Copywriting with ADHD

I have early onset Alzheimer’s. Very early onset Alzheimer’s. I’m also bipolar. Not to mention my eating and drinking disorders. Borderline Asperger’s. And did I mention my adult ADHD? No? Probably because I have adult ADHD. And, oh yes, Alzheimer’s.

Before I was given the task of writing up a pantheon of personality disorders for Clinical Partners, I assumed I was more or less normal. Mildly eccentric, perhaps, but essentially normal.

But since becoming an instant expert on inner pain, it can seem that the psychiatric profession barely recognises the concept of normality. Dive too deep into the world of neuroses and it can look like It’s simply a matter of figuring out in which directions they lie and to adjust your medication/lifestyle/therapy accordingly.

On the one hand, it’s brilliant that nowadays you can call someone up and say: “I’m a violent drunk with a prostitute addiction and I’d like some help getting this orc off my shoulder,” and they’ll just say, “OK, can you come in on Thursday afternoon?” rather than try to make you feel like some kind of weirdo.

On the other hand, there’s a conformity drive as well. If you eschew the endless social networking and banal cheeriness to devote yourself obsessively to some personal goal, you’ll probably be invited to a teamwork seminar quite sharpish.

When I started out in advertising (all those months ago) everyone – and I mean everyone – was expected to be barking mad. The more eccentric you were, the more value the clients thought they were getting. “Wow, what have you been smoking?” was how they praised your work.

Over time, we’ve learnt that you can be generally stable and still have great ideas. And more of them, because the business is so much more competitive. But unfortunately, because the language of advertising aesthetics has been swamped by metrics, the results haven’t been as game-changing as they should have been.

All the analysis shows is what has worked and what hasn’t. And the result is that derivative work gets the nod and innovative work doesn’t. And in a world that’s every-desperate for something fresh, that’s inevitably self-defeating.

God, what a ramble. Must be the ADHD.