Cruising with ADHD: How My Neurospicy Brain Tried to Ruin My Vacation

RSD may not be in the DSM, but it definitely is in the Caribbean…

Photo of our veranda view by Natasha Bounds, used with permission. This post was written #byHumansForHumans with #NoAI

We got really lucky this year: through a twist of fortune my partner and I were able to revisit one of the most magical places and times in the world: the JoCo cruise.

Named for a nerdcore songwriter named Jonathan Coulton, it’s a nerdy, geeky, gaming-and-cosplay silly-music board-game-and-crafting extravaganza, which is to say that as much as we fit in anywhere, we fit in with that particular group of 2000 people filling the Holland America “New Amsterdam.

The last time we’d lucked into a cabin was in 2019, and let’s say it together: a lot of stuff has happened since then. But I only describe it as a kind of disclaimer: it is the only cruise I’ve ever been on, and with that kind of special demographic my experience is not only subjective but also in a very neurodivergent-friendly environment.

However, there was one key difference between 2019 and 2024: this time I know that I’m neurodivergent, and I have both the understanding to recognize when my neuro is being spicy as well as strategies and tools to manage it.

My biggest suggestion: you may be on vacation, but your ADHD isn’t - so don’t skip the things that work.

I was on a vacation — really off-grid, work would have to do without me, pets were taken care of. There’s a temptation in that kind of circumstance to feel like I can also relax the tools that I use to manage ADHD.

• Maybe this could be a “drug vacation” to get reacquainted with my brain off of adderall, or maybe I could skip the daily workouts that tend to focus me in the afternoons.

• Maybe I didn’t need to bring my notebook everywhere, because my time-agnosia wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t be as important to remember things.

• Maybe I could stop wearing a watch, because would time-blindness really matter if there weren’t any work commitments?

You probably already know the answer to these questions, but just to be clear:

• No.

• No.

• No. Well, mostly no.

There’s a really good reason for all of these: your vacation is as important as your work. If meds, workouts, and timers make it easier for me to be productive, the odds are they will also make it easier for me to have fun.

Once I figured this out — about day three of the cruise — it was much better. The notebook reminded me of cool things people said, the names of people I wanted to follow up with, and gave me a new outlet for just pulling it out and sketching as a replacement for the doomscroll habit.
My smartwatch still worked as a dumbwatch -used as a timer and an alarm, and linked into the schedule of things I wanted to attend.

But most of all, all the medications and routines and scaffolding don’t fix ADHD. They don’t change the things your brain does, whatever flavor combination of symptoms your brain likes to throw your way.

All they do is make it easier to deal with them. And it’s a good thing, because there was one big giant manifestation of my ADHD that I didn’t expect.

Rejection Sensitivity in the Land of Inclusion

If the JoCo Cruise were giving out tickets solely based on interests and hobbies, my partner and I would go every year.

However, there’s this pesky thing called capitalism that means that the cruise costs a pretty significant amount — not as much as some cruises, I’m told, but more than an entire month of my salary.

I’ve been sworn to secrecy as to how we were able to afford it this year, but suffice it to say it was not because of a permanent increase in our disposable income. We were lucky this year, and we were lucky in 2019, the first year we went.

You can’t count on luck.

Which meant that while we both shared the same interests, the same neurospices, the same joy in geekery and nerdosity, we did not share the same income class as most of the other people there.

If you asked someone what they did for a living, it was good odds it had something to do with software development. It was also good odds that they lived somewhere like Silicon Valley or Seattle. (Yes, lately that’s not as much of a flex as it used to be, given the layoffs, but it is still significant).

In other words: most of the people there were coming back home, reuniting with friends that they’d talked with online all year long and knew from their prior cruises. And most of them were absolutely certain they would be coming back next year, and would see those same friends, keeping in touch and making plans for what they’d do on JoCo 2025.

Here’s where I have to emphasize: at least, that was my impression. I also recognize that I am projecting my own history of poverty and scarcity thinking, feeling like that kind of luxury is not only out of my reach but something I don’t deserve. Trust me, I have money issues, and what I’m expressing is the result of my subjective experience, not of the cruise.
(Ok, except that at one point we were in a spoken-word kind of performance by the amazing Jean Grae and the audience took a cue as an opportunity to shout with one voice FUCK CAPITALISM! and that seemed a little surreal given our surroundings).

Jean Grae the Wise

Jean is a performer who literally and deliberately defies categorization. She uses that pronoun but identifies as “gender transcendent”; her wikipedia entry lists her as a rapper but she highlights her visual work on her instagram; and in JoCo 2019, my partner and I attended her event “The Church of the Infinite You.”

I can’t really express what it’s like in any way that is adequate, but imagine a brilliant brain, a time-and-world-weary soul, an acerbic and wicked wit, and a heart filled with kindness for the world, even if the kindness was calling you on your shit.

Now put that into a spoken-word/homily/storytime/call-and-response context, late at night, including mics set up on either side of the stage for people to come up and share their feelings.

Whatever you’re imagining, you’re wrong, because I’m not good enough a writer to convey just what it really feels like, especially for people like me who have never found any group experience, religious or otherwise, where I felt I truly fit in. Where I felt like, if the people there really knew all of me, they would still welcome me.

Jean Grae’s Church of the Infinite You was the closest I’ve ever felt. Both years.

For 2024, there was a running thread throughout the homily of “becoming yourself.” Again, I’m not doing this justice — I’m sure anyone reading this has heard talk of “being authentic” and “getting in touch with yourself” and the like, maybe even from things that I’ve written.

Jean is different. Jean points out things that you either didn’t notice or didn’t know quite how to articulate, like explaining advertising in a simple phrase:

“society only benefits when we are not fully ourselves…”

Or the fact that it’s not about finding ourselves or even growing into ourselves — we already are ourselves, we just have a bunch of stuff added on by our parents, our culture, our life. Which means

“…becoming is truly un-becoming; we have to take the bullshit off.”

And the JoCo cruise was a place where people could take off the trappings that late-stage capitalism forces neurospicy nerdy people to carry around…and lets us put them down for a while.

Yes, that carries with it a TON of privilege — but just because everyone deserves that kind of place doesn’t mean we should begrudge those who manage to create it in spite of the pressure not to. Straight, poly, queer, all three kinds of -verts, punk rockers and dad fashion and cosplayers and medieval musicians, all were welcome.

It wasn’t perfect, by any means. Jean called us out on it at the very beginning, talking about how as a woman of colour she had continually been mistaken for “…the other three of us on board.” She didn’t pretend that we were any more out of the systems of intersectional oppression because we had rainbow stickers and gender-neutral restrooms.

But she also celebrated that this was a place where people like her and people like me could feel a little more easy. A little break from whatever capitalist hellscape was out there back home (“fuck capitalism!” sic).

And that’s where the RSD hit hardest.

A Short Biographical Comic

One of my particular favorite parts of the cruise was becoming acquainted with artist/author Mari Naomi and her work. She taught a short workshop at the beginning of the cruise about biographical cartooning, and encouraged us to try it out during the voyage.

The morning after the Church of the Infinite You, I went up to the deck at the back of the ship and created the following:

As it mentions in the last panel, my cartooning and reflection was somewhat interrupted by the start of an exclusive event starting on the same deck. It was an invite-only, velvet rope kind of celebration, with free hors d’oeuvres and champagne carried around on trays, and the JoConauts in attendance were dressed in a weird and wonderful panoply of costume and hattery.

I was a bit amused by the fact that an exclusive event was starting as I was writing about feeling excluded even in a place that tried to be radically inclusive. But I didn’t begrudge them any of it, and I finished the comic and went off to something else.

I found out later what it was: a reception for those who’d been on the cruise five or more years. A place for friends, in other words — old friends, not new ones like me.

It’s not them, it’s not me, it’s the ADHD.

Again: the cruise is wonderful. The people are wonderful. No one made me feel unwelcome, no one made me feel excluded, no one was less than authentic as far as I know.

My brain, however, can be a real jerk sometimes.

I wish I could say that I got over it. I wish I could give you some antidote to RSD. The truth is that part of me is convinced that the mere act of writing this will result in:

• me getting banned from the cruise no matter how much money I make,

• my partner getting angry because I got us banned from the cruise,

• having most of you who actually read this far decide I’m just a whiny old white guy and hit the “unsubscribe“ button.

See that? RSD comes outside of the cruise, too. I don’t have an antidote. I’ve also found that most of the solutions recommended — things like “ask yourself, is this true?” don’t work for me (my brain just comes up with scenario after scenario where yep, it absolutely is true).

But I have found something that does work to enable me to participate, engage, and even lead, speak, write, and perform in front of audiences ranging from just my partner to hundreds of attendees of an Open Space event.
I’ll be genteel and add the asterisk for the delicate eyes among you:

F*ck it.

Yep. That’s my secret weapon. I just decide “Yep, this may totally suck, they all may completely despise me, but I’m doing this anyway.

And that gets me through it.

Don’t know if it will work for you — I’ve actually found more than one person talking about how dangerous and counter-productive the “F*ck it” strategy can be. For me, though, it’s been the way to go, and gotten me through and into many wonderful successes and adventures.

OK, probably more than a few problems and mistakes, too, but that is, after all, how we get wisdom — or at least, things to write about.

If you’ve been a cruiser with ADHD, let me know in the comments how it was for you? What scaffolding and accommodations did you use?

And if they worked…can I have some, too?