O Novelty, Where Art Thou?
The challenges of maintaining an ADHD blogspace with ADHD
Updates around here are… less than regular, and there are a few factors. Much like a raccoon drawn to a shiny thing, I’ve skittered toward many a far-afield glimmer since the prospect of having ADHD initially blew my mind (and prompted this blog).
Fresh out the gate, I had an insatiable fervor for devouring all things ADHD— and, well, that did an about-face. Maybe diving into common symptoms and where we overlap, both in the name of discovery and to aid in diagnosis, tapped my quota. Maybe getting my diagnosis and treatment felt like the goal had been reached. I think I just got “over it.” Like with so many things, the shine had dulled in light of other approaching sparkles. Learning about ADHD went from top entry to barely a scribble on the To-Do List. The cycle is not unfamiliar. And is, apparently, SO ADHD.
Routine, Nowhere to be Seen
Furthermore, I’d been bopping around for the holidays and various travels far and near, and I find it damn near impossible to maintain a typical routine or personal creative pursuits when in a NeW LoCaTiOn (though let’s be real, even my most recent travels are a few weeks in the rearview). Nonetheless, even if I’m just staying at my mom’s, decidedly not the most exciting, I get into “mom’s house” mode, which primarily includes working during the day and eating, lounging, and doing very little in the evenings. And compared to my traditional home routine, even this very mundane type of shakeup is novel, and novelty reigns.
The Doubts Creep In
Beyond that, I started having doubts about ADHD at large. It is after all, overdiagnosed. It’s also underdiagnosed. Or misdiagnosed. Medical professionals don’t all even agree it exists. My diagnosis took 15 minutes. Is that because I’m a classic case or because the whole thing is sus? The mental discourse spins. Is my ADHD real? Is my diagnosis real? I’m on medication for it.. Does that make it real? I think my medication is working, which probably means it’s real. Although, can you tell me if my medication is working and if my ADHD is real? Sigh. Because sussing out satisfactory answers to all this is impossible, the analysis paralysis makes me liable to file the whole subject away, including this cute blog.
The Smaller Hurdles (No Less Persnickety)
I wasn’t sure how I wanted to lay out this particular entry. Do I include factoids? If I do, should I connect them to each (as-yet-undefined) segment? Or maybe actually stream-of-consciousness is OK. Dare I make.. an outline? Bah! The idea of putting out something incomplete or imperfect, even in this casual and unregimented a forum, proved a damning obstacle. Again, the path of least resistance called, and it was like, “F*ck it — this is going out of sight, out of mind.”
Furthermore, I am.. tired. I have a full-time job that’s relatively mentally demanding, along with a freelance writing job that is interesting but also taps ye olde braine. Because I am a product of capitalism, if I have the energy to write, I’ll often opt for the trajectory in which I get paid for it. In addition, I’m engaged in two courses of study (more like three to four, albeit sporadically!) that demand their fair bit of time. Wah, wah for me.
And of course, it’s been so long since I last dusted this baby off I had failure shame, the time-worn mental rut of, “Well, I started something and gave it up.. again,” playing out for the millionth time. Which I think is pretty universal and also incredibly ADHD.
OK, The Factoids
In ADHD terms, the stark 180 of interest could have to do with dopamine dysregulation.
On why the ADHD brain loses interest — dopamine dysregulation can result in “making tasks with delayed or intangible outcomes less engaging, and thus, [making one] more prone to losing interest.” — enna.org
Rather than the total engagement that came from uncovering a new facet of my brain mechanics, the oft-astonishing nature of it and subsequent shouting from the proverbial rooftops — when that zest was gone, the reward became.. maintaining a blogspace. Which I enjoy! But it’s way further down the list than NEW LEARNING/NEW BRAIN, at least when that was the most novel thing going. There have been about 4,000 novel things that have happened since starting this blog, and I guarantee I was deeply invested in all of them for at least a few minutes.
And, when it comes to routine, maintaining one is clearly a solid method for achieving longer-term pursuits and goals. Though of course,
ADHD brains enjoy novelty and spontaneity, the archnemeses of routine. The consistency and stability of a routine can transform the task of sticking to that routine into a monotonous, unsatisfying chore. — ADDitude Mag
Yeah. On top of that, the analysis paralysis is real.
Are you frozen somewhere between, “There’s too much information to consider” and “I can’t make up my mind?” — ADDitude Mag
Yes, yes, I am. Both for the bigger questions around ADHD’s oversaturation and my relationship with it, as well as the smaller ones about how to formulate these particular thoughts. Being unable to land on perfect conclusions indeed results in burying everything away, to be later exhumed or not. (Also FWIW I squandered a lot of precious time as a hyperfixated, ADHD-intel heatseeking missile by refusing to write here until I had a perfect blog name.)
The experts:
At its core, perfectionism is related to anxiety. Anxiety doesn’t like discomfort and uncertainty, and it tries to make the resulting feelings of fear and worry go away immediately. — ADDitude Mag
This Doctor of Psychology author goes on to say that perfectionism can manifest as procrastination. That, “to avoid failure or discomfort, perfectionists may delay tasks.” Seen! If the extent to which I delay tasks were a superpower, well, I’d be flying and invisible and mind-reading right now, too.
In my ever-dogeared copy of the seminal ADHD tome Driven to Distraction (finally finished after leaving the last ~30 pages unread for months though initially devouring as much as I could, daily), the authors call out my fave, the gateway Doctor Barkley:
Russell Barkley […] describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.
This makes me LoL, imagining needing a slot-machine level of activity to convince me to write a paragraph or some device that spits out a cookie when I make a decision or power through being tired (although, wouldn’t that be nice?).
Also though, horror of horrors, maybe in addition to wanting to avoid the discomfort of writing a subpar post, I actually like — or at least am accustomed to — the low-level hum of discomfort that comes with having something to harp on myself about. Something that I’ve dropped the ball on, I’ve failed to do.. That having such a thing (or several) to feel mildly, constantly disappointed in myself about has become such a part of my functioning that I actually court it, inadvertently or not?
ADHD is often tied to lower self-esteem along with higher levels of self-criticism. It seems people with ADHD brains often rely upon spicy self-talk and the resulting strong emotions for motivation, as opposed to a traditional, more rational prefrontal cortex relationship. So, sure, being an active self-critic seems part and parcel with the ADHD world (and something to be worked on). As far as liking it goes? I wasn’t able to find much on this front. Is it ADHD or is it a subtle form of masochism?
Well, lest this possibly unanswerable query lead down another weeks-long rabbit hole of freeze and delays— and to give myself one less thing to fret over —
I’m just gonna hit publish.
