Log
Every time I have a session with my therapist or a checkin with my psychiatrist, they ask me if I sleep okay. It’s a reasonable question, many people with ADHD have trouble sleeping, more so when they are on ADHD medication. But I never had any sleep problems, so I always say no, I have trouble getting to bed, but once I’m in bed, I sleep like a log. I do have trouble getting to bed though. I haven’t considered that a “real” problem, until the past few weeks.
It’s not that I don’t want to go to bed, but there are always small steps and distractions standing in the way. It takes an hour to get from deciding to take the dog on his evening walk to actually putting on shoes. I am half asleep at this point, but there is always one more article to quickly finish reading, one more photo to quickly finish editing. Eventually that morphs into scrolling short videos on my phone and bamm! it’s almost midnight. When we get back from the walk, I sit down to take off my shoes and semi-consciously take my phone out to quickly check *something*. Then I notice it’s past 1 am and I’m still sitting on the stool by the door, one shoe still on, scrolling away. So I rush to brush my teeth and go to bed but now I’m angry with myself, frustrated and I go to bed feeling like a failure. Getting up at 6 in the morning to get to work is torture, I spend the day on autopilot just trying to survive, and when I get home I feel like I could fall asleep immediately. And yet, the same cycle repeats in the evening again. Why is this happening?
I think the source of the problem is that my dopamine-seeking brain doesn’t feel satisfied at the end of the day. When I spend a day doing things (and more importantly completing things) that feel important, valuable, that feel like I *did something*, I have an easier time winding down. But most days aren’t like this. My dayjob doesn’t involve many tangible outcomes, I think and I write endless documents but it doesn’t feel like I have made something. My meds get me through the day, making it easier to focus on these mushy, intangible tasks, but by the evening the effects wear off and I’m left feeling unsatisfied, empty. Frustration kicks in, about the lack of personal work, the lack of progress on the stuff I really care about, the lack of making photography, the lack of progress on my “real career” as an artist. What would be different if I hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning? The answer, most days, is “probably nothing”. On a conscious level I try to be okay with that, but under the surface my brain is unsatisfied. It craves that sweet dopamine burst of accomplishing something that matters, but at 11 pm, after a sleep deprived, exhausting day, it doesn’t have the capacity to do something about it. So I fall back on the adult equivalent of a pacifier: the intermittent reward of scrolling social media. Maybe the next scroll will surface something engaging? It never does, but it gets close so I keep scrolling, hoping subconsciously that the next screen, the next 30 second clip of a standup comedian will provide that hit of interest and engagement, and after that I’ll feel satisfied and be able to relax.
I’m dealing with a weaponized level of “almost interesting” that social media these days is fine tuned to provide. Just enough to keep trying, never enough to feel “done”. I don’t consider myself a social media junkie, but if I’m honest with myself, I am. I am like the smoker that denies being one, saying things like “I only smoke socially” and that still takes every opportunity to “talk stuff through” with a quick cigarette. I’m not sure where my situation sits in terms of “real” addiction, but I see a similar compulsive, self deluding behavior here. I am conditioned on something designed to keep me hooked and consider every instance of giving in to the temptation is just a single time, not part of a larger pattern. It’s not that I have sleep problems, or a social media problem. It’s just that tonight, specifically, I got a bit distracted. Except this keeps happening, day after day, and being sleep deprived and angry with myself about it keeps compounding.
So what to do about it? I don’t really know, that’s going to need some more thinking.
Well, anyways.
Many little things today. This is my first full weekend in a while when I don’t have extra work or any plans and we’re just at home, relaxing. It feels refreshing, even though I’m always driven to do more more more, today I feel good about not having much to do.
I started a new job recently, this was my first full week. I’m stressed and exhausted, as usual in a new workplace: all the new people to get to know, new processes and projects and systems to understand take huge mental efforts. I feel the need to hit the ground running, I’m impatient and want to get to the point where I can be productive and independent quickly. Almost every day I come home tired, mentally drained. This is how it always is when I start something new, but it’s hard to remember that this isn’t how it will always be, it’s just the first month that’s like this.
I am also frustrated that most days I don’t have the time or energy to do much else that’s productive beyond work. I feel the need to justify anything I do or spend time on with how it contributes to building a different life, to building success in the things I find valuable. Now with the new job I can’t leave early to walk around the city photographing or get coffee and work on “my own stuff”, so I feel constrained. In truth, there is a difference between being annoyed I can’t do the things I do because I enjoy doing them and being annoyed because I can’t do the things I do because they make me feel productive, like I’m progressing towards some nebulous “better future”. Not everything needs to be about productivity though. I discovered this need to justify everything I spend time on with how it’s actually productive.
I struggle to do things simply because I enjoy doing them, everything needs to be justified with something more acceptably productive. I’m not shooting street photography because it’s fun for me, I’m shooting it because that will lead to me being a famous, well respected photographer. With the new dayjob I don’t have the time or energy for these pretend-productive things, so I’m frustrated. I do have the time to just hang out for an hour in the city however, I do have the time to walk the neighbourhood in the afternoon and make photos of good light, without a big, important story or mission behind them. I wish I was able to accept this, to feel good about doing things I like doing. In the long run, building a better life means a life built around doing the things I like to do, how I like to do them. However I can make that work is fine, as long as the fun and enjoyment and personal satisfaction is there. I want to shake off this “protestant work ethic” that I seem to have ingested and internalized that has been plagueing me for all my adult life.
I want to learn to be okay with not always seeming productive. Life isn’t about that, it doesn’t really matter. All that matters is what I fill my days with and how that makes me feel. Whatever can enable that is fine. My life wouldn’t be better if I had more time to think up big business projects or career moves that then create pressure to photograph or write or work in a certain way. It would be better however if I had more time to spend with the people I love and photographing what draws me in. I want to differentiate between the two, and focus on the latter.
This is a messy thought I’m still in the process of properly articulating, but it feels good to think about and I think it will help me come back to being more myself after the past year of stress and burnout.
Well, anyways.
I find ordinary days too constricting and days that are out of the ordinary too annoying. I do find most days annoying, really, but for varied and contradicting reasons.
I take my ADHD medication after breakfast and soon the focus kicks in. There is no clear feeling to when the effect starts, just a general sense of wanting to find something to do. Even at baseline I have a strong drive to constantly be doing something, let alone with the meds. On days that are out of the routine, this new sense of focus needs to find something to, well, focus on. Without work and clear projects and early appointments breathing down my neck there is nothing obvious to engage myself with.
I don’t think I know how to relax, how to just be, to flow through a day, following the natural rythm of meals and dog walks. Some days the framework is there and I can rely on that to get to the middle parts of the day where I can focus on work or a project. Those days are best. Other times there is no framework but there is a huge important event I really care about early in the day, and that puts me in gear to get to that.
The problem is with days that are kind of relaxed, with some appointments in the afternoon, so I need to build up my own framework to get me ready to go by 2pm. These days are toughest, because I feel like the day is open, and I can dig into a project or just faff about, but it really isn’t like that. To be out the door by 2pm, there is a whole sequence of steps that are opaque to me. When to shower, when to eat, when to walk the dog before I leave? None of this is given, and I can’t rely on my internal sense of when I’d want to do these things.
All of it needs to be planned out because they are all time consuming steps that are required and the 2pm limit is too fixed and too early to allow for much flexibility. Things need to be happening, but it doesn’t feel like a morning rush. Without the motivation/stress of “shit, I’ll be late”, it’s hard to use getting ready as the focus of my meds-supported need to act, so my brain finds some random thing to latch onto.
I’m not sure how to use this understanding to better prepare for days like this, but it feels nice just to understand what’s happening a little better.
Well, anyways.