an aesthetic craving

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/2BCVyAA

I don’t have the time or wherewithal or attention span to do very much about this at the moment but of late I’ve found myself increasingly drawn to, or in fact sort of even hankering for, a more handmade wardrobe. I don’t like fast fashion and I don’t like wearing plastic and I want to wear natural fibers and have everything tailored to fit me, and I’m not a good enough seamstress yet to do it and i can’t afford to have anyone else make things for me, and I don’t have the knowledge to even figure out which pieces to make first, but. It’s a thing, and i want it, and I have taken small steps toward it but I cannot organize myself.

Relatedly, but not, but yes, I am stuck on writing all the novels I’m working on, nothing can continue, I stare at all of my Ws-IP and scroll through in despair. I don’t know what to do with any of them because I can’t sort any of them into any kind of structure. I don’t know how to proceed. I am stuck. I have thrown away tens, hundreds of thousands of words and started over only to get stuck again. I cannot proceed, I cannot organize myself.

I’m realizing, I have the drive to create, the ability to make things, but none of the project management skills that are needed to actually be an artist. I don’t think I am capable of really creating, after all, not to finish a coherent thing and see it through and put it out into the world– you need to be able to plan, to believe in a thing, and to see it through, and since I am unable to enlist anyone to help me hold my ideas, they’re too big for me to see them entirely myself, and I don’t know what to do with them, and so I struggle until they crush me and roll off somewhere, and then I start again, and whatever it is, gets away from me and the process repeats. I get crushed every so often, but so far it hasn’t been fatal, so I guess I’ll just have to keep on. I can’t not start a new thing; I’ve tried, I’ve gone years without, but it only makes me more miserable, so it seems futile to try to tamp down the urge.

I can’t start a business, I can’t finish a novel, I can’t create a wardrobe, I can’t fulfill any of my dreams. So I have to ponder, I suppose, what to do with my extremely limited abilities, after all, and it’s hard to figure out what to do. There’s not a lot of role models for people like me, who are capable but not entirely. So I don’t really know what to do about that. 

I’ve reread most of my favorite books this past week or month or so, hoping to self-soothe, but I’ve saved Murderbot, since I don’t know if it’s long enough since my last reread. I might just go ahead and reread it anyway. I don’t really know what else to do. I’m feeling a bit, well, crushed. I’ll get up and keep going in a bit, but for now it’s time to just accept that this has happened yet again, and lie here for another moment.

Comments

[beradan]

a MOOD, as the kids say.

[sabotabby]

I know this feel. I tend to stall out 1/3 of the way through a thing. It sucks to have really amazing ideas and skills but not have the executive function to follow through.

[paean]

Sounds like adhd at its worst. I have seen you finish things (points to a great number of novel length fanfics), but I realize that doesn’t at all fix the current feeling.

[dragonlady7]

Yes, many of them are finished or close enough thereto to call it good, but I was just rereading some of them to reassure myself and realized that most of them aren't finished, or aren't really entire novels. And the big Star Wars one, I managed to get people to beta-read for me and help me, which outsourced a bunch of the function I don't have; I can't quite manage to get that kind of thing to happen for original stuff-- partly the interest isn't there and partly I just can't get that shit coherent enough to even begin to know where to ask someone to weigh in.
I always eye the acknowledgements sections of novels I read with wistful jealousy, especially the ones whose husbands and moms read their stuff and are supportive. I can't complain about my family at all, but I also can't make any of them read anything I write.

[paean]

I’m in the process right now of figuring out has this been ADHD my whole life, or possibly something else that causes significant executive dysfunction but allows me to fake normalcy well enough to have gotten me (with some help from my well organized partner) to where I am now. It’s in the forefront because I’m sure my 5 year old has pretty classic ADHD, and it’s not something I wanted to pass on to her. Until I started diving into the diagnostic criteria and variations, I was happily ignoring all the ways my processes don’t work efficiently, or in many ways at all.

I was thinking I might be ASD until I started reading more about ADHD and rethinking why my social interactions as a kid were often so awful. And then my husband started pointing out that I actually am hyperactive (my comparison was always my much more hyper brothers), and maybe that’s why my short term memory sucks so much, and most critically, why I can’t do the things I need to so often despite being well aware of the consequences.

Anyway, sitting in sympathy other here for your frustration.

[dragonlady7]

I made an effort in my mid-30s to get a diagnosis and was stymied, first by a doctor who said "no, if you had it you'd know by now", and then finally a doctor was like "oh probably, here in order to get a diagnosis you should call one of these five numbers I'll have the receptionist write down for you with no other information about what to do."
which is like. if you know what adhd even is, then you absolutely know that's a way to ensure it will never happen.
i lost the piece of paper, eventually, and then i went back and talked to another doctor and she was like "oh hm i see you gained 30 lbs taking SSRIs, let's talk about cutting carbs next time you come back" and i have not been to a doctor of any kind since then, so.

I wish I had a well organized partner! He's more of a disaster than me, but while it's my fault for never getting a diagnosis, his complete lack of organization or function is just an integral part of his charm, see, and can't be improved or helped. he can make a phone call, eventually, but not for me. Alas! C'est la vie.
So I'm just gonna fucking accept that this is what I am, I guess, and there's nothing I can do about it, and go on and try to live as much of a life as I can despite it, I guess. Ugh.

[paean]

If you had a diagnosis, would you take medication or do anything differently than you are right now? Because if you would take meds, then it makes sense to try to find the right doctor (yours sound ineffective at best, and likely much worse). But if you’re not likely to try meds, it’s not worth the effort.

My partner has anxiety, so is super organized about everything, because anything unknown or unexpected messes him up. But he also can’t make phone calls because of it, and often spins his wheels big time because he can’t make decisions and move on least he cause himself decisional regret.

It’s only his creating time to sit down with me and organize the steps of getting evaluated that has me moving forward with it at all. I have an appointment with my fairly useless PCP in order to request a referral to a specific psychiatrist in town he found who has an interest in adult adhd.