Thanks, I Hate It

There will not be a voiceover this week, because I can’t make myself do a voiceover. I am going to throw that on the big ol’ heaping pile of shit I cannot make myself do this week, on account of my ADHD deciding to act up. I have my period (there is a post about perimenopause and ADHD coming, yet another thing I cannot make myself do this week), so my meds were not working as well. Despite feeling much more optimistic about the future, the sudden paradigm shift broke my brain.

Sudden changes of plans or unfamiliar situations - positive or negative - are a struggle for me. The past few weeks have presented both. I had not run all the scenarios for “we will have a new Presidential nominee and everyone will be really excited, and also she will bust out someone who is a combination of Coach Eric Taylor and a Solid Midwestern Dad who also likes cats”.

My brain, thusly, must do a lot of this:

I hate this.

You know how I feel about ADHD being called a superpower. If this bullshit were actually a superpower, I would process all of this, run every scenario, recognize every pattern, and arrive at the conclusion of “okay maybe it’s totally reasonable to be a little excited!”.

But no. Of course not. We can’t have nice things! My brain has to zigzag through every single possible scenario of how this could have been a disaster and how it could still be a disaster. I am not sure if this is just PTSD from past elections, or a culmination of the past eight years of madness, or what. It doesn’t matter. I am awake at night, desperately trying to sleep, with my brain running 100 miles an hour.

For anyone who doesn’t know what it is like to be in an ADHD spiral trying to sleep, it goes a little something like this:

@notyouraveragethrpstThere was a day where my husband told me that he just “turns his brain off” Like what is that like?

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Literally, that’s what it’s like. That is what it has been like in my brain at night for almost two weeks. As a result, I have not been sleeping well, and not sleeping is about the worst thing for my ADHD.

I know this is temporary. I know that next week, when I have processed everything I need to process, when I have tortured myself sufficiently, I can return to my regularly scheduled programming. In the meantime, I’ve had not one but two Nope Days this week.

And so, the to-do list sits unfinished. The self care items in my habit tracker sit unchecked, mocking me. I have zoned out in meetings, cancelled plans, not answered texts, and stared vacantly into space. I have been unable to pay attention to a movie or TV show. I have not journaled. I have fought off two meltdowns. I have laid on my yoga mat but not done any actual yoga. I have toggled away from this post more times than I can count because my brain wants to look at something else. I have spent too much time on social media, which is dumb, since I got rid of Twitter AND Facebook (note to self: TikTok is a time suck vortex). I have cried more than I’ve cried in a while. I have gotten sucked into online stupidity, debates about things that don’t matter, and thought about the past wayyyyy too much.

Worst of all, some shame resurfaced, because this disorder has caused so much shame and humiliation in my life over the past thirty years, and trying to grapple with all of the different ways I’ve embarrassed myself or how deeply I have been misunderstood is really hard sometimes. I like to keep things positive as much as I can. I have a compassion for myself that I have never had before.

And yet, there I am, thinking about the series of bottoms that led to the biggest rock bottom, and feeling absolutely consumed by shame. That kicks up my RSD, and as a result, I have spent the last week being convinced that all of my friends hate me and are secretly mad at me, and refuse to tell me what I did, but I definitely fucked something up and am in trouble. This TikTok video explains that particular phenomenon.

@amandawinsteadwhiteThings about ADHD that makes no sense #adhd #adhdtiktok #adhdsupport #ceowithadhd #adhdhumor #adhdinwomen #adhdlife

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There’s a song by Fiona Apple called “Heavy Balloon” from her album Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and there is a verse from that song that resonates with me right now:

People like us get so heavy and so lost sometimes
So lost and so heavy that the bottom is the only place that we can find
We get dragged down, down to the same spot enough times in a row
The bottom begins to feel like the only safe place that you know

We have all been mired in misery, hopelessness and fear for so long now that it almost feels comfortable. From the day the Tang Crusted Turdburgler was elected (and arguably, before that too), it has been nothing but a long journey down to the bottom of the ocean. Every time we manage to kick our legs and surface, a tentacle grabs us by the ankle, and we thrash and fight against it until we find ourselves back in the muck. At a certain point, it really is just easier to stay there.

I think feeling joy - really feeling it - is hard for all of us right now. We distrust it. We distrust being excited. We distrust being hopeful. Most of all, we have been taught to distrust our own instincts. Everything has gone so far off the rails - such an affront to my logical, pattern finding mind - that even when I think I’m right about something, I know that this particular crazy train is unpredictable. Despite that, I do think there’s a chance things turn out okay, or at least better. I can’t quite get to the exuberant joy, though I am happy that others are feeling it, and its long overdue.

I am trying to look ahead to the thing I can control - which is my own creative work. I’m hearing the draft of my new play in a few weeks, and I know that will give me a good thing to focus on. I know that I will spring back into action. I know that if I do the healthy things and keep working on this thing called “patience” I hear so much about, that my brain will start working properly again and I can get on with it.

At this moment, I hate ADHD. I absolutely god damn hate it. I didn’t ask to be born this way, I didn’t ask for special skills, I didn’t even know what this WAS. I hate having a disability, and I hate having to remind myself that I have a disability, and I hate having to treat myself like have a disability. I hate that I still suffer. I hate that anyone with this suffers. Some days, I wish I didn’t even know about it, even though I would have been asking myself what was wrong with me every day for the rest of my life. The control freak in me still wants to fix it. Sometimes, it’s unbearable to know that I can’t.

It’s okay to be mad about it sometimes. It’s okay to be frustrated. I can feel all of these things and it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t have to embrace my neurodivergence every day. I don’t have to find the silver lining all the time. I am still very much in recovery, and I know that healing is going to take a long, long, long time. I’ve been thinking a lot about healing these days, and what it means, and when I can get focus back, I’ll be writing about that too.

This week was good for America, but shitty for me. The good news is that the work week is almost over, and it’s going to rain all weekend. I plan to check out and only do the things I want to do or absolutely have to do. And right now, all I had was a sliver of motivation to write this random ass post. At least it was something.