I’ve been struggling with a couple things lately, things that feel too big and opaque and complicated to write about here. Things like a lack of ambition, or less grandly, a lack of motivation to plan even a weekend away in the snow. Also friendship stuff, worry that my friendships are slipping away and wondering if it’s just a normal occurrence, because that is what happens to most friendships eventually, and especially those that are formed in middle age, and as moms. Or if it’s a failure on my part, yet again, to adequately nourish the relationships that are important to me. Or if it’s a failure – and this is what scares me the most – to be the kind of person people want to remain friends with.
So big questions, the kinds that I don’t really want to ponder, let alone put into words. At the end of the day, there is always a series of tasks that have to be accomplished – checking the kids backpacks, preparing the coffee maker, filling the water filter, emptying the ice trays, tidying the house – and by the end of it I’m tired and I just want to go to sleep. I don’t want to think about things. I don’t want to plan. I don’t want to look at cabins on AirBnB. I just want to listen to an audiobook and play a puzzle game. So I can fall asleep and start it all over again tomorrow.
I think a lot about work. I have to be on, on, on all day. And when I’m not on I’m planning so that when I’m next on all the stuff I need to ready.
I had to get some work done last Sunday night and my sister said, you’re so beholden to your job. And it stung because I try so hard not to be, to leave my work in my classroom, but I had a new group of 6th graders on Monday morning and that meant starting all over again, like it was the first day of school and I wasn’t prepared. So I put my computer away and didn’t do what I needed to do, and 1st period on Monday was kind of a disaster and I left a horrible first impression of unpreparedness with that group of kids. And for what? To prove to my sister, whose job history could not be more different than my own, that I’m not working too hard? I’m still mad at her for saying it, such a throw away line she probably doesn’t even remember uttering but that has stuck with me, and I’m even madder at myself for letting that utterance get under my skin.
{She said a few disparaging things that bothered me and I’m still working through why each one bothered me so much.}
I feel like I just want to do nothing but every day I have to do SO MANY THINGS. Is this a mood issue? Perimenopause? Just who I am?
I just finished the book Molecule or More about how dopamine drives desire but has nothing to do with satisfaction. This explains why I really want shit, but the once I get it, having it is disappointing. But dopamine also drives long term ambition and planning. and people who have over active near future dopamine activity, commonly have deficiencies in their long term planning dopamine circuits.
It’s easy to read something like that and say, AHA! This explains it! Even though I know it’s an over simplistic explanation at best, and surely inaccurate in many significant ways. And what does it me to understand that is the case? I guess I feel slightly less self-loathing when I know that some of my perceived shortcomings have biological explanations, but ultimately I don’t feel better about what I’m incapable of accomplishing.
I’ve read some articles recently about the downsides of over identifying with a diagnosis. A label can help you better understand yourself, and why you behave in certain ways, but if OCD or ADHD or Autism start to define every aspect of who you are, you may become limited by it. I can understand that. When I was first diagnosed with ADHD, it helped me disentangle myself from a tight know of self-loathing and a perceived belief of falling short of so many of society’s expectations. It also allowed me to access medications that brought me out of decade of clinical depression. The relief that the road map that a diagnosis of ADHD provided was very real. But over the years I found myself referring to that road map too often, even though when I could tell its topography was not longer serving me. Working on how and when to identify with my ADHD, and when to remind myself that it doesn’t define me, has been a complicated journey. One I’m still traveling.
The truth is, ADHD is tightly intertwined with most of what I’m most proud of as a person, and most of what I’m most ashamed of. I could spend my life trying to reconcile those to extremes, or just celebrate what I’m proud of and take small, consistent steps in improving what I’m not proud of. Just like everyone else.
I started this post over a week ago and added a sentence or paragraph when I found the time. I promised myself I’d publish it on Monday, regardless of where it was. So while I can’t really wrap all of this up into a meaningful bow, I will say that I’m feeling a little better about some things, despite some weird virus that resides primarily in my throat upending part of my weekend. I’m also noticing some physical symptoms that suggest hormones had at least something to do with my mood last week (I could (and actually have) put up several posts on how ill equipped I feel to understand the ways I should be incorporating permenopause into my current identity.) It’s so much harder for me to understand, and the guideposts provided by society are not comprehensive at all.
So, I feel like your sisters comment is because she is like others, who always feel they can judge or say “you shouldn’t do this” or “I would never do that” but in true reality we never know what we would do until we are actually in that position AND also walk in the same exact shoes of that person. Just let it go….teachers are so special because they give SO MUCH of themselves with out being compensated for it. Just know that there are kids who you are making a difference in their lives. Even if it just one thing you said that sticks with them for the rest of their lives.
You aren’t beholden to your job. You have a really important job and take it seriously because you are a good person. You should be proud.
Amen to the two before you.
You and your sister are different people with different circumstances.
Your current phase is full of demands on you and being short on time and energy. Check in briefly with people even if you cannot be together much. Because times will change again and you will have more time and energy for each other then. (Remember they are apt to be similar in circumstances and also pushed by their situations.)
Understanding and admitting the impact of ADHD on your particular world at any specific point in time is good to do. But things change so avoiding rigidity on the subject of how you are reacting to your ADHD is important. Be kind to you.
“I feel like I just want to do nothing but every day I have to do SO MANY THINGS” –> this. So much this.
Although, if I really think about, I DO want to do things, but the things I HAVE to do don’t leave me with enough time or energy (especially energy!) to do the things I WANT to do. My family is making some purposeful changes, though… next month we’re moving to screen free weekends and striving for more time in nature. Hoping it helps, because what we’re doing now is not healthy.
In 10 years, noemikjames’ children will be pretty much out of the nest. At that time you will look back with awe and amazement at all you DID do during these years … because clearly it was impossible (it is and was) AND YET YOU DID IT. And, with two children. So for now, just know what you are doing at this stage of your life is amazing and impressive and clearly impossible. Life changes and people change too. Just staying upright now is great.
You are keeping things going. Ignore what you see on the outside public view of other family’s lives … it rarely reflects the true inside situation. This has been very much aggravated by lots of social media images which are often not precisely fake but leave out significant aspects like paid help……