Blocked

The ADD bars me from processing, let alone retaining, the information, it bars me from focusing long enough to make (or even THINK to make) notes to myself so that I can remember, and makes me entirely intolerant of the frustration (in a way that literally, unnaturally compromises my mood and affects my ability to solve problems) that results from not being able to put two and two together as easily as everyone else. Not only that, note-taking is the absolute bane of my ADD, and the subject matter itself is too unstimulating for me to focus on reliably no matter how relevant it is to the game. At all times my brain is “PLAY FIGHT WIN DRAMA RP” and if it starts to drift into needing to understand anything government or law or even tactics-related above a middle school level, it spirals into irritability fed by impatience and frustration with my own ignorance. It straight-up resists any attempt at trying to learn, shuts down, I become irritable, and I feel a very deep, unnatural feeling of “I do not want to learn this.”

so I’ve made a goddamn character proficient at being everything I’m mentally incapable of pretending to be and have to solve entirely text-based problems with incomplete information, and figure out how to fill in the blanks for things I don’t understand, while trying to play a character who is supposed to have a better understanding than I’m capable of having while everyone else is apparently following along just fine.

ADHD impairs my cognizance and information processing so badly, that I’ve come to think of people who can grasp and retain complex concepts as fucking magicians, and have a desire to just. be someone with a brain that actually fucking works. I wanna be clever. 

but the caveat of playing a character who is smart when you’re not smart is that you have to be fucking smart and keep track of everything and I’m not smart and I’m not organized and any attempt to change that is met with resistance to the tune of “I don’t feel like it, it’s not fun” and my embarrassment and poor self esteem keeps me from reaching out for help, and even if I did I wouldn’t pay attention or be Interested anyway. 

like I don’t feel like I’m going crazy and I don’t feel super lonely. I was reeling a little bit the first month and had some spiked anxiety for a bit but once that settled... I really haven’t noticed myself feeling bad at all just staying in, getting my work done, chatting with friends online, and engaging with my hobbies. I’ve had a couple voice chats with friends from work over Animal Crossing but even that I feel like is just an extra thing. otherwise it all just sorta feels like how I was already living. 

meanwhile everywhere I look I see memes and jokes about how bonkers everyone feels staying isolated-- and they’re usually people who even live with another human being!-- and have nothing to do. 

on the plus side there’s no sign of CTS, my grip strength is totally fine (and for some reason stronger in my dominant right than my left, which I was told is unusual for the dominant hand) and I have pretty fingers. 

I do have quite a rough time describing to lay persons just how little activity I partake in aside from sitting at the computer but the physical therapist was able to sound concerned in like a maternal way without sounding judgy. 

I’m having issues with my hand again. A muscle in the base of my palm (on the median nerve) has been randomly twitching, causing my whole thumb to tremor and me to have to stop what I’m doing (drawing, using the mouse, my phone) til it stops. There are no symptoms associated with CTS so I can only think of a nerve being pinched or irritated somewhere along the line and it just won’t let up. I saw a chiropractor and massage therapist and their work stopped it for a week before it started up again, and in the past couple days it’s become more frequent. I scheduled an appointment with the physical hand therapist today hoping they can get to the root of the issue (and won’t tell me “idk talk to your doctor”). 

My knee has also been hurting for several weeks and I can’t figure out what I did to it. I reached a point yesterday where I panicked myself into crying about all of it (the shame of which made me cry more). All the what-ifs and I-should-haves and my-body-is-failing and money and time and confusion and worry over what are two probably very minor issues but are just more proof I’m not living my life correctly and I still have yet more changes to work on. 

Me: okay. I see. Right. Got it. Go back to that first one we'll start there.

Brain: first what

Me: what you just told me. Of the two things. Three things?

Brain: what things?

Me: the tasks you wanted to think about!