In this episode of Poetry in Layers, I explore ADHD as more than a diagnosis. I approach it as a landscape shaped by memory, trauma, and the nervous system’s attempts to survive what childhood could not hold. Through my poem what they left me to lift, I trace how attention splinters when presence is inconsistent and how a mind learns to carry absence, instability, and early responsibility long before it has language for any of it.
I look at ADHD clinically and personally, examining how scattered focus can evolve from vigilance, how forgetfulness can emerge from chronic emotional overload, and how endurance becomes a learned posture. The poem moves through fathers who vanish, mothers overwhelmed by their own storms, sisters who grow up too fast, and the quiet ache of wanting to be seen. It also holds the moments of grounding that arrive through fatherhood, when a daughter’s simple gesture becomes enough to steady an entire day.
This episode expands the frame beyond the individual. I reflect on how schools, families, and workplaces often misread ADHD through judgment rather than curiosity and how culture, race, and poverty shape the story of attention. What we call distraction is often the mind’s attempt to manage too many open doors at once.
At its heart, Episode 11 is a meditation on survival, tenderness, and the search for belonging inside a mind that has learned to think in fragments. It is an invitation to look at ADHD, memory, and endurance with compassion and to imagine what becomes possible when we finally feel seen.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:19 - Colors of the Brain
02:50. - The Poem: what they left me to lift
07:30 - The Literary Breakdown
09:10 - The Clinical Breakdown
11:25 - Reflection Questions
12:39 - Second Reading: what they left me to lift
18:07 - Closing
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Carl's Publication
The Mis-Execution of a Black Son by Carl Patterson, LPC - https://amzn.to/3UyX6nP
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Book Resources
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Poetry Related Books:
• Not Here — Hieu Minh Nguyen: amazon.com/…/156689509X
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude — Ross Gay: amazon.com/…/0822963310
• Night Sky with Exit Wounds — Ocean Vuong: amazon.com/…/155659495X
• The Carrying — Ada Limón: amazon.com/…/1571315136
Psychology Related Books:
• Scattered Minds — Gabor Maté: amazon.com/…/1785042211
• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk: amazon.com/…/0143127748
• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors — Janina Fisher:amazon.com/…/0415708230
• Smart but Scattered Adults — Peg Dawson & Richard Guare:amazon.com/…/1462516963