32 of the Best Ways to Get Organized When You Have ADHD

Organization is a common challenge for adults with ADHD. But it can be done! Below, ADHD specialists share their foolproof tips for cutting out clutter, managing time, creating an efficient space and more. Remember that the key to organization is having a simple system that works for you and your family. So experiment with these tips, keep what you like and toss the rest.
1. Use a planner.
People often underestimate the power of a simple planner. “An effective, consistent planning system is the number one strategy to better organize, prioritize and manage time,” according to Laurie Dupar, a certified ADHD coach, nurse practitioner and editor and co-author of 365 Ways to Succeed with ADHD, a full year of bite-sized strategies to help you thrive with ADHD.
Psychotherapist Terry Matlen, ACSW, who has ADHD, uses a teacher’s style spiral “at a glance” calendar with large boxes. And it goes everywhere she does.

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What Does the Research Say About Ethnicity and Eating Disorders?

Disordered eating is equally prevalent in whites, blacks, and Latinos.
Published on July 30, 2011 by Marcia Herrin, Ed.D., M.P.H., R.D. in Eating Disorders News

I returned from my vacation to read Nancy’s blog on the Los Angeles’s based the psychiatrist who sees very little anorexia among lower socioeconomic class Latino and black patients. I am researcher at heart so I took a quick look at the studies on the relationship of ethnicity and culture to eating disorders. Here is my summary of the scientific literature:
1. Eating disordered behaviors in community studies were found to be equally prevalent in Latino, blacks and whites.
2. Latinos and blacks are more likely to suffer from bulimia than anorexia than whites do.
3. Ethnic families are less likely to be knowledgeable about eating disorders.
4. Compared to whites, Latino and black patients with eating disorders are more likely to be evaluated by general practitioners than by mental health providers leading to “under-detection.”
5. High levels of acculturation to Anglo American culture increases risk for eating disorders and also the likelihood of getting treatment.
6. The main barriers to seeking treatment in Latino and black patients is not knowing where to go for help, feeling that “I can take care of this myself,” and not expecting to get appropriate help.
7. Researchers conclude that it is a misconception that ethnic minority individuals are protected from eating disorders.
8. There is a need for more accessible and culturally sensitive treatment approaches.
Marcia

Nutritionist Marcia Herrin and Nancy Matsumoto, co-authors of The Parent’s Guide to Eating Disorders, Gūrze Books, (www.childhoodeatingdisorders.com). Marcia is also author of Nutrition Counseling in the Treatment of Eating Disorders (www.marciaherrin.com).
Copyrighted by Marcia Herrin and Nancy Matsumoto

Drawing Mental Illness: Bobby Baker’s 11-Year Visual Diary


Drawing Mental Illness: Bobby Baker’s 11-Year Visual DiaryBy Maria Popova
Jan 6 2012, 1:57 PM ET
Despite our proudest cultural and medical advances, mental illness remains largely taboo, partly because the experience of it can be so challenging to articulate. But when performance artist Bobby Baker was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 1996, followed by a breast cancer diagnosis, she set out to capture her experience and her journey to recovery in 711 drawings that would serve as her private catharsis over the course of more than a decade. In Diary Drawings: Mental Illness and Me, Baker makes, at long last, this private experience public through 158 drawings and watercolors — poignant, honest, funny, moving, shocking — spanning 11 years of mental, physical, and emotional healing, a journey Marina Warner aptly calls in the preface a “chronicle of a life repaired.” The book is at once a personal journal and a tenacious thesaurus that helps translate the misunderstood realities of mental illness into an expressive and intuitive visual language the rest of the world can understand, reminiscent of the wonderful Drawing Autism.

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When Mental Illness Stigma Turns Inward

By Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.Associate Editor

It’s said that people with mental illness face a double-edged sword.

Not only do they have to contend with serious, disruptive symptoms, they still have to deal with rampant stigma. Sadly, mental illness is still largely shrouded in stereotypes and misunderstanding.

Stigma also can lead to discrimination. Yes, even in this enlightened day and age, it doesn’t appear as though prejudice and discrimination against individuals with mental illness are decreasing. (This study shows in some cases, it might even be increasing.)

We see stigma everywhere. Every time violence is automatically connected to mental illness in an article or news report, we see it.*

We see it in movies and other forms of media. We see it at work where stereotypes might be perpetuated, where employees are afraid to “come out” with their diagnosis.
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‘Mental illness’ not an explanation for violence

By Vaughn Bell
Slate.com
updated 1/10/2011 11:24:41 AM ET 2011-01-10T16:24:41

Shortly after Jared Lee Loughner had been identified as the alleged shooter of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, online sleuths turned up pages of rambling text and videos he had created. A wave of amateur diagnoses soon followed, most of which concluded that Loughner was not so much a political extremist as a man suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia.”

For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don’t expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.

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