I was told this was my baseline.
I’m Evan, the person behind Loops + Levels. This is the long version: a limit I was handed early, the years I spent believing it, and what changed once the patterns had names.
My story
The patterns were there the whole time.
Grade 5
In grade 5 I was tested for ADHD. It was ruled out. I was told I had three learning disabilities instead, and that the grades I was getting then were the grades I would always get.
At one point I changed schools, to one that worked with how I learned. My marks went from the 60s and 70s into the 80s and 90s.
High school showed the other half of it. In the subjects I cared about, the higher marks held. In the ones I didn’t, I slid back to where I’d started.
Terrain: School
The school changed. I didn’t. Terrain is the room, the schedule and the people around you.
After grade school
I flunked out of most of the programs I started after high school. The one I finished was graphic design, and I finished it with honours. Apparently I can finish things that involve fonts.
Loop: Hyperfocus
When something grabs me, I can stay with it for hours. When it doesn’t, nothing sticks.
My early 30s
In my early 30s I was tested again. This time the answer was ADHD.
It didn’t change who I was. It changed the story I’d been telling about who I was. When I looked back at grade 5, I didn’t see a baseline anymore. I saw a kid working hard in the wrong Terrain.
Level: Spot
The first Level: you can tell the pattern is happening. Naming it was where I started.
They just didn’t have names yet.
The origin
For years I got by on workarounds I’d built up since school. Then I hit a wall of burnout.
I was doing all the things that used to work, and none of them worked anymore. Getting through a week took everything I had.
During my recovery, the idea for Loops + Levels surfaced: take the skills and experience I already had, and point them at helping people with brains like mine.
Once a pattern has a name, you can do something with it. That is the whole idea. A Loop is a brain pattern with a name, and Terrain is what’s around it: the room, the schedule, the people. I teach one Loop at a time, in plain language, with the research where it exists and my own experience labelled as exactly that.
I don’t have this finished. I’m still working through my own Loops, and I write down what I find.
Teaching style
Built to be done, not sat through.
I spent five years building training for adults, so I know exactly when a room stops listening. Before that I trained as a graphic designer, which is why everything here is built to be easy to look at and easy to follow.
Every lesson has more than one way in. If one explanation doesn’t land, there’s another right beside it. I started reading the research and now I have opinions and a whiteboard.
Slide decks and lectures
Live-Labs
One live whiteboard, a real example from your own week.
Forty module courses
Micro-Labs
Short lessons on one Loop, each with one clear takeaway.
The whole of ADHD at once
One Loop at a time
Spot, Map, then Navigate. The next Loop waits until you’re ready.
Where this comes from
Research is linked to the study it came from.
My own experience is labelled as mine.
A teaching model, not a measure. Nothing is scored.
This is education, and it sits alongside the professionals in your life.
Life at home
When I’m not mapping Loops
Home is rural Nova Scotia, with my husband and our dog, Willow. A lot of Loops + Levels got worked out on our walks.
She’s the one in the photo up top, and she would like the credit.
Still mapping. Follow along.
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