Writing is Hard
When all you want to do is tell stories but your neurodivergent brain is trying to protect you so you do nothing instead.
It’s been four months since I quit my full-time job in protest, without a plan for what to do next. While I am an impulsive person, I’ve never left a job without a specific plan, and I have had some sort of job since I was twelve years old with a paper route. If you’re doing the math, that’s more than twenty years of existing job to job, so not only is it exciting to have the freedom of possibility, it is also terrifying and without precedence for me.
When I left my job, I declared that I wanted to write, create, and perform. I’ve created, I’ve performed, but I’ve barely written anything beyond my personal journal and some essay prompts scrawled onto a Post-It® before I head to bed while my partner asks from the other room, “what are you doing?”. I have so many ideas swimming around in my brain, yet I can’t seem to get them on paper (or, I guess, type? - what’s the digital equivalent of “paper”?).
When I ponder why this may be, a few things come up for me. First, there is so much happening: the escalating conflict between Israel and Palestine, constant police brutality in the States, the so-called “labor shortage” (it’s not a labor shortage, but that’s for another essay), and the country opening back up as more and more adults are vaccinated. It feels overwhelming to know what to write about, and then if my voice is even worth sharing.
That leads into the second personal hurdle, which is fear. I am constantly afraid of what people will think about me or my abilities literally every time I share something. Even though I have established this space as one for me to write without expectation or fear of judgment, all I can think about - even as I type this very sentence - is how my work will be interpreted and the conclusions that readers will draw about me, both as a writer and a human, as a result.
And that leads to the grand-master: my ADHD.
One of the things that I truly love about having an ADHD brain is my vivid imagination. Not only do I have the ability to imagine new and exciting ideas and scenarios in my brain, but when I do, I can see them so clearly that it is very easy to forget that it hasn’t actually happened. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have to double check if I’ve actually written the essay I’ve been thinking about, or if it has only existed - almost fully formed - in my brain. When I realize that I haven’t created the thing that I imagined, the idea of sitting down to finally create that thing is overwhelming. Instead of putting down words, I feel exhausted at the idea of that task because I know that I can think faster than I can write, and writing feels like so much work. When I finally force myself to write something - usually by setting a timer or bribing myself with a snack - I’m pleasantly surprised at how much easier writing was than I expected. The idea of doing the thing is almost always made worse in my brain than the reality of doing the thing, and I never remember that until I do the thing, and self-motivation has never been a strength of mine (again, largely due to my ADHD. I promise I’m not making excuses, it’s a fact!).
Another consequence of my ADHD is Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD. When I mentioned that I am constantly thinking about what people will think and how I will be perceived, that’s heavily influenced by RSD. My brain automatically anticipates how others will react to what I say or do, and it often jumps right ahead to the worst-case scenario. When one has an active and vivid imagination, constantly playing out the worst-case scenario is, uh, a lot. In December, I wrote and performed a short play that I didn’t even realize was about my RSD called Universal and Absolute. I shared the actual words of support and love that I received from my friends, family, and colleagues when I made the decision to take an 8-week leave of absence from work to focus on my mental health, and I juxtaposed it with what I had convinced myself was how they really felt.
Here is an excerpt:
FRIEND: I’m a safe person to show your struggle to - I’ve been there, and I understand. It sucks.
HER: I’m honestly not sure how much I can take. I know that’s harsh, but like, I would kill to have her problems, and I’m a little annoyed that she doesn’t see that. I don’t want to say her problems aren’t valid - they’re probably really serious TO HER - but a little perspective wouldn’t hurt, you know? We’re all sad. Everyone is miserable right now - everything fucking sucks! It’s exhausting to pretend like what she’s going through is a legitimate crisis. I do feel like she’s a little paranoid and all over the place lately though. The other day I sent her this insane conspiracy theory I saw my friend post, and she thought that I was sharing it with her for real. I cannot believe that she actually thought I believed that. Does she think I’m an idiot? I feel like she doesn’t actually pay attention to who I am - like are we even friends!? - if she thinks that is possible. I said it wasn’t a big deal, but I’m a little offended, if I’m honest. I think I need to disconnect for a bit for my own sake.
Despite evidence to the contrary, my brain assumes the worst and convinces me that those around me are simply tolerating me or being nice, when internally they just want to be rid of me. And when someone actually expresses negative feedback about me? Well, that simply destroys me. A single passing remark will live in my brain on loop forever, if unchecked.
One time, a guy who was known for dating freshman girls no matter his age and who said, “please?” after I politely declined his offer to go on a date when he was 18 and I was 14, told me that my vibrato was wrong when I sang. I thought about that every time I sang from then on, and singing was sort of my thing, so I did it a lot. I did not care about that person nor what he had to say any other time, but the moment he said something about me, I believed it and held onto it. I still think about it sometimes, despite having been in voice lessons for a solid year with an excellent vocal teacher who has never once mentioned my vibrato.
I know that I’m not a lost cause. That play that I wrote was an incredibly gratifying and validating experience, and I received positive feedback from both close friends and those I didn’t know well. I’m working on keeping a mental tally of all the great things people have said and actively reminding myself of what I have accomplished instead of hyperfocusing on what I haven’t done. I’m less afraid to talk about my RSD to my partner and my therapist, who are able to remind me of what’s real and what’s not. I’m learning to trust myself and give myself validation instead of exclusively seeking it from others. And I’m trying to set some routines, to write every day in some capacity - always without judgment - to get used to the fact that it isn’t as overwhelming as my brain thinks it is.
All that is to say, I want to use this space more, and I am going to be sharing something once a week, and I’m looking forward to it.