Its Dark in Here

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.

Sometimes I just want to talk for ages about the various ways my brain is messed up. I'm gifted in the fact I got the help I needed to heal and recover and be aware enough that I can now draw lines and find connections into... Everything I guess. I've always been far too introspective for my own good. Or, maybe it was good for me to be. It's a gift and a curse to be hyper aware of things, and then be unable to fully prevent them from happening.

 

RSD is a good example of that. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is a difficult to deal with part of ADHD that essentially is like an over sensitive reaction to perceived (not necessarily intended or legitimate) rejection. I've had it flare up when a drawing I was proud of received critique I didn't want, I've had it when someone didn't respond to me in a chat despite being online, and I've had it happen when a friend merely stated they did not like an Overwatch character I liked (due to their game mechanics being admittedly difficult to deal with). It can kick up a dirt storm of depression and spiral into a state that is much like major depressive disorder, and panic attacks. I've learned how to spot them, and how to deter them, but my methods aren't fool safe, and I've even had a breakdown due to RSD in the past month. It's so frustrating!

 

And RSD from ADHD is only... One thing. Of many. I have general anxiety, which is a pretty way of saying I have anxiety over nearly everything. Social anxiety and temporal (time related) anxiety being the worst. Sometimes It'll flare up when people aren't talking to me, or when one person I really want to talk to isn't replying. It'll flare up when I have to work later in the day, with me staring down the clock each goddamn minute mentally calculating the exactly how much time I have left before I have to leave my house and go to work. Despite living maybe 8-12 minutes away from my job, I also am compelled to constantly be early so I always leave 30 minutes before Im due to clock in.

 

I'm lucky and glad that my depression at least is... more under wraps. Unlike my anxiety and ADHD, my depression wasn't genetic. It was caused from my abuse (and the residual PTSD as well, obviously), and I feel like it was 'easier' to sort of take care of. Granted, I don't think it'd be so easy if I wasn't on medication for it hah... 

 

Any way, there's no real point to this post. I'm purely just.... wanting to ramble. I enjoy it. It's how I healed so much this far. I still struggle with boundaries so I guess I probably shouldn't be rambling this shit to strangers but. I also struggle with 'caring' about self preservation a lot of the time. I'd rather give everyone all the ammo they need to tear me down if they want, that way it could just be done with and I can move on. Well, even saying that isn't true. I have the equivalent of a nuclear warhead I hold secret. Sometimes I give people the button to it. I'm glad everyone cares enough not to press it though...