First Friday: Who's driving this thing, anyway?
This post is the first in a new installment I will be doing simply called Friday Notes. A former CEO used to post a note to the company every Friday around mid-afternoon and I loved it. Sometimes it would be about the company, sometimes life, and sometimes random ramblings (much like many of my posts). I am doing this, in part, to commit to regular public writing as I certainly do plenty of private writing. I initially fired up this blog as an outlet for frustration of work and found great satisfaction in anonymously airing my grievances, even if to no one. I have tried to continue telling that story and have found myself regularly mentioning my ADHD in the context of my career shift. I have also found many of my morning pages and journal entries come back to this topic, so I decided to give it some full attention. The first few paragraphs below are directly from a pages entry from earlier this week that I typed up and continued into a somewhat more coherent story. Whoever you are, I hope you enjoy.
Pomodoro timers work so well because anyone, even me, can focus on something for 25 minutes. Well, they work until they don't. That's the problem with managing ADHD, every routine or habit that works will eventually lose it's efficacy and so I have to retire it. I have so many tools that work, I just... forget that they do. That's the hardest part of ADHD for me. The memory. I really struggle with keeping things top of mind. I think that's why I search for productivity apps that work for me. I like need a home page that reminds me of what's important. Like a "to do your job, get up, go to a coffee shop and start a timer." But, that too looses effectiveness so it can't be a permanent solution. It phases out but it will work again someday. It's like I need a repository of things that work to draw on EXCEPT I can't actually draw on them because of that whole memory thing. Likewise, if I were to say right now - this is a good idea, I should make that list tomorrow, I won't. Not because I am lazy or incompetent, but because the train of thought is happening right now.
When the train leaves, I don't know when it will be back again. When you have ADHD you are often not the conductor of your own thoughts. It's why it is so hard to do routine jobs or plan a day in advance. I don't know what I am capable of on a day to day basis. Sure, I know my interests and skills but what members of my proverbial mental team show up is a mystery to me. And I wish it was at least day to day. It's fucking hour to hour - except not so literal because we are not time-aware like neurotypical brains. It's vibe to vibe.
As I have come to realize this about how my brain works I have learned how to leverage it, how to take advantages of the trains that do roll through my mental station and use them for good. I often still get frustrated when it feels like I am not in control and simply cannot do what I want to do because my brain refuses. That's an awful feeling, it's a special type of paralysis that few understand. However, as I have dedicated the past year to understanding myself from the inside out, I have come to appreciate the power of jumping on the train. I've always had the hyper fixation and the insane dives down the rabbit hole, but I had never appreciated them, really.
I do now.
Why?
Because (mental) engagement is empowering and it is freeing. It's the opposite of that paralysis that can ruin my day. An hour on the train can be a catalyst for so much other greatness in my day. It's those moments of letting go and allowing my brain to steer and take me on a ride that I have come to crave. It's when I can write nonstop, it's when I find solutions that weren't there before, it's when I solve a problem that becomes a new product at work, it's when I feel truly myself. Saying that feels ironic, it feels like I am contradicting what I said above about not being the conductor of my own thoughts. How is it that I can feel like I am not the one in control while also feeling like my authentic self? That's a whole domain of philosophy and psychology that I won't get into now, but may write about one day.
I think I only feel this way because of what I have dedicated myself to this year. It's not just medication and ADHD blogs (and memes and reels) that have helped me learn about who I am and how I work, it's writers like Alan Watts and books on Buddhism and this desire to understand that have allowed me to take a step back and appreciate myself through a noncritical lens. So, I don't need to be the conductor. Not always. Some days not at all. I used to resist the impulses, seeing them as detrimental and distractions probably because that's what I was told growing up. There are things we are supposed to do, ways we are supposed to act, and things we are supposed to think. Deviation from the norm, dba expected behavior, was condemned and condoned. I was told there was something wrong with me and that I needed these pills to be normal. I was never asked how the medication made me feel, was never asked if I felt like they were working, hell I was never told what "working" was supposed to mean. That experience is why it took me so long to try again. I was afraid because I didn't realize how messed up that was.
I no longer rawdog life and I am no longer concerned with who is the conductor of my thoughts. This is part acceptance and part maturity. Hell, maybe it's delusion... and if it is? Who cares.