Art + Writing = Rising Inequality Revolution

How Your Nervous System Can Help (Not Hinder) the Change

“Consider progress as a river…”

This article explores Audhd in relation to rising inequality but you don’t have to identify as audhd to benefit from this article, which includes:

• A definition of AuDHD (autism + ADHD)

• How jotting down things, tracking routines, and breaking down tasks into fragments helps AuDHD needs with potential downsides and remedies

• Application for drawing, painting, or writing as a means of exploring rising inequality (for all) and neurocomplexity

Intro

When you possess both autism and ADHD—a neurotype usually referred to as AuDHD—the world of traditional productivity can feel too restrictive or too chaotic. Autism has generally been described as involving a need for predictability, sensory regulation, and hyperfocus (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), whereas ADHD involves inconsistent attention, impulsivity, and executive functioning issues (Barkley, 2011). These traits interact with one another in complicated patterns in people with AuDHD: hypercuriosity with patchy attention, emotional intensity shutdown, and great ideas struggle to start or finish projects.

Writing things down, using checkbox habit trackers, and breaking tasks into smaller chunks can bring structure without suffocation that AuDHD brains need. These habits offload mental load, reduce overwhelm, and allow for visual affirmation—essential when internal motivation kicks in and then stalls (Risko & Gilbert, 2016; Clear, 2018). But the benefits are more than simply "getting things done." For AuDHD creatives, these practices can serve as lifelines to understanding ourselves and the world at large.

What Is AuDHD?

AuDHD is a term employed by autistic and ADHD people. Although previously autism and ADHD were viewed as separate diagnoses that didn't overlap, new research and lived experience show that they are frequently comorbid, particularly in those assigned female at birth (Antshel et al., 2016; Leitner, 2014). AuDHDers usually possess both sensory sensitivity and sensory-seeking, transitions and time blindness, and hyperfocus and executive paralysis.

The Benefits of Writing and Monitoring for AuDHD Creatives

For creative minds engaging in sketching, painting, or writing—especially as a vehicle for negotiating growing inequality or identity—getting it on paper is more than a to-do list; it's a chance to concretise unfocused thoughts. Checkboxes or trackers facilitate task initiation and breaking down large projects into small ones satisfies autistic craving for structure and clarity.

Creative people with AuDHD have intense emotional responses to injustice but struggle to break them down into productive creation. Writing loose thoughts about inequality—pictures, metaphors, or emotional impressions—down is a means of collecting "flashes" before they disappear. Drawing what inequality feels like or making an abstract map of your energy at burnout can be sites of entry into additional consideration and action. You don't need to know what the piece "means" right away. Visual journaling and micro-tasks are scaffolding for your creative process.

AuDHD people are neurocomplex, but what is neurocomplexity anyway? And what flexible creative planning strategies actually work to help you explore rising inequality and identity through art and writing?