Writing with ADHD: How a Weekly Writing Group will Cure Your Creative Paralysis
For years, I had thoughts that wanted to become words.
Essays I'd write in my head while driving. Insights that would surface during therapy sessions with clients. Truths about neurodivergence, perimenopause, and transformation that felt urgent to articulate. But between thinking about writing and actually writing? A canyon I couldn't cross.
I'd sit down with my journal and nothing would come. Or everything would come—a torrential spiral of thoughts—but it felt too messy, too raw, too much to be "real writing." I knew about process art from my work as an art therapist. I understood that the act of making matters more than the finished product. But somehow I couldn't translate that permission to my relationship with words.
The Two Things That Kept Me Stuck
Perfectionism whispered that if I couldn't write something polished, something worthy of publication, why write at all? My inner critic had a PhD in shutting me down before I even started.
And isolation. I was writing alone—or trying to—with no structure, no accountability, no witnesses. Just me and the blank page and the deafening voice that said whatever I wrote wouldn't matter anyway.
Everything Changed When I Found My People
A friend invited me to a weekly writing group. For two years, I showed up every week to write with other women. No one was there to workshop our pieces or give critique. We just wrote together, then read what wanted to be shared.
That's where I learned: The first draft, unedited and honest, is often the most alive thing you'll write.
Those raw, messy, twenty-minute writings became blog posts. Email newsletters. Articles. Essays I never would have written if I'd waited for them to be perfect before putting them on the page.
But more than that—I learned that writing doesn't have to be lonely. That showing up for yourself is easier when you're showing up for a circle. That your particular brain, with all its spiraling and sensitivity and深 feeling, isn't a liability. It's exactly what makes your writing matter.
Why The Writing Cocoon Exists
When that group dissolved, I felt the loss immediately. I tried writing on my own again and fell right back into the old patterns—overthinking, procrastinating, that familiar creative constipation.
So I created what I needed: The Writing Cocoon.
It's a weekly online writing sanctuary specifically for neurodivergent women who are navigating midlife transformation. Women who have things to say but have lost access to their voice. Women who are in their cocoon time—that sacred dissolution phase that comes before becoming.
We meet for one hour. We drop into our bodies through a brief embodiment meditation (because your body knows things your overthinking mind keeps censoring). I offer a seasonal writing prompt that honors where you actually are—in winter we write about rest and permission; in spring about emergence and threshold; in summer about intensity and the body in motion; in autumn about release and what's worth keeping.
Then we write for twenty minutes. Together but in our own worlds. No one watching, just held by the container.
And then, if you want, you share. Not for feedback. Just to be heard. To have witnesses who understand that messy truth matters more than polished performance.
This Isn't About Becoming a "Real Writer"
The Writing Cocoon isn't a craft workshop. I'm not going to teach you the hero's journey or how to write a query letter.
This is about reconnecting with your authentic creative voice. About learning to write from your body's wisdom instead of from your should. About having one hour a week where your spiraling, seasonal, deeply-feeling brain is exactly what's needed.
It's about remembering that writing is how you figure out who you're becoming.
If you're in perimenopause, if you've been diagnosed with ADHD or suspect you're neurodivergent, if you're navigating any kind of midlife identity shift—your body and brain are changing. What used to work doesn't work anymore. You need a creative practice that honors your actual rhythms, not some imaginary ideal version of yourself.
What Actually Happens When You Write in Community
You stop wasting your limited creative time staring at a blank page, paralyzed by "what should I write about?"
You discover that the raw, unedited truth you write in twenty minutes is often more powerful than anything you'd labor over for weeks.
You learn to trust your voice because you hear yourself speaking truths you didn't know you knew.
You realize you're not alone—other women are navigating the same dissolving, becoming, questioning, awakening.
You build a consistent practice not because you're disciplined, but because you have a container that holds you even when you're inconsistent.
And most importantly: You remember what it feels like to be creatively alive.
If This Is Calling To You
The Writing Cocoon launches in January 2026. We meet weekly online, and I'm capping it at 15 women so it stays intimate (neurodivergent nervous systems don't do well in crowds, and neither do deep truths).
This is for you if:
You're hungry to write but perfectionism has you paralyzed
Your neurodivergent brain needs creative space that actually works with your nervous system
You're navigating transformation and tired of journaling alone
You want depth and meaning, not productivity hacks
You're in your cocoon time and need witnesses who understand
It's $97/month—less than one therapy copay, less than the book you bought but haven't read yet.
But more than that, it's an investment in having one hour a week where you don't have to perform, don't have to be productive, don't have to have your shit together. Where your becoming is honored as sacred work.
If you're feeling the pull, trust that. Your body knows what it needs.
