. Or perhaps it is exactly that. Having too much or too little is a delicate balance. This is a story of rediscovery and mental health. Through this rediscovery was the birth of my passion with a much deeper meaning. Growing up I have always like I was on the outside, alone, without much understanding of who I was or where I fit. It was only until this year that I feel like I have found myself, my talents, and truly begun to understand myself as an artist and most importantly have the courage to use my voice.

I realized early on that having talent gets you praises from adults. This attention is what I felt had left my life early on. Because of this I was isolated and confused, I knew I had what everyone else was seeing in others, but I suppose for whatever reason it was not translating. Looking on to my peers and their achievements, with the validation and admiration from teachers, family members, coaches, and even my own parents left a less than desirable feeling from a young age. A feeling of invisibility and solitude, mixed with a lot of question marks. Being a Black child growing up in a small White town didn't help either.

Thoroughly getting myself through the lens of ASD and ADHD has brought me to a place to being able to ask for what I need. Realizing now those feelings of inadequacy were unfortunately gaps in accessibility that I can only hope now they are beginning to be filled so that no other child, teenager or even young adult growing up has to feel even marginally close to what I did. Moving from my entire life feeling like absolutely everything about me wrong, broken, to discovering a whole world of possibilities.

Before then, nothing I did seem to make as big of an impact equal to my coevals. It’s not that I was seen as a total screw-up, but always felt like nobody expected too much from me either. Remembering the era of the accessories at stores like Claire’s that peaked during my elementary days with titles such as, “Soccer Girl,” “Dance Girl,” “Gymnastics Girl,” and not having any to choose form when every one of my friends seemed to have found either a charm or a pencil case to have fit with their identity. Me on the other hand, shied away from this section and deemed it up to be that I thought it was a silly thing to buy. But really, wishing it was that was easy. Soon, I followed this mindset about myself and pretended I didn’t care about much about anything at all because it just felt easier.

But honestly, I was beginning to wonder how come nothing sparked my interest enough to carry things through to have one of those silly charms for my bracelet. I didn’t hate reading and really enjoyed it when I did, but rarely picked up a book. I wasn’t the ‘reader’ so many others were titled to be. I really liked art class and creating crafts, but never seemed to gravitate towards it unless it was put in front of me. I wasn’t into sports, computers, the top of my class in any subject, and I didn’t seem to have any hobbies either. At this point I feel my mom would have settled for my hobby to be in video games. Nothing I did seem to click or if it did in even the slightest way, wasn’t bound to last or become much of anything at all.

The one thing I did know I was good at was never a tangible option, therefore it didn’t exist; creating. All sorts of ideas, gadgets, inventions. This was a constant cycle in my head but nothing I had around me would be able to execute my well-crafted brain children. This is not something that would easily fit into a category of extracurricular activities printed onto accessories, nor was this something an average child growing up in the early 2000s would do. Therefore again, this so-called interest of mine, did not exist.

It was only until much later in my last year of high school was I able to fully fall in love with something. To me at this point ‘love’ was something I could fully commit to without having to work myself up to doing and something that held my utmost attention. In the ADHD world this is called hyper focus or a ‘special interest’. I had signed up for a fashion class at school. This new thing in my life was creating designs and sewing them. I always had a knowledge of this interest, but it never got too far with me always getting in trouble for cutting up my clothes and not allowed to use my mom's machine. But finally, I had access and off I went.

This had felt like the moment I had been waiting my entire life for, what I was seeing in others for all of those years. I was diagnosed when I was around 11 years old, but no one really knew what to do with that information. Then it was just an embarrassing thing you hid from your friends and boiled down to you being seen as ‘not that bright’ and ‘easily distracted’ by your teachers. Now, with various platforms discussing what my brain is like and use it to my advantage, unlike the many years of trying to use it the way advised in a way that wasn’t built for me in a world that wasn't built like me. Moving away from the agony of forcing my brain and my body to doing what I thought I should be doing, to doing what comes naturally.

I now run a small business that produces small batch hand sewn items using recycled and repurposed textiles. Items ranging from items to protect natural hair to accessories, to bags. I allow the inventory to span wide, catering to my ADHD brain and allowing it to create what it feels fo however long. Creating, drafting, and producing items using texting is now just one of my passions, but it is certainly my favourite since it showed me, I wasn’t broken after all. I hold sewing dear to me.