So Much to Do, So Little Focus [Crosspost]

[the_shewolf]

 [Orignal post made to Dreamwidth in Feb. 19, 2019]

I feel like every single time I complain about these types of issues, that its just more of an excuse, that I'm totally 100% capable of doing things but am being 'lazy'. I know its not true, but the more it happens, the more I talk about it, the more that voice in the back of my head likes to lie.

 

I have ADHD-I and its a fucking bitch. Most times, working around it isn't too hard, I just have to lower my standards and minimize my goals. Sometimes it even grants that sweet release of forgetfulness, where I'm not even worried about the many things I want or need to do! But even then, eventually the anxiety will nag. I'm not doing enough, I'm not doing it fast enough, I've been resting too long, people are waiting, people are expecting me to do more. To write, to draw, to run blogs, to work, to cook, to live. Its like this looming shadow, and I don't really know if its even there. Does anyone really care to that extent? Do I really have eyes online who wait with baited breath?

 

Possibly. And even then, probably not as many as it feels. But I just. I feel like a failure for having all these ideas, these stories, these illustrations and comics, that just sit in my brain and know they'll never get onto paper. Whats worse is, it's stuff I want to do! I want to write, I want to draw, I want to be able to sit for hours and just get it out!!! But I can't! Everything is a temptation, and even if I manage to stifle everything, close every tab, ghost on every possible platform, my brain itself finds new ways to harass and tempt me! 

 

It's gotten to the point where the people I talk to even get agitated if I bring it up. They repeat the same advice, things that worked for them, and I tell them it doesn't work for me and they get annoyed about it. It's not my fault my brain is wired so different, that it requires new hoops to jump through to keep interested, that it becomes bored so quickly. I can barely do a 'focus oriented' task for more than 2 hours, outside of my day job, where there are enough variables in my day to keep me going. 

 

I've tried scheduling my days, and I've tried having alarms. I've tried just forcing my way through it, but hit this immensely difficult glass wall that I can't move past. I've jotted down ideas to come back to and they ended up just sitting in a notebook. I get the spark of creativity and grab it and then it decides to disappear after hardly an hour and i'm left uninspired.

 

I don't want more medication, especially for ADHD. But sometimes I wonder if it's worth the spikes of anxiety I inevitably get. 

 

Not even solely related to art or writing! With friends, too. I change to quickly but subtly, kind of like when you move all the furniture in your house slightly to the left a few inches. I feel like I'm suddenly difficult for my friends and partners to traverse because suddenly I'm so different. Suddenly I'm trying an entirely different strategy that seems to work only for it to fail a week later.

 

Like I hate going to therapy sometimes because I'll have found a thing that works, but it only works for about a week, and then I have to admit I haven't kept up with it because I just forgot about it again.

 

I don't know if it's going to get better or if it'll get worse, or if I'll be able to manage with the incredibly slow way I work, where I'm stuck at the whim of my own creative breezes. I want to talk about it, but again, I feel like I've just talked about it so much, and that what people offer me just doesn't... Work. And then I feel bad for having to tell them it doesn't work.

 

Now I'm just rehashing the same complaints. I just wish my brain worked fucking normally, and that I had more self control and focus.