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Count your blessings, it'd be a shame if something bad happened to them.
Just over a year ago I found out I had ADHD and went on medication. It took trying the medication to finally convince myself emotionally that I wasn't [insert calvinist exploitation mottoes here]. That feeling of being balanced on a point, poised to go wherever I willed, the lack of any hard climb between the thought of moving and the body responding...that the satisfaction of accomplishment is not simply an abstraction but a physical and emotional sensation.
That saying, "the satisfaction of a job well-done" -- which I'd only ever heard in the context of my 'procrastination' or as a punchline aimed at lazy or mercenary characters on tv -- I'd always thought was 100% sarcastic. Like, "wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up first". At best, finishing a task just meant I'd avoided the negative consequences of fucking up (this time). There was always another task or six, and probably half of them were little gutbombs of shame and panic I 'should' have been doing instead.
That has been the fuel I burned to get anything done. I was going to prove I wasn't a slacker and a flake, even though I knew I was, because I CHOSE not to be. And since my brain didn't do positive reward, and really struggled with task initiation, I stomped pedal to the metal on negative motivation. Don't fuck up a good thing. Don't add any more burdens to what you're already carrying. Preserve everything good you can, that's how you prove you should have access to it. Grab any scrap of extra credit you can manage, because you will need that cushion when the fuck-up inevitably happens... Some survival skills and patterns of thought are fabulous and clever, some are vicious and cruel. They are all me against me.
A pill, even when you switch to the cheap-ass tablets that work better with your day and aren't as prone to shortages, even if you make peace with needing it, even when you've squirreled away enough of a stash that you feel safe getting used to taking it most days...a pill can't rewrite your whole concept of "How this animal affects its enviroment and interacts with other animals", but it sure can necessitate the need to.
So there's brownfield remediation: setting my mind to do a task habitually involves whipping up negative emotions that are theoretically exorcised upon completion of the task, the more onerous or lingering, the more layers of gelatinous shame coat it. Every moment I *could* be doing something, I felt I *should* be doing something, or at least reminding myself of what I'm not getting done. Feeling like a shitbag even when 'productive'. I may be a slacker, but at least I'm wracked with guilt and stress boils, I guess? This summer I've been actively trying to build a better way.
That sounds very proactive and brightside-y, but it looks like me staring and crying and talking to myself and processing no small amount of school and work trauma. Chelating some of the shame out of my day-to-day. Feeding my understimulation. Accomodating my overstimulation. Setting up a comfortable home office. Searching for motivations closer to my heart than fear, more connection-focused than shame. Figuring out how to pace myself, now that I can stop-rest-restart without multplying the difficulty. Learning how to let myself rest.
To quote Nick Cave back in June, "When that special hour comes (6pm for me) and I close my notebook and laptop, I shut my eyes for a moment in gratitude and acknowledge the feeling of a job well done, thanking my muse for the gifts bestowed upon me. Then I allow that delightful weariness to wash over me, happy that the most cherished time of the day is upon me – when I too can take off my bra and put on my jarmies."
I sobbed when I read that, because I had never felt that 'delightful weariness' until medication, and had never felt I'd ever really earned rest. I've been trying to, ever since.
While also not completely tanking my job, which I really do love through the dissipating fog of burnout and panic. This anxiety is probably 40% catastrophization/habitual expectation management from the adhd, and 40% the fact my job significantly changed under me while I was rebuilding my department & recovering from covid & rehabbing a gnarly hip since January. Let's not even mention the 'rents right now beyond "boomers gonna boom". I had to stop reading "Autism Unmasked" by Devon Price last month because, hooboy! it was hitting me like a family reunion inside a recurring dream, and we're not unpacking all that. Not until we've negotiated a fruitful peace between ourselves and our work (and not just because it's my bennies that pay for the pills).
I've also been rewatching M.A.S.H., and am open to any fic recs that might be thinky, smutty, or preferably both.
That saying, "the satisfaction of a job well-done" -- which I'd only ever heard in the context of my 'procrastination' or as a punchline aimed at lazy or mercenary characters on tv -- I'd always thought was 100% sarcastic. Like, "wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which fills up first". At best, finishing a task just meant I'd avoided the negative consequences of fucking up (this time). There was always another task or six, and probably half of them were little gutbombs of shame and panic I 'should' have been doing instead.
That has been the fuel I burned to get anything done. I was going to prove I wasn't a slacker and a flake, even though I knew I was, because I CHOSE not to be. And since my brain didn't do positive reward, and really struggled with task initiation, I stomped pedal to the metal on negative motivation. Don't fuck up a good thing. Don't add any more burdens to what you're already carrying. Preserve everything good you can, that's how you prove you should have access to it. Grab any scrap of extra credit you can manage, because you will need that cushion when the fuck-up inevitably happens... Some survival skills and patterns of thought are fabulous and clever, some are vicious and cruel. They are all me against me.
A pill, even when you switch to the cheap-ass tablets that work better with your day and aren't as prone to shortages, even if you make peace with needing it, even when you've squirreled away enough of a stash that you feel safe getting used to taking it most days...a pill can't rewrite your whole concept of "How this animal affects its enviroment and interacts with other animals", but it sure can necessitate the need to.
So there's brownfield remediation: setting my mind to do a task habitually involves whipping up negative emotions that are theoretically exorcised upon completion of the task, the more onerous or lingering, the more layers of gelatinous shame coat it. Every moment I *could* be doing something, I felt I *should* be doing something, or at least reminding myself of what I'm not getting done. Feeling like a shitbag even when 'productive'. I may be a slacker, but at least I'm wracked with guilt and stress boils, I guess? This summer I've been actively trying to build a better way.
That sounds very proactive and brightside-y, but it looks like me staring and crying and talking to myself and processing no small amount of school and work trauma. Chelating some of the shame out of my day-to-day. Feeding my understimulation. Accomodating my overstimulation. Setting up a comfortable home office. Searching for motivations closer to my heart than fear, more connection-focused than shame. Figuring out how to pace myself, now that I can stop-rest-restart without multplying the difficulty. Learning how to let myself rest.
To quote Nick Cave back in June, "When that special hour comes (6pm for me) and I close my notebook and laptop, I shut my eyes for a moment in gratitude and acknowledge the feeling of a job well done, thanking my muse for the gifts bestowed upon me. Then I allow that delightful weariness to wash over me, happy that the most cherished time of the day is upon me – when I too can take off my bra and put on my jarmies."
I sobbed when I read that, because I had never felt that 'delightful weariness' until medication, and had never felt I'd ever really earned rest. I've been trying to, ever since.
While also not completely tanking my job, which I really do love through the dissipating fog of burnout and panic. This anxiety is probably 40% catastrophization/habitual expectation management from the adhd, and 40% the fact my job significantly changed under me while I was rebuilding my department & recovering from covid & rehabbing a gnarly hip since January. Let's not even mention the 'rents right now beyond "boomers gonna boom". I had to stop reading "Autism Unmasked" by Devon Price last month because, hooboy! it was hitting me like a family reunion inside a recurring dream, and we're not unpacking all that. Not until we've negotiated a fruitful peace between ourselves and our work (and not just because it's my bennies that pay for the pills).
I've also been rewatching M.A.S.H., and am open to any fic recs that might be thinky, smutty, or preferably both.
no subject
M*A*S*H I can help with!
Here's my tag of recs (other fandoms mixed in the rec posts):
https://lunabee34.dreamwidth.org/tag/recs:+mash
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treating the moral and physical injuries of late stage capitalism
I've had to repeatedly remind myself that if [shame, self-recrimination, willpower, punishment, withholding rewards, panic, anxiety] had ever worked, they sure as shit haven't for a long while, so let's pivot.
Aside from more specific 'adhd in women' resources, I found a seminar by this person to be very useful in digging into the roots of my own burnout, with guidance on how to approach the values and emotions and connection stuff that's made things better: https://adversityrising.com/
Re: treating the moral and physical injuries of late stage capitalism
I can never tell if it's the sickness talking or sense, when I look at resources and think, "This will not help me." My situation is very simple. I'm a doctor who deals with critical illness and death, who treats victims of violence, many of whom die or are permanently and catastrophically disabled. I just finished training, and so averaged 80 hours of work a week, often on 24h shifts, for the better part of a decade. The things that make me burnt out are very obvious, even well-studied! The solutions are clear also: don't work as much, especially overnight, care for your body, get a hobby, maintain your relationships.
Now that I'm finished with training, many things will change for the better. The hours for one (I picked a job without 24h shifts, ever) and the setting will improve: I am going to a wealthy Northern state where there are services and programs, instead of Florida, where there are... not. I'm going to a wealthy academic center with resources and institutional pride instead of neglect. But still some of my patients will die. And will all the rest and the sensible care in the world wash away the injuries of the past? I'm sleeping well, eating well, exercising; I've picked up a hobby; my partner is happy and healthy and our plans for a new life are thoughtful and made with care. Even our cat is cuddly and willing to curl up on me and purr (some studied therapeutic value to purring, the literature says).
I know that I'm doing the right things. Perhaps the only thing I can add is to try to turn my (unfortunately selective and sometimes very narrow-beamed) surgical overconfidence on that conviction, and abide.