ADHD, art, and navigating my executive dysfunction.
It All Begins Here
Haraç hinikaragiwi! Welcome to my blog spot! I am currently working on organizing and setting up my studio at home and had some thoughts while slowly bringing my art space back to life. I figured I would also share these things with you all so you can get to know me a little more.
While I was attending a tribal college/university, TCU, I had not only accumulated more art media material, but lost the organization while having to move my supplies back and forth to my dorm room every weekend and break. On weekdays 6 p.m. most of our buildings on campus got locked up tight and were almost never open on weekends, we didn't have dedicated studio hours, student art storage, or studio space to utilize if we wanted to work on art outside of class. Most of the art on this page is what I made while attending the university. I personally would have loved to be able to do all of them in oil, a media I see such potential in honing, due to space and campus limitations I resorted to charcoals, graphite, pastels, and pencils. The oil paintings I did manage to make were definitely not necessarily allowed to be made in my dorm room. I'm sure there are many people in my old dorms that are relieved to not smell “odorless” solvent and oil paints as they pass through the hall where I painted late into the night, fan on full blast while I sang off key to my studio mix.
It was definitely an interesting experience to have. The rules were strict and becoming more and more like the boarding school it once was, often times it reminded me of military dorms. (I got stuck in a medical holdover dorm at Lackland Air Force Base for three months during my short tenure in military service.) Residential advisors sniffing the halls all hours of the day and night escalating any infractions to the rules and regulations set forth by the bureau of Indian education, the bureau of Indian affairs, the Haskell administration, the board of trustees, and then additions made by the director of student housing. Suffice to say, there were a lot of rules and a cornucopia of agencies enforcing them. It was very difficult for me to keep up with all of them as they seemed to change every semester in priority and enforcement. The housing staff and those in charge of it really took any questions or concerns from students as a personal attack on their abilities for whatever reason. So, students were often left with asking one or two nice advisors to please explain.
This all became even worse after Executive Order 14148 that resulted in 38% of employees, staff, and instructors being fired in February of 2025, something the university is still recovering from. This was the period in which I made a lot of my art, I was a 36 year old woman living with people a decade or more younger than myself and I had finally had an opportunity to really focus on getting my degree. I had officially been diagnosed and successfully medicated for my ADHD years prior, and was having extreme difficulty in transferring my care to Indian health services. After this interference in our precariously balanced university administration, this caused absolute CHAOS for the students and staff. Then more executive orders came raining down like annoying pop up ads in the early 2000s internet. The effects on our school and administration were clear and the damage that ensued was horrific. Indian health services for students was severely cut, which means I had to rely on public donations to the school to maintain my mental health services. The guilt got to me, I figured that if I had survived so long without my medications before, surely I could handle a couple of years of school without them. There might have been students who were struggling more and I didn't want to take funding from those students if I could manage without. I was wrong. So wrong, but I was also told many times that “we are working on it” and “be patient” after a year and a half I broke. My executive function was in a deficit, I could barely take care of myself, I also had to handle the bullying and harassment of a few of my classmates that decided I was their “enemy” (I wish I was being dramatic but inter tribal spaces are often severe in bullying and harassment. In the worst of it a good man lost his life due to the amount of cruelty he experienced from his classmates and peers.) The inability to be there for my family two hours away. The added guilt of leaving my spouse to take care of everything at home. The financial strain of not being able to cook for myself or make every meal time at the dining hall. The overall pressure to make myself into the administrations vision of a “successful native scholar”, artist, and advocate became far too much. I started trying to find other avenues to relieve my CPTSD and anxiety of having to look over my shoulder between every building and hallway.
Every traumatic experience and feeling I have ever harbored came roaring back, there were times I'd just openly dissociate and relief was always “in process” but never given. During this time I was able to use art as a coping mechanism of my memories mixing with the life I had to live at school, sometimes dark, sometimes beautiful beyond words.
Now that I am back home I find myself stuck. I have all of my art and crafting materials boxed, bagged, or stacked with school supplies shoved into my once beautiful studio space. I am medicated again and reflecting a lot on how to move on from that school. The emotional toll it takes to go through a single stack of papers surprises me at times and I have to leave it for a little while. One thing I have to prioritize during this time is to “be kind to yourself.” It is hard when I know my capabilities, but it is also important to recognize the limitations that go with my mental health. This is not being said to beg sympathy or manipulate emotions. I say these things because they are my experiences, my perspectives, my life.
In my culture, it is important to share knowledge responsibly to educate others and younger people who might be going through something similar. A belief that my family did not practice before I had to leave home at 17. With that in mind and a little context given here are three main lessons I have learned from my life at a tribal university.
You are far more interesting as yourself, don't try to fit yourself into a stereotype or box that doesn't come close to defining your life. The more you try to limit yourself to the expectations of strangers, the more disservice you do to your natural way of being uniquely you. I promise, the authentic version of you will ALWAYS be the most interesting and strongest version of yourself.
Time is a construct of colonial capitalism and toxic production. It took me a long time to make it to a place in my life where I had enough stability and time to put all my effort into school. We all live different lives according to what creator has put in front of us, we all have different families of varying stability, we all have to walk our path as best we can. There is honor in that, so we should withhold judgement of others paths.
Not everyone is automatically going to do good for you. I met many people with beautiful words, mannerisms, and thoughts. I also saw a lot of those people make choices that did not reflect what they said. This may sound simple to others, but to me it was so hard to accept. I just couldn't understand how instructors, elders, classmates, employees could say sweet words one day and then voraciously gossip and bring down others for the slightest perceived offense the next day. Everyone seemed wire tight after the “Valentine's Day massacre” as we called it on campus, and people will either find a way to be resilient and come together, find a way to profit socially or financially from it, or lash out at innocent people who are experiencing the same stress and difficulties as others. The same people that dressed up pretty to attend memorials, remembrances, powwows, community solidarity events, were also some of the most heinous gossip mongers and elaborate schemers I have ever met. Not to say I didn't meet lovely people who enhanced my experiences and were genuine in their words and actions. I did, but I was quickly reminded of how intense the lateral violence and pain could be from our communities. It is always a good rule of practice when mingling in those types of confined and tightly regulated spaces to look up and really take in your surroundings. Watch for what people say and how they act accordingly. NEVER take someone's word for it, always protect your own peace of mind and always remember your safety is top priority!
I remain ever hopeful that our communities and sacred spaces will continue to heal through hard work and good intentions. I hope you all have a wonderful day and find something beautiful to meditate on for a moment.