This is the Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 153: No One Gets To Tell You Who You Are.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write.

I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And today I’m gonna talk about something that has kept me from podcasting for the past couple months.

So the last episode I released was in November, 2022, and it was called “Endings Are Hard”, and it was about how difficult it is to end a project that we’re working on. And I think that to date, it’s one of my favorite episodes. And I didn’t really tell this to anybody, but for a while I thought it might be my last episode of the Write Now podcast. It seemed thematically appropriate, talking about how difficult it is to end things, but the fact that I had been thinking about ending the Write Now podcast had nothing to do with the episode called “Endings Are Hard.” It was just a coincidence.

And since it was kind of the end of 2022 entering the holiday season, I figured it would be okay if I went ahead and just stopped for a little while. This was for a number of reasons. First, I’ve been doing this podcast since, I think, 2015. Yes, I just paused <laugh> this recording and looked it up. It was indeed January 6th, 2015 when my very first episode of the Write Now podcast came out. That’s a really long time. And so ending the podcast wasn’t a decision I wanted to make lightly. The Write Now podcast has been a huge part of my life, although, you know, I’ll be the first to admit not a very consistent one. Please do not go back and look at the release dates of the past hundred or so episodes. They are very varying. I also didn’t know if it was time to move on from the right Now podcast to pursue other projects.

Some of you may know that I am in the midst of writing season two of Girl In Space, which I’m about to start my second draft of. And I am also concurrently writing a novel adaptation of Season One of Girl In Space. And I hope to traditionally or self-publish that, uh, very soon. I mean, you know, first I have to finish writing it, but I’m currently at about 96,000 words out of what I think will be between 120 and 150 words. And by <laugh>, by that I mean 120,000 to 150,000 words. Sorry, it is, uh, more than one page long. There was also this thought that I am out of things to say, I’ve been doing this podcast for, you know, however many years now, many. And you know, at some point does there, does there come a time when you’ve said all that there is to be said about something?

And I mean, in my mind, the answer is no, because we’re continuously learning and growing, and I’ve found that as I learn and grow, the more <laugh> I realize I have room to learn and grow. And there is so much more out there that I’m not even aware of, that I will one day be able to share with you about the craft of writing. I think I’ve mentioned before, I keep a list of potential podcast episodes just in a spreadsheet, and I’ll go over that spreadsheet every once in a while. And no, that doesn’t look interesting. No, I don’t wanna research that. No, I don’t know what I’d say about that. No, I feel like that’s too close to something I’ve done before, and it ended up just being a list of NOs most of the time. I also have what I’ve always considered a personal flaw where if I am not intensely interested in something in the moment, it is extremely tooth pulling, hair ripping, difficult to do.

But when I considered all of these reasons, none of them seemed good enough. Even together, they didn’t seem like a good enough reason slash reasons to stop doing the Write Now podcast. And that is simply because I love doing this show. I love the process of recording it, of sitting down and speaking into the mic and knowing that one day at one point in time in the future, you will be sitting down or standing up or whatever you do when you listen to podcast episodes, to listen to my voice and to hear me talk about writing and creativity and living the life that we want. Every time I save the file at the end of my recording session, I feel really good about myself. I feel fulfilled because not only do I get to share thoughts and insights that I’ve had about the creative process with you, I also get to process them for myself speaking into this microphone for me, like the act of writing or journaling is a way for me to understand what it is I’m actually feeling and dealing with.

And I just appreciate that so much. It makes it an extremely fulfilling process. Also, when I think about ending the Write Now podcast, I just feel really sad. I don’t want to end the show. I’m so proud of what I’ve built, the community that we have built together, the listeners that have kind of jumped on the bandwagon over the years. I’m so proud and delighted to be a part of your life in this way.

But there’s one more reason that I stopped doing the Write Now podcast for so long, and it’s a very personal reason that I’m still, I think, processing, and maybe even struggling with a little bit, this may seem like a big deal to you, it may seem like no deal at all. But in 2022, at the age of 38 years old, I was diagnosed with ADHD. Now, if you’re a frequent listener of the show, I sort of talked about this a little bit in my interview with Cat Blackard, back in Write Now Episode 151.

Cat had also been recently diagnosed with ADHD. And so the topic sort of naturally came up in our discussion. It wasn’t something that I have made very public or talked very much about for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons is the response that I got to that episode from that episode. And because I talked about my recent ADHD diagnosis, I received the most upsetting piece of hate mail I’ve ever received. Fortunately, most of you listeners are amazing and incredible, and you don’t send me letters telling me <laugh>, you know how much you hate me and how much you want me to die. And I, I really appreciate that. So thank you for being cool. <laugh> One individual got really, really angry that I was talking about ADHD and being diagnosed with ADHD, and I’ll go into why in just a second.

So basically, hi, my name is Sarah Ray Werner and I have been diagnosed at the age of 38 with ADHD. I never thought in a million years that I would have ADHD. The letters stand for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. And if you’re anything like me, if you sort of grew up in the same era that I did, ADHD was how you would describe those boys, specifically boys in the back of the classroom who could not sit still, who were always fiddling and fidgeting and yelled out inappropriate things. That was the picture I had in my mind of what ADHD was.

But I joined a writer’s group several years ago along with my husband and partner, Tim, and I think the two of us are the youngest people in there, but everyone else in there aged forties, fifties, sixties, whatever, had been diagnosed with ADHD sometime in their adulthood.

And I remember kind of taking a either figurative or literal step back and kind of looking at them array across my screen, because of course, this was via Zoom because you know, it’s in the 2020s and thinking you guys don’t have what I think of as ADHD, you’re all highly creative, you’re mostly quiet, introverted people. Like this is the opposite of the boy in the back of the classroom who’s just jumping out of his seat every 10 seconds.

There are actually two different kinds of ADHD (at the time of this recording). You know, science may decide that there are other things that are called other things at any point in the near future or far future. But there is the hyperactive type, which is, you know, that poor little boy who I keep referring to in the back of the classroom.

And then there’s inattentive type, and it was the inattentive type that I didn’t know about and didn’t know that I would eventually be diagnosed with. And it’s hallmarked by a number of different… I don’t wanna call them symptoms because I don’t wanna talk about ADHD like it’s a disease. It’s just a different way in which the human brain can function. Or as a friend who is a psychiatrist, explained it to me, your brain is basically a dopamine desert. So it doesn’t have or make enough of the chemical dopamine, and thus, the way that you act and react in the world is affected.

But several of these hallmarks include not just the hyperactivity or impulsiveness — those I didn’t display — but difficulty staying organized, having an extremely messy desk that you can never quite get under control. Terrible time management skills, problems focusing problems, staying motivated with a task or a project, difficulty planning, an ability to think outside of the box, or as some people would call it creatively, constantly forgetting and losing things, being in a constant state of stress or overwhelm.

These I definitely resonated with, and these are all things that I think most human beings deal with, at least at some point in their lives. I wanna make that very clear. Just because you know, we may identify with some of these quote unquote symptoms, doesn’t mean that, oh, therefore I have ADHD. It’s important to actually go to a psychiatrist and get diagnosed if that is something that you think you may be dealing with.

But as I looked through my back catalog of the Write Now podcast, as I looked at what I wanted to talk about in future episodes of the Write Now podcast, I began to see a troubling pattern. All or nearly all of the episodes I had previously recorded or was planning on recording, were maybe not so much struggles of a creative person slash writer, but the embodiment of quote unquote “symptoms” of ADHD.

The trouble that I had with outlining the stress, the overwhelm, feeling too afraid to create, feeling unmotivated, struggling with starting too many projects and not being able to finish any of them. Seeking validation, sensitivity to rejection, struggling to be present and enjoy the journey, the process of writing instead of looking ahead to the goal, the deadline or the end. Balancing your time and managing your time, finishing what you start, how to survive your day job. I mean, just going through this list of past episodes of the Write Now podcast, I became very, very aware that these were not necessarily universal creative struggles. These were the struggles of a creative person with ADHD, and this was where mentally, even if I couldn’t admit it out loud yet, I started to pump the brakes on the Write Now podcast because I thought, I’m not making a podcast for writers, which translated in my brain to why am I doing this? I’m not actually doing anything helpful or important or good to be a hundred percent completely honest with you.

I went through a major crisis of self-identity, hilariously, or perhaps ironically, or coincidentally, whatever words you want to use here throughout all this, I didn’t stop writing <laugh>. I kept up my daily journaling habit. I kept working on Season Two of the Girl In Space audio drama. I kept on with my Season One novel adaptation.

So I never once questioned whether I was a writer. That part stayed consistent. But what I did, second guess was am I a writer or am I just a person with this disorder who uses writing as a way to treat symptoms? Again, I do not like using the words “disorder” and “symptoms” and all of that stuff, but was I a fraud in that this career path that I’ve chosen of writing and creating, is this just me exposing what I use as therapy to the world? Looking back on it now, it seems a little silly. Like there’s no reason for me to stop talking about writing and creating when you know, I think that most of the things that I say to be generous are relevant to many writers. Whether or not you have ADHD, you might still struggle with feeling motivated to write.

You might be terrible at time management. You might hate outlining or planning. You might have a huge difficulty maintaining your focus throughout a project. These struggles are not just the purview of a writer or of a person with ADHD. These are general things that human beings struggle with.

But still, I was really hesitant to move forward with the podcast now that I had made this connection in my mind and that I had received not just that piece of hate mail, but other, you know, less cruel cues that nobody wanted to hear me talk about ADHD in addition to the piece of hate mail.

I also received, you know, smaller bits of information that were telling me, you know, from people whom I love and respect and want to, I don’t wanna say like, want to please, I am a people pleaser, but people who I wanted to think well of me, I heard things like, oh, ADHD is over-diagnosed, and you probably actually don’t have it, and you’re female, and sorry, ADHD is something that only appears in males.

Or: You don’t have it. You’re trying to feel special. I actually heard that one from several different people, that if you say you have ADHD, you’re just trying to feel special. And I don’t know, I have a lot of things that make me feel special, and this is not something that I really wanted or needed to add to the mix. Like, I don’t need this to feel special. And in fact, I’ve been extremely reluctant to talk about it because of that. So, hey, I’m not doing this for attention. If I wanted to do something for attention, there are a million different things I could do. In fact, my ADHD is simply a deficiency of dopamine in my brain. That’s literally all it is. I just make slash have less dopamine in my brain than other people. I don’t think I should get special treatment. I don’t think that, you know, I should be graded on a curve (because I got straight A’s).

Anyway, sorry, I’m starting to sound a little bitter. I’m not bitter. It just… I’m so afraid of being called out as an imposter. And this was really an unexpected way that people were calling me out as an imposter. I’ve experienced imposter syndrome before with my writing in that, oh, you know, I’m not really good enough. Or, who am I to say I’m a writer when I haven’t done this or this? Or I’m not good enough when to combat that. All I need to do is write something and look at it and say, oh, I am a writer. Or I look at the business cards I made for myself that say, Sarah Rhea Werner, Writer, and I say, oh, okay, I’m a writer. And it made it more difficult for other people to call my identity into question and for me to question it myself.

But this whole hate mail slash loving, gentle encouragement that I did not actually have ADHD, it made me question who I was and it made me feel like I was lying. I was a fraud. I was wrong that I imagined all of the issues I had, paying attention in school, growing up, the projects that I dropped off halfway through the letter that got sent home from my gifted and talented teacher in fifth grade. That said, and I remember this so vividly, Sarah May have a learning disability. It might be something worth your time to evaluate, but I feel like one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned since starting this podcast way back in January of 2015, is that we don’t need to care what other people think. In order for something to be important or good or true, other people cannot define us.

So next time someone tells you, oh, come on, you’re not really a writer. What do you think? You’re gonna be a big time Hollywood writer hotshot someday. You’re never gonna finish that novel. You don’t really have ADHD. Generalized anxiety disorder is something that people make up when they can’t handle life. Depression is something people make up because they just don’t want to be happy.

(Side note, yes, I have also been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and I am on medication for them, and my life has improved significantly.)

Other people can’t tell you what your life is like. Other people can’t tell you how you feel or how you experience the world. If you get diagnosed with a brain tumor, you have a brain tumor. If you get diagnosed with ADHD, you have ADHD. These things aren’t for someone else to argue.

So while we’re here, please allow me to diagnose you with being a writer, with being a creative person, with being someone who has the power and passion and courage to discover who they are and to create meaningful work, to tell their story, to share their truth, no matter what anyone else might say about it.

Usually, for Write Now podcast episodes, I’m working off of an outline, so usually I’ll have two or three bullet points that I want to touch on, and otherwise I’ll just sort of talk through the rest of it as I go. Uh, for this episode, I didn’t actually know what it was going to be. I, I knew that I wanted to talk about why I had been thinking about ending the right now podcast, which spoiler, I’m not. It’s gonna keep going, but perhaps on an erratic schedule. And I knew I wanted to maybe touch on the whole ADHD thing. I didn’t actually think I would talk this much about it, but apparently I needed to talk this much about it. So what I’m trying to say is thank you for listening. Thank you for being on this extremely weird journey with me. <laugh>

No matter what type of creative person you identify as a writer, a painter, a creator, a sculptor, a chef, a parent, whatever it is you love to create, there is room for it in the world, and there is a need for it, especially right now.

Extra special thanks go out this episode to my patrons who support me over on Patreon. Patreon, if you haven’t heard by now, is a secure third party donation platform that allows you to donate a dollar per episode, $3 per episode… whatever you feel like this experience has been worth to you, through the website, patreon.com. That’s P A T R E O n.com. I would like to especially thank the following patrons: Astrodynamo, Laurie, Regina Calabrese, Amber Fratesi, Charmaine Ferreira, Dennis Martin, Michael Beckwith, Mike Tefft, Sarah Banham, Summer, That Guy, Tiffany Joyner and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so much so, so, so very much for supporting the work that I do here at the Write Now podcast.

You are funding this show and keeping it accessible for so many people around the world, and I am so grateful for that. Thank you.

If you are not made out of mountains of money <laugh>, but you would still like to support the work that I’m doing here at the Write Now podcast, simply tell a friend about the show. Let them know that the Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner exists. Show them how to find it on their phone or computer. Maybe download your favorite episode for them. Word of mouth is still the best way for people to learn about the show and for all of you who have shared this show with a friend, aspiring writer, et cetera, I’m very grateful to you as well. Thank you.

If you would like to keep in touch with me, if you would like to learn more about what I’m doing, if you’d like to know more about when new episodes are coming out or have come out, or if you’re just curious what I’m working on, I would love it if you would sign up for my 100% absolutely free newsletter list. I send out a letter called Dear Creators every other week, well, just about every other week. You probably have a sense of how good I am at being consistent by listening to this podcast, <laugh>.

But yes, please do sign up for my Dear Creator’s newsletter. You can do that by going out to sarahwerner.com. That’s sarahwerner.com. And just clicking on either the bar along the top or down by my picture on the homepage, clicking on Get Sweet Emails. It’s a pink button and it will take you to sign up to my email newsletter list. Again, it’s free, it’s fun. I was gonna say it’s everything you’ve ever wanted, but that would be a lie.

I’d also love to hear from you if you’d like to share your thoughts about this episode. If you wanna get in touch with me, please do go out to sarahwerner.com and navigate to the show notes for this episode. Again, this is episode number 153. Scroll to the bottom of the episode and there should be a section there where you can write your comments. I once again, would love to hear from you, unless you’re gonna send me hate mail. I mean, I can’t stop you if you wanna send it, but, um, <laugh>, uh, kind words are appreciated.

And with that, this has been episode 153 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner, and no one else gets to tell me who I am.