When My Brain Won’t Choose
Today is one of those days when I can't choose which step to take
next. This morning I was trying to figure out whether to go to my local
coffee shop before or after a midday appointment. (I concentrate really
well on some kinds of work in a coffee shop instead of my home office.)
The issue, really, is that "figuring out" doesn't always work. I didn't
need to figure anything out. I knew the reasons one way and the other,
and I also didn't care all that much about it. My head was kind of
spinning in tiny circles, thinking through the options. I wasn't
worried. I wasn't ruminating. I just couldn't flip that switch. And
that unflippable switch is exactly what ADHD is about.
How did
I solve it today? I noticed it was happening. I noticed what my mind
was doing. I checked in with myself and noticed I was pretty darned
tired, physically, and hungry. So I made something to eat, a cup of
tea, and put my feet up, and rested for a while. It's been hard to
learn to trust my need to do that- because it means letting go of the
decision attempts, the plans for that moment or day, and putting
something else (myself) first. But here I am, a few hours later, rested
and more able to concentrate, writing at the coffee shop.
Jun 07, 2011 @ 10:01:34
“unflippable switch” – I like that way of putting it, for me that is exactly how a lot of aspects of ADHD feel. It’s like a “switch” has got stuck one way or another and it’s really hard for me to flip it on purpose. I’ve also used the analogy of a switch in the past to describe how I often feel like I’m either one thing or the other, not something in between, like with motivation & focus – it’s either all of nothing: either I’m hyperfocused & overly motivated, or I have no motivation & focus at all and I just float around from one thing to another until I get “stuck” on something. To go from one to the other intentionally often feels like an insurmountable feat of willpower. But then some external circumstance can come along and flip the switch without me even noticing, and I’m left wondering why it was so difficult in the first place.