Central Question

 How does "invisible" adult ADHD feel? 

 

Literature

So I don't know that many official artists, in terms of people whose work has been featured in museums. However, I follow many artists online and I take a lot of inspiration from them

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Influence – For the source material, I took my original inspiration from Ira Prince. She is a comic artist that has spoken out about the negative effects of ADHD and similar illnesses such as executive dysfunction. Her work is incredibly popular on social media, so I've seen it around many times over the year.

Subject – “ADHD in context: Young adults’ reports of the impact of occupational environment on the manifestation of ADHD” had a huge influence on my work. It is a short research article that surveys adults with both diagnosed and undiagnosed ADHD. The participants talk about their experiences and feelings about their condition, how it affects them, and how they themselves view it. It had a lot of good information and served as my main source of info, as described below

 

Methods

I did almost this entire project digitally in Photoshop. After reading through my research (mentioned above), I decided on a vague script or storyline that I wanted my comic to follow and begun sketching that out. My biggest takeaway from my research was how people with ADHD view their own symptoms. While ADHD is considered a mental illness, many people do not really consider themselves to be "ill", or perhaps "illness" is just too strong of a term. ADHD certainly has negative effects which oftentimes becomes clear in school or educational environments, but once that environment is removed from the equation it becomes a whole different story. There are many people with ADHD who function perfectly fine out in the world because they found a job, or environment, that does not set off their symptoms. They describe ADHD more like a broad personality; some people have the ability and personality to be able to sit at a desk all day, while others are much better at being in a busy kitchen, working in a studio, or researching a particular subject. (Laskay and Weisner et al., 164)  ADHD can mean that you lead your life off the beaten path and do things a little differently than everyone else, but that's fine, and that's the message I wanted to get at with my comic.

 

Audience & Impact

Originally, my intended audience were young adults with ADHD or undiagnosed ADHD. However, halfway through the project I realized that the themes discussed in my project are a lot more universally applicable than I thought. Experiences and coping methods surrounding any type of mental illness are not strictly limited to people who are officially diagnosed. In Fact, listening to these experiences may also help people realize that they may have undiagnosed ADHD. So during production I decided to open up the scope of the audience to be all inclusive. 

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References

1. Lasky AK, Weisner TS, Jensen PS, Hinshaw SP, Hechtman L, Arnold LE, W Murray D, and Swanson JM. “Adhd in Context: Young Adults' Reports of the Impact of Occupational Environment on the Manifestation of Adhd.” Social Science & Medicine (1982) 161 (2016): 160–68. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.06.003.
    

2. Prince, Ira. “ADHD Invasion Comic 2020.” Tumblr, 5 Oct. 2020, iraprince.tumblr.com/post/631158826868031488/hey-im-kicking-off-the-adhdinvasion-hashtag-for.

 

Acknowledgements

Hi Heather, thank you for listening to my half formed capstone ideas and semi incoherent ramblings for like half a year. Also thank you GNWU friends for all the late night homework calls, game nights, and scream fests; they make online school bearable.