Emotional Hieroglyphs - OX part III

There’s this recurring shape in my art journal: A not-quite-closed circle -the O- and an X that doesn’t fit inside it. Together they’ve become something I now call OX.

At first, OX was about the world not fitting together. About me not fitting into it. But I’ve been realizing it’s also about something more personal.

The older I get it becomes more clear how many ADHD checkboxes I tick. Almost all of them. It feels strange. Like looking at a list someone wrote about you without ever having met you. Things that used to feel like random puzzle pieces suddenly… click. It’s both a relief and frustrating at the same time.

Relief, because now it makes sense why I’ve always felt slightly off, always misunderstood and always too much or too scattered. Frustrating, because I wonder how my life would’ve looked if I had known earlier. Would I have been kinder to myself?

Would I have fought less with myself (and others!) about the way I move through the world?

That’s what OX is. It’s me: the O, almost whole and almost neatly shaped, but with that open gap. And it’s the X, a symbol of friction, of clashing with expectations and of crossing out old stories, of saying:“No, I’m not going to fit neatly into this world’s structures.”

ADHD is not who I am, but it’s one of the many lenses through which I now understand why my O never seemed to close. Why things always felt unfinished. Why I can be wildly creative and also wildly overwhelmed in the same breath. Why I often say the wrong thing, forget the thing or feel like I’m out of step with what’s normal.

But what if OX is not broken? What if OX is the exact language I’ve been speaking my whole life and I just didn’t know the name yet, because I was een girl and the signs were not the ones that showed up in DSM-IV?

I don’t have all the answers at this moment and I don’t even know if I ever will. But what I do know is that I’m done crossing myself out. OX doesn’t have to mean mistake or failure anymore. OX can mean: This is me: Imperfect, unfinished, alive and questioning. OX is process.

If you recognize yourself in this, in the open circles, in the crossed-out plans and/or in the labels that come late in life, you’re not alone. I’m learning to wear my OX like a badge now, not as something to hide, but as something to explore.

What happens if we stop fighting the shape we are and start embracing it?

Tell me, do you have familiar experiences?

Love and stay messy,

Bianca