About My Brain
Oct. 27th, 2020 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetA friend posted this list of behaviors (it was originally an ADHD quiz, but the consensus is that it's deeply flawed for that purpose) and I found it a fascinating dive into how her brain works. We so often assume either that other people's brains work like ours do, or that we are extremely unusual (or both! we contain multitudes!). So I decided to fill it out.
Please note that I'm pretty confident that I do not have ADHD and I'm not using this as a diagnostic tool.
I think the first note is that I was compelled, before I began, to clean up the numbering and spacing in the questions.
1. You loved pillow forts growing up - and you still do. The idea of making a pillow fort in your living room still absolutely appeals to you. You've probably transferred that love to tiny houses as an adult.
Yes to pillow forts and yes to a fascination with tiny houses, although I wouldn't live in one because there's not enough room for other people.
2) You went through a period as a kid where you thought you might be psychic. You knew things without people telling you, which they were sure were secret. You're able to guess things about people (their parents were divorced, random stuff) and you think they must have told you.
Yup. I freak out secretly pregnant people sometimes. I don't think I'm psychic and in some ways I've learned to pay LESS attention to people over the years because I don't always need to know. But then last year I called a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while literally while she was sitting in a parking lot fighting the urge to turn back to her abusive partner. Probably coincidence, but I think brains are good at knowing things and reading patterns.
3) You've pinched the bridge of your nose in an argument with a loved one, and tried to work through why they weren't listening to your CAREFULLY CHOSEN words. Some version of:
"I didn't say that YOU HURT ME, I said I WAS HURT."
"YES, OF COURSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT!"
It depends on the situation, but in arguments I do work to communicate the problem and my inner state clearly. Sometimes this takes the form of readdressing the idea multiple times with different wording, which others sometimes perceive as "beating a dead horse," but is really just me trying to find the right words so that communication will actually occur. Because if they understood, then everything would be fixed.
4) People say your emotions are hard to read. You try to compensate by being clear. You have told a loved one, over and over again, that they are hurting you and you need them to stop.
When you finally can't take it anymore, they say you "Blew up out of nowhere."
This is one of those "apparently true" things--I think I am very emotionally open, but others don't always agree and I definitely get the "Blew up out of nowhere" accusation.
5) You try to share something your passionate about, and you get called a "Know-it-all." People say things like "has it ever occurred to you that you could be wrong?" People talk about you "trying to impress" them, say you think you're better than them.
Yup. When I was little I was frequently called "stuck up;" the adult version of this seems to be "pretentious".
6) You have something to say about most topics. You listen to a lot of kinds of music, remember odd things from all of your various classes and conversations. You're sometimes surprised that something you think of as common knowledge, everyone else forgot.
True.
7) You're in love with round numbers on the clock.
You'll give yourself a task (get up and leave at 8:15), and then you'll look, and it's 8:11.
And it's not time to leave yet.
And you look again, and it's 8:17.
And you can't get up now, because you missed the time.
My friend wrote I totally lie in bed going "ok, getting up at 8:20. *reads a little more* shit it's 8:21. Ok I'll get up at 8:30..." and I did exactly that this very morning.
8) You don't have a lot of long term hobbies. You instead have a BUNCH of things you got into a bit - things you were super passionate about, which you invested time and money into and it just seemed to peter out at some stage. There's an instrument you haven't touched in years.
I don't really have what I think of as "hobbies". I have occasionally tried to develop them (ask me how many times I have learned to knit) but I'm slow to acquire equipment and if the pursuit doesn't stick, I'll pass whatever I've got along after a year or two. There is very little that I do simply for the sake of doing the thing.
9) People stop existing when they're not around. It's rare that you miss a person. Instead, the moment that you're back together, it's like the intervening time didn't happen. You pick up immediately where you left off. You're no less engaged than you ever were.
This doesn't resonate for me at all. I can't think of everyone whose company I enjoy all the time and I don't find missing people a painful experience, but whenever I think of someone I don't see often, I want to see them. On the other hand, it's certainly true that I'm very good at diving back into a relationship that has been on hiatus.
10) Likewise, you're bad at keeping up with long distance friends or family. When they reach out to you, it's great! You're there 1000%. And then you hang up, And you suddenly realize it's been six months since you spoke.
I'm quite good at keeping in touch with people, but it's often six months since I've spoken to people I consider close friends, but aren't regularly part of my life. I send out annual cards and pay attention on Facebook and try to have a general sense of how people are doing. On the other hand, I've learned to keep only as closely in touch as the other person returns, for the sake of my own equilibrium.
11) You don't have a lot of clear memories of childhood, and none of them are in order.
People will describe things like, "Oh, when {x happened}? That was 2006, I was {y} years old, it was before {z happened}." And you don't understand how they can have that level of clarity.
I have extremely clear memories of childhood and a good sense of chronology. One of the reasons that I like having a January birthday is that how old I was and what year it was track together.
12) At the same time, the memories you do have are vivid, and precise, often down to the exact words someone uses.
"I never said that!"
"You did! It was fall, we were sitting in the target parking lot, you were driving the white Toyota, you said {x} and then I responded {y}."
This is also true. I have a lot of memory for what people were wearing, where we were, what gestures they used, etc. That said, my memory now is certainly not what it was twenty-five years ago and that's frustrating to me. But still scenes come back in vivid detail.
13) People will ask you "Why" questions. You'll do your best to answer them.
And then they say you're making excuses. Because they weren't looking for "Why you didn't do the dishes," which you're trying to answer. They're instead saying, "You should have done the dishes."
I certainly notice that people often phrase requests as questions. I'm guilty of "Do you want to?" phrasing and work at that. When I used to work in offices this tripped me up occasionally. I am very lucky to have a community of people who are here for the deep dive into my motivations, whether they intended to inquire into them, or not.
14) You can't watch someone be embarrassed on TV. A lot of cringe comedy physically hurts; you have to leave the room.
It's horrible. I do not understand how this came to be labelled "funny".
15) You can't possibly have #ADHD, because you can focus! For hours! As long as something is interesting, it'll just suck the hours out of the day - you start playing a game (let's say Minecraft), and suddenly: It's night time. Your drink isn't touched. You need to pee.
This kind of hyperfocus is rare for me and generally a joy when it engages.
16) As soon as you do notice a biological need - you're hungry, you need to go to the bathroom, you've got something stuck in your teeth - it's like an alarm going off. It's sudden and intense.
I am more likely to stand up from my task and THEN realize that I am dehydrated, starving, my back is a mess, and I desperately need to pee than the other way around.
17) You have a pile of unopened mail, things from banks or doctors which YOU KNOW ARE IMPORTANT. You can't throw them away, because THEY ARE IMPORTANT. But you can't open them, because REASONS. You have intense anxiety around them.
I don't balk at the opening. There is a category of things that I basically cannot make myself deal with, but they sit neatly in my TO DEAL folder, sometimes for years. I know they're there. Once in a while I get a running start and handle one of them and then bask in that glory for several months. But probably don't go on to deal with the next intractable item.
18) As soon as you clear a notification, you need to respond to the text or e-mail or message right then - because otherwise it stops existing. You'll forget about it. You've probably left a message unopened, telling yourself you'll see it later & answer then. Two months pass.
Nah. Things do fall down my queue while waiting for me to respond, but I have a pretty good habit of keeping those items to a minimum and clearing things out to lists and files.
19) You're a compulsive rule-follower. You're also not very good at remembering all the rules. That said, a system that has clearly defined rules is heaven for you... but the rules have to make sense. A rule that seems to exist for no reason is a pebble in your shoe.
I'm a pretty good rule follower when I agree with the rules. When the rules are stupid, unevenly enforced, or not respected by their setters, it does bug me a lot and makes me much less likely to follow them myself. I have a deeply rebellious streak and benefit from a great deal of privilege in this arena.
20) You could never show your work in Math, because you didn't HAVE to do the steps they talked about. You would look at some part of the problem, and skip *several* steps, because the answer was OBVIOUS. Like, WHY would I have to show that 2+2 is 4? It just IS.
Often. Not so much in math, but in other areas the connections may seem glaringly obvious to me and unpacking them takes so much work.
21) You have never participated in a draft process for a paper in your life. You may have even faked a draft, writing a finished paper and then hand-writing a worse version of it. You edit WHILE you're writing. Then you're happy with what you wrote.
I definitely did this as a student, in the pre-word processor days, in part because generating clean copies was such a hassle. I still write pretty clean first drafts, but I do a lot more editing than I once did.
22) You'll save a thing to read later in another tab, and keep it there forever, not reading it, until you close all of your tabs in a great clearing out.
Or my browser/machine crashes without saving my tabs. I have been trying lately to close tabs more often, in part by being honest with myself that if I haven't read something within a few days, I don't actually want to read it.
23) Similarly to the math thing above, while you don't always know the solution to a problem, you usually know how the solution is shaped. Like, you can almost see the various parts of the problem, and the hole left by the thing that would solve them. Once you find something?
No. I can often see what the end result should look like, but figuring out how I get from A to K is not my strong suit. If I can't just make the leap, then I start at A and move confidently in a direction that I'm pretty sure leads to C and assume that B will emerge in the process.
24) You've always loved group work. Even when you wind up being the one doing most of it.
For some reason, you're more able to do things when people are around. You're easily distracted, sure, but suddenly it's like you have the ability to /do/ the work that's missing when solo.
I have very mixed feelings about group work. I enjoy it when I'm the leader and am invested in the project. Or when I'm a minion and have a clear role. But I don't enjoy consensus building and I did resent doing most of the work, or being held to the standard of the other individuals back in school. I do appreciate having company while I'm working--it's one of the things I miss most about working in an office.
25) You can't understand why people say that putting together IKEA furniture is hard.
It's... obvious? The instructions are clear? Everything just obviously makes sense?
I don't find it particularly challenging, but I generally leave it to the many other people in my life who enjoy it more and have more patience with the process.
26) You interrupt people, a lot. Or so they tell you. It seems like you're only talking when they pause, but it turns out they weren't done.
Yes. Some of this is cultural. Some of it is misogyny. Nevertheless, I'm working on it.
27) If someone says something wrong at the beginning of a thought, conversation, argument - you can't proceed past that. You need to correct or agree on that before you can move on to the next thing that follows from that. If they make you just sit and listen? You're lost.
I do get hung up on things like this sometimes. I recall a sermon in which the preacher was talking about "ambivalence" when what he meant was "indifference". I have no idea what else he had to say on the topic.
28) You were a gifted kid who never lived up to their potential, and now you have depression. At uni, all of a sudden things weren't smooth anymore. It's like everyone else had tools you didn't have.
You let work pile up to finish in a heap, like you always do. Then didn't.
Everything until the work piling up. That never happened, but I did hit other walls for reasons that probably included undiagnosed depression at the time.
29) You doodle, draw, fidget, jiggle your leg, play with your pen, whatever, while listening. Otherwise you get too distracted. When someone's talking to you, you can listen better if you're not making eye contact. If you're staring over their shoulder, or have your eyes closed.
Yes. I actually like Zoom because I don't have to control these behaviors as much.
30) You close your eyes so you can listen better.
No. I have to have my glasses on, or I can't hear you.
31) Conversations work best for you when there's a constant back and forward. No one person is talking for too long, and errors or confusion are addressed in the moment when they happened. You have to regularly re-state the main point or goal of a convo to get back on track.
Yes, those are the best conversations. Other forms are also possible and even enjoyable, but my best friends are the ones who communicate this way. "So the rabbi..."
32) You start a new game, or new book, or new hobby, or whatever, and it's an all-consuming thought. You go to work, and you NEED to get home to do it. No guarantee you'll actually do so when you get home, because of your energy, or something else drawing your attention.
The last bit is not the case for me. Making myself not read an oh-wow book straight through is an effort. I'm not a multi-episode binge-watcher, but when I find a show I love, I want to watch an episode every day. When I'm really engaged with a project, it's the only thing I want to do and I resent things that keep me from it. So yes, some of this.
33) How easy/hard it is to do something depends on how it’s asked for. Someone just explaining their day to you drags on forever, but saying “I really need to vent about my day, could you listen for a bit? Don’t need feedback, except on one thing at the end” frees up your brain.
No--if the person is someone I care about and a good storyteller, then I love to simply hear about their day.
34) When they do that, the TASK is clear – whereas if you’re not primed, you’re spending the whole other conversation trying to find either
A) something that is interesting or
B) an actionable request.
You get distracted by listening, and then you can't listen.
This makes me think of some relationships I have/had, where it is now clear to me that this was happening on their end. Mostly I think my way of holding conversations is powerful enough that over time they either leave, or get used to it and come to enjoy it. But if you're not willing to come along for the ride, then you do not want to get in this vehicle.
35) You have an "addictive personality." You drink too much soda or coffee. Strangely, it never seems to make you more awake, just less of a zombie. Also never seems to keep you from falling asleep at night. As long as anxiety thoughts don't show up, you're out like a light.
Yup. All of this. I have my ruminative thinking under tight control and if I'm not asleep inside of seven minutes, then I am just not tired. This is very rare for me these days--I haven't had insomnia in about a decade and the quarantimes are exhausting.
36) Saying something out loud - examining it outside of your head - lets you problem-solve on it in weird ways. Often, when you'll ask someone else for help on something, just you describing the problem will make the solution obvious.
To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor: How can I know what I think till I hear what I say?
37) You're both very good at figuring out when someone is lying, and you somehow are trusting everyone to be telling the truth all the time. You take what people say, especially about themselves and how they think, as given. You're a good liar, and you hate that about yourself.
I don't hate myself. But I also don't think most people know themselves very well.
38) You can't understand why people will talk about movies like Inception as a mind fuck.
When people in sci-fi shows complain about temporal mechanics giving them a headache, it seems so cheesy. The threads are... obvious? You just... SEE them. There.
I don't really care about the mechanics of plot devices, so I rarely bother to unravel them (also having been too often disappointed when they fail to hang together). That said, I find that about the time I'm really loving a story, other people start complaining that it's "too complicated" and cancellation generally follows shortly thereafter. I think most of this is related to strong reading comprehension skills.
39) You've had someone tell you you can't have #ADHD, because you're too functional.
People ascribe a lot more functionality to me than is really warranted, but it's certainly true that I don't have ADHD.
40) The more steps a process has, the harder it is, particularly if you've gotta do different steps in order in different places. Tax stuff, the DMV, school paperwork - you LOVE filling out the paperwork, because it's like a puzzle, but the steps are exhausting.
I don't love the process. I would describe the forms more like a quiz where I know all the answers. NAME? Ooh, I got this one! DATE? I know that one, too! ADDRESS? I am rocking this! Plus, I'm very vain about my handwriting.
41) You've found yourself staring at a chore you need to do - let's say dishes - and knowing you need to do it, and telling yourself to do it, and somehow not being able to move your arms and legs. And then you just think about what a piece of shit you are for not doing it.
Well, yes. Get up, Trinity. I do not tend to beat myself up for it. Right now, I'm aware that one of the effects of the pandemic is executive dysfunction. But in general I find being gentle yet firm gets better results with myself.
42) You will set up rules for yourself - "I can't do [thing I like] until I do [chore]," and you follow it. But that doesn't actually motivate you to do the chore. So instead you waste time mindlessly playing a flash game or watching youtube, that you don't even want to do.
Sometimes. I am more likely to procrastinate by actually doing other useful things with much lower priority.
43) You don't get credit for things you're good at, because they came easily - you only deserve it if you had to work hard, after all. You don't get credit for things that are hard for you, because they're simple things everyone can do - you can't get credit for that, after all.
I tend to think I get way more credit than I deserve and try to spread that around as much as possible. I am aware of discounting the things that are easy for me (often through long practice) but I work to accept that I'm actually quite good at a number of things and deserve credit and compliments for them. I'm also aware that "bragging" is something that women are particularly discouraged from doing, so I keep an eye on that.
44) You can easily take praise like "this was very well done."
You have no idea how to process praise like "you are very good at this."
Your work can be complimented, not you.
Nah. You are welcome to tell me I'm awesome. I would really like you to also carefully notice my work.
45) You can fall asleep anywhere. In the car, at a desk, wherever. Except, often, for bed. Because there, your brain has nothing to process, and it starts devouring itself.
As noted above, I do have a tendency toward ruminative thinking, but I've learned how to manage that and I fall asleep quickly. Sometimes too quickly--I find transportation extremely soporific when I'm not the one in control and I can sleep quite comfortably sitting up.
46) A teacher has said these exact words about you:
"If [x] would just put half of the energy into the rest of their work as they do into the things that are interesting to them, they'd be my best student."
Nope. School was always well inside my capacity and I just did all the things and then made up other things to do. Boredom was a much bigger problem for me.
47) You can’t choose what you're interested in. Things that interest you are like gravity wells for your focus. The more interesting it is, the more energy it takes to pull away. Listening to something that isn’t interesting is literally exhausting, even if it’s a topic you like.
I would like to discuss the use of the word "interesting" with the person who wrote these questions. I think they use it to mean a few different things and possibly something different than I mean when I use it. That said...
I can generally choose what work I do, but I can't choose what I find interesting. I've done lots of boring work and tedious tasks that are part of more interesting work. That said, there are definitely topics that engage me and topics that my brain just slides right off. When we were renovating our house it turned out that I can look at thousands of different light fixtures quite happily, but when it comes to tile I max out around the seventh one. Fortunately, Jason was able to engage with tile and narrow down our choices to a set that I could grasp. If someone is a good storyteller, however, there are very few subjects that I can't generate enough interest to focus on.
48) Your ability to focus on things, be present, pay attention to social cues, or do work has an engine with a finite amount of gas. Listening to someone talk about their day takes the same reservoir of energy as taking part in a boring multi-step process. (Spoon Theory)
I'm not confident this person has really grasped Spoon Theory, but I'll try to focus on the question. (See, back to the problem with defining terms as a stumbling block.) Different tasks require different energies--accelerating, braking, and running the AC are all different systems--but there is only one engine. Listening to a friend talk about their day may be a relief from a boring multi-step process, but it can also take more energy than I've got after the earlier task--all depends on the task and the friend and the state of my spirit.
49) Speaking of which, your unopened mail. Once you open it, you’ll have to do something about it – until you open it, it’s not real. You can’t just throw it away, because it’s MAIL, it’s IMPORTANT, but you also don’t have the mental energy to DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, and it turns out the part of your brain that connects the will to do something to the motivation to do so (like a belt in an engine) just ISN’T FUCKING THERE. You don’t realize that it’s not there, because this is an easy thing that everyone can do.
This harks back to #17. I don't do unopened mail. And while I certainly resonate with the difficulty getting myself to do things--sometimes, some things--I don't resonate with the idea of "will" and "motivation" being separate. Do I think that it would be good if I deal with $THING? Yes. Do I wish that $THING would be dealt with and never darken my TO DO list again? Oh yes. Do I want to do $THING? Nope. Do I do $THING? It depends. A genial "that would be nice to have done" is not the will do it and I'm not clear that there's a meaningful difference between the will to do it and some effort in that direction.
50) You "do your best work on a deadline." You're drawn to competition, and get called over competitive. You find relationships with a lot of passion... and conflict. Because your brain turns Adrenaline into Dopamine. It's the only way you feel.
I have told myself that myth about deadlines in the past and sometimes it is true, simply because some work is certainly "best" compared with no work. I've mostly overcome that one at this point and recognized that I will be less stressed out if I get things at least well underway fairly far in advance. I am not at all drawn to competition--discovering collaborative games has made me much more interested in games in general and my preferred forms of exercise are walking or yoga. I am willing to endure conflict in a relationship when I have the sense that conflict yields progress and rather than subjugate my own needs, but my favorite relationships have very little conflict and no sense of competition.
51) Time isn't real.
In these quarantimes, time is soup and we are croutons. Last night I said "I remember that when that happened..." and my friend said "Yesterday. That was yesterday." That said, I do usually know what day it is and it is rare for my sense of time to be more than a few minutes off, when asked. I just have to think about it more than usual.
52) You have high energy, and say yes to a lot of interesting projects. And you've got the energy to do them! And it's great! And then you find yourself swamped, out of energy, with a dozen things to do and no spoons to do them. And you PROMISED yourself you wouldn't do this.
I have gotten a lot better about not doing this to myself over time. That said, it still happens that having made discrete commitments to different groups, they all decide to schedule things on the same day and then I have to scramble, delegate, juggle, and tapdance not to feel that I am letting anyone down. I *think* this is mostly not obvious to other people and that they value my learned ability to say no when I am not going to be able to commit to their projects.
53) You have no idea how to estimate how much time a task will take. You're constantly leaving late because you realized belatedly you needed to feed the cat, go back for your keys, start the dishwasher. You try to give yourself more buffers, but they never work.
No. I am very good at estimating timing and managing taskflow. This is another thing that has taken a hit this year, but I am still rarely late.
That said, I learned early on not to make myself dependent on people who are challenged in this way. If you show up late more than once to meet me, I will make plans to meet you at my house, so that I can continue my own work until you make it here. Or I will call you when I think you should be preparing to leave and make sure you're on the way. I very much respect people who acknowledge this issue and ask for help in the form of reminders, backup calls, etc. rather than simply leaving me to bear the brunt of it.
54) You have no idea what it would be like for your brain to be quiet or empty.
It's called "valium" and I have declined prescriptions for it based on this knowledge. I can also get there through meditation, but rarely do.
55) Time isn't real, redux:
Every single thing you've ever turned in has been started and finished last minute.
That was much more true for me in school. It has become less and less true over time, as I learned the joys of productive procrastination and the truth that whenever I start it, it will still be finished at the last minute.
56) You're terrible at code switching. You've only got one identity, yours, and MAYBE a good "out in public" mask. But you can't switch easily between appropriate behaviors for different groups.
Yeah, this is tough. I mostly avoid the problem by living in communities where the real me is welcome and valued. When I venture out of my bubble, I become aware, very quickly, of what a different planet I live on than many people seem to.
57) Right now, reading this, you've got TV or YouTube or a podcast on as background noise. You've also got one or two things you're doing in addition to reading this thread. It never seems to be too much. It seems to HELP you focus, weirdly.
Mostly no. I do like music or something like that on if I'm alone and not otherwise engaged in communication (e.g. reading, writing, watching, meeting) but I can't stand the tv as background noise and I am more and more able to create a single focus. That said, having a fan on while I sleep is very helpful.
58) Your desk space is built up vertically, so you can see everything. Shelves above your computer, or in easy reach. Anything that goes into a drawer stops existing forever, until you open it. Then you pick up each item in turn, re-acquaint yourself with the flood of memories.
I have a mix of this. I do keep open shelves and things that I like to look at above my computer. But I also have a lot of drawers and I mostly know what's in them, at least by category. Over the course of this year we've gone through the entire house--every drawer and cupboard and closet--to remind ourselves what's where, clear out things that we don't find useful or sentimental, and reorganize them. I enjoy that sense of knowing where everything is, so I don't have to have it all visible.
59) You may not be able to remember a thing on your own - but when someone asks you, you have the answer close at hand. Because them asking you is THEM operating the search function in your brain, which you don't really have control over.
This happens to me sometimes. The strangest part is that I often don't know WHY I think that's the answer--it's no longer connected to an experience, just free-floating information--but I'm often right. Brains are mysterious places. I do not look forward to more of this, but I suspect I should get used to it.
60) You don't feel GOOD when you finish a project. What you feel is the TEMPORARY ABSENCE OF PRESSURE. Relief, not joy.
I have to think more about this and pay attention. I definitely feel satisfaction and sometimes pride when I finish something, but there's always the next thing to do and I'm not sure I really feel joy in being done.
61) You can’t start on the paper, because it’s got too much mental inertia, and you can’t summon up the energy to do it. You CAN go over and fold your laundry, because that’s something you can get done with a clear start and end time, and you know all the steps of it. It’s procrastination, but maybe you’ll be able to roll the momentum from finishing the laundry into starting the paper. Instead, you probably do another chore after. Or just stare into space. Or eat. Or nap, and tell yourself that you can start it later.
Yup. On the one hand, the activation slope for the target task becomes steeper and steeper. On the other hand, I do get a lot of other things done while I'm waiting for the cogs of my motivational wheels to mysteriously click into place.
62) You have a mountain of half-completed projects, because you work until the focus gets pulled to something else. Wonderful ideas – AMAZING IDEAS – which, because you’re only accountable to you, are sitting piled somewhere waiting for you to come back to them.
This isn't quite how I would describe it--my mountain is made less of half-completed projects and more of ideas and half-STARTED projects, very few of which are tangible objects. (Have I mentioned that I'm not really into things per se?)
63) When you’re accountable to someone else, your AMAZING idea runs smack into the realities of deadlines and constraints, and it’s rare that you finish a project that is as grand as you imagined. You're always paring down, not building up.
Well, sure. The real world is a terrible place to build things, what with gravity and all. On the other hand, after years of experience with what's possible, I'm still impressed by what I do manage to accomplish and how beautiful it can be. This is phrased in a way I find depressing, but I do not find the translation from cloud to castle to be disappointing, even if the towers never reach quite as high.
64) You cannot start one thing while waiting for another. Don’t sit down to browse twitter in the extra five minutes you have before going to work – you’ll do it for a half hour, because it’s DESIGNED to be interesting. Avoid waiting wherever you can; you aim to be early instead.
This is definitely a problem for me.
65) CW: Self-Abuse
You’ve spent time and energy, the night before a thing is due, sobbing about what a piece of shit you are because you have no idea why, AGAIN, you let it slide for this long. You’re JUST lazy, you’re JUST stupid, you JUST didn’t do the right thing, AGAIN.
No. I have felt bad that I didn't get on top of the project in time, but this is not one of the things that I have ever really beaten myself up about and these days I do not allow myself that kind of negative self-talk about anything. I really resonate with the idea that if a friend spoke to me that way, they wouldn't be my friend any longer, and I try to be a good friend to myself.
66) You’re super susceptible to Thresholding; walking into a room (through a door) and forgetting why you came in.
Moreso through the "doorway" of the internet, but yes. I pick up my phone to check my calendar and I am distracted by notifications and next thing I know I've read Facebook for twenty minutes and put my phone down, only to realize that I never checked my calendar!
67) You also say yes to things because you are desperate for people to like you, to not reject you, because every time someone has chastised you for something you didn’t understand (talking too much, interrupting, etc) it has felt physically painful to you.
I am not desperate for people to like me any longer. I was, for a long time, and it led to some deeply unattractive behavior, but I finally realized that I sometimes don't like people and that's ok and it is ok for people to not like me. I have a lot of wonderful friends who do like me very much and that's enough.
That said, the episodes that have haunted my memory are largely times from childhood through early adulthood when my natural self-confidence and maturity led people to think I understood much more than I did and the humiliation and shame I felt when I got it wrong.
These days I've learned to be wrong, to apologize, to figure out how I can do better, and to move on. I learn a lot more that way than I ever did through shame.
68) You get chastised for trying to clarify instructions. Teachers, bosses, or parents accuse you of talking back, or “being smart,” or say “stop getting hung up on that, just listen.” Then you do what people tell you, but because their instructions were unclear you do it wrong.
I don't really have teachers, bosses, or parents these days. Thinking back, I did sometimes have this experience, but I don't know that it was a pattern.
70) Tasks need to have specific steps to take, which are actionable, and given with clear instructions. Once you start down a chain of steps for a multi-step task, you find it difficult to pause or move on to something else.
This is very much not me. Almost nothing I do is framed this neatly and I think I would find that level of structured tasks irritating and stifling. I tend to take on projects that have an end point, but with a lot of different moving parts and freedom to work on whichever part captures my attention or takes priority at the moment. I don't tend to break tasks down into steps--I just start working toward the end goal and the necessary parts of the project become clear along the way.
71) If your task at work is to “answer these e-mails,” and two of them require input from another person, you will have to struggle to “just save those for later” or leave the project half-done. You need to interrupt that person and get the answers now, THEN you can move on.
I get frustrated when I'm actually getting work done and that flow is interrupted by the need to wait for someone else's input, but my life involves so many external factors and interruptions that there are usually convenient pause points where I set things aside until the other person's response lifts that task back up the queue.
72) You have sobbed at least one of the following on the regular.
“That’s not what you said!”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Words mean things!”
“But that’s not what that means!”
“But that’s different!”
Well, yes. This harks all the way back to #3. Communication is hard.
One of the funniest (in retrospect) fights I've ever had came to a climax when the other person said "When you said it was important, I didn't think you meant that it was important TO YOU!" Um.
73) Someone “harmlessly” picking on you can absolutely fucking destroy you. Similarly, finding out you did something “wrong” or in a way that hurt or made more work for someone else is like physical pain.
These feel very different and not closely related to me. Teasing is obnoxious and unfunny. Don't say negative things to me--it's not joking, it's verbal violence with deniability.
Finding out that I did something that caused someone else pain takes my breath away. I hate to be the cause of pain in someone else.
Making more work for someone through my mistake or inattention is regrettable and I will happily apologize, learn from that, and sincerely offer to help in a different way. But to me this also falls in the "shit happens" bucket, not something that I internalize as a judgment on myself. Perhaps that's because this feels rare in my life--which then sounds arrogant to me.
74) Being shitty to someone on purpose is one thing; finding out you were *accidentally* shitty to someone is so, so much worse. It’s one of the ways that Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria manifests; think of it like “Social Anxiety but After the Fact.”
This is pretty rare and when I'm made aware of it, I address it pretty straightforwardly, I think. I have good intentions--sometimes those don't matter to the impact my words/actions have and I take responsibility for that, but it doesn't make me a shitty person, just a person who gets things wrong. The initial feeling is sinking shame, but I don't dwell there. It's worth noting that I can't remember the last time I was intentionally shitty to someone.
75) Having the trash can being inside a cabinet, with a lid you have to remove, adds extra steps, EACH OF WHICH IS A TASK WE MUST SEPERATELY MANAGE. A trash can in the open, with a foot pedal lid you can open while stepping up to the can, makes it ONE.
Nope. I like things to be "away" so they are not demanding my attention. Having drawers for our trash & recycling is one of the great joys of our house.
76) You're as bothered as me by the idea of this thread ending at 76 instead of 75.
I'd rather it ended at 80, that's a nice round number. I do have a preference for numbers that feel "neat".
78) You can easily do a chore *right now*. A one-step chore that someone asks you to do? Great! Done! Faster than they expect, even! But "hey, could you [xyz] while I'm out later?" Oh god, that is my nightmare.
If you're not going to do it with me, then I'd rather be asked to do something when it's convenient for me.
79) You are far more motivated by "this person wants this," or "this person will think better of me," or "this will help these people" than any kind of more tangible reward.
Definitely.
80) Your tastes cycle, and the drop-off is QUICK. You'll play minecraft every waking moment for [x] weeks, then you CAN'T open it again. Then it's Skyrim. Then it's Fallout. Then it's Flash games. Or maybe it's with genres of music, or styles of podcast.
I tend to stick with things remarkably long, actually. I eat the same thing for lunch almost every day. I play the same games for years. I add music, but I can't think of anything I've loved that I wouldn't enjoy hearing again today. My tastes evolve, but they don't change quickly.
81) You have a hard time processing injustice. Things just ARE right or wrong. Nuance absolutely still exists for you, but you have a super hard time going along with the lesser of two evils, or making "necessary" sacrifices.
I tend to see most issues as complex, with multiple perspectives, different potential solutions, etc. How to move forward is the goal. I tend to focus more on compassion than justice.
82) You are easily swept up in other peoples' moods. You can be riding high, and then hear the wrong piece of information, and then you're in a depressive state. It's not like it's happening for no reason; it's more that you don't have an anchor. You get blown every which way.
Varies for me, sometimes true, sometimes not true. I'm definitely more susceptible this year than usual.
I think the thing that I am noticing most is how young the questioner seems to me--a lot of my answers would have been very different thirty years ago. It's good to see the ways that the work I've done and the experiences I've survived have had impact and taught me how to be kinder to myself and others, to work more effectively, to build better relationships, to live the values I hold closely. And yet there is still work to do and this really points that s
I'd be intrigued to read some of your answers to these questions. Don't feel like you need to do the whole list--you could pick five that feel interesting. I confess that I haven't been reading DW much these days, so if you do these, please comment so I know to go look.
Please note that I'm pretty confident that I do not have ADHD and I'm not using this as a diagnostic tool.
I think the first note is that I was compelled, before I began, to clean up the numbering and spacing in the questions.
1. You loved pillow forts growing up - and you still do. The idea of making a pillow fort in your living room still absolutely appeals to you. You've probably transferred that love to tiny houses as an adult.
Yes to pillow forts and yes to a fascination with tiny houses, although I wouldn't live in one because there's not enough room for other people.
2) You went through a period as a kid where you thought you might be psychic. You knew things without people telling you, which they were sure were secret. You're able to guess things about people (their parents were divorced, random stuff) and you think they must have told you.
Yup. I freak out secretly pregnant people sometimes. I don't think I'm psychic and in some ways I've learned to pay LESS attention to people over the years because I don't always need to know. But then last year I called a friend I hadn't spoken to in a while literally while she was sitting in a parking lot fighting the urge to turn back to her abusive partner. Probably coincidence, but I think brains are good at knowing things and reading patterns.
3) You've pinched the bridge of your nose in an argument with a loved one, and tried to work through why they weren't listening to your CAREFULLY CHOSEN words. Some version of:
"I didn't say that YOU HURT ME, I said I WAS HURT."
"YES, OF COURSE THEY'RE DIFFERENT!"
It depends on the situation, but in arguments I do work to communicate the problem and my inner state clearly. Sometimes this takes the form of readdressing the idea multiple times with different wording, which others sometimes perceive as "beating a dead horse," but is really just me trying to find the right words so that communication will actually occur. Because if they understood, then everything would be fixed.
4) People say your emotions are hard to read. You try to compensate by being clear. You have told a loved one, over and over again, that they are hurting you and you need them to stop.
When you finally can't take it anymore, they say you "Blew up out of nowhere."
This is one of those "apparently true" things--I think I am very emotionally open, but others don't always agree and I definitely get the "Blew up out of nowhere" accusation.
5) You try to share something your passionate about, and you get called a "Know-it-all." People say things like "has it ever occurred to you that you could be wrong?" People talk about you "trying to impress" them, say you think you're better than them.
Yup. When I was little I was frequently called "stuck up;" the adult version of this seems to be "pretentious".
6) You have something to say about most topics. You listen to a lot of kinds of music, remember odd things from all of your various classes and conversations. You're sometimes surprised that something you think of as common knowledge, everyone else forgot.
True.
7) You're in love with round numbers on the clock.
You'll give yourself a task (get up and leave at 8:15), and then you'll look, and it's 8:11.
And it's not time to leave yet.
And you look again, and it's 8:17.
And you can't get up now, because you missed the time.
My friend wrote I totally lie in bed going "ok, getting up at 8:20. *reads a little more* shit it's 8:21. Ok I'll get up at 8:30..." and I did exactly that this very morning.
8) You don't have a lot of long term hobbies. You instead have a BUNCH of things you got into a bit - things you were super passionate about, which you invested time and money into and it just seemed to peter out at some stage. There's an instrument you haven't touched in years.
I don't really have what I think of as "hobbies". I have occasionally tried to develop them (ask me how many times I have learned to knit) but I'm slow to acquire equipment and if the pursuit doesn't stick, I'll pass whatever I've got along after a year or two. There is very little that I do simply for the sake of doing the thing.
9) People stop existing when they're not around. It's rare that you miss a person. Instead, the moment that you're back together, it's like the intervening time didn't happen. You pick up immediately where you left off. You're no less engaged than you ever were.
This doesn't resonate for me at all. I can't think of everyone whose company I enjoy all the time and I don't find missing people a painful experience, but whenever I think of someone I don't see often, I want to see them. On the other hand, it's certainly true that I'm very good at diving back into a relationship that has been on hiatus.
10) Likewise, you're bad at keeping up with long distance friends or family. When they reach out to you, it's great! You're there 1000%. And then you hang up, And you suddenly realize it's been six months since you spoke.
I'm quite good at keeping in touch with people, but it's often six months since I've spoken to people I consider close friends, but aren't regularly part of my life. I send out annual cards and pay attention on Facebook and try to have a general sense of how people are doing. On the other hand, I've learned to keep only as closely in touch as the other person returns, for the sake of my own equilibrium.
11) You don't have a lot of clear memories of childhood, and none of them are in order.
People will describe things like, "Oh, when {x happened}? That was 2006, I was {y} years old, it was before {z happened}." And you don't understand how they can have that level of clarity.
I have extremely clear memories of childhood and a good sense of chronology. One of the reasons that I like having a January birthday is that how old I was and what year it was track together.
12) At the same time, the memories you do have are vivid, and precise, often down to the exact words someone uses.
"I never said that!"
"You did! It was fall, we were sitting in the target parking lot, you were driving the white Toyota, you said {x} and then I responded {y}."
This is also true. I have a lot of memory for what people were wearing, where we were, what gestures they used, etc. That said, my memory now is certainly not what it was twenty-five years ago and that's frustrating to me. But still scenes come back in vivid detail.
13) People will ask you "Why" questions. You'll do your best to answer them.
And then they say you're making excuses. Because they weren't looking for "Why you didn't do the dishes," which you're trying to answer. They're instead saying, "You should have done the dishes."
I certainly notice that people often phrase requests as questions. I'm guilty of "Do you want to
14) You can't watch someone be embarrassed on TV. A lot of cringe comedy physically hurts; you have to leave the room.
It's horrible. I do not understand how this came to be labelled "funny".
15) You can't possibly have #ADHD, because you can focus! For hours! As long as something is interesting, it'll just suck the hours out of the day - you start playing a game (let's say Minecraft), and suddenly: It's night time. Your drink isn't touched. You need to pee.
This kind of hyperfocus is rare for me and generally a joy when it engages.
16) As soon as you do notice a biological need - you're hungry, you need to go to the bathroom, you've got something stuck in your teeth - it's like an alarm going off. It's sudden and intense.
I am more likely to stand up from my task and THEN realize that I am dehydrated, starving, my back is a mess, and I desperately need to pee than the other way around.
17) You have a pile of unopened mail, things from banks or doctors which YOU KNOW ARE IMPORTANT. You can't throw them away, because THEY ARE IMPORTANT. But you can't open them, because REASONS. You have intense anxiety around them.
I don't balk at the opening. There is a category of things that I basically cannot make myself deal with, but they sit neatly in my TO DEAL folder, sometimes for years. I know they're there. Once in a while I get a running start and handle one of them and then bask in that glory for several months. But probably don't go on to deal with the next intractable item.
18) As soon as you clear a notification, you need to respond to the text or e-mail or message right then - because otherwise it stops existing. You'll forget about it. You've probably left a message unopened, telling yourself you'll see it later & answer then. Two months pass.
Nah. Things do fall down my queue while waiting for me to respond, but I have a pretty good habit of keeping those items to a minimum and clearing things out to lists and files.
19) You're a compulsive rule-follower. You're also not very good at remembering all the rules. That said, a system that has clearly defined rules is heaven for you... but the rules have to make sense. A rule that seems to exist for no reason is a pebble in your shoe.
I'm a pretty good rule follower when I agree with the rules. When the rules are stupid, unevenly enforced, or not respected by their setters, it does bug me a lot and makes me much less likely to follow them myself. I have a deeply rebellious streak and benefit from a great deal of privilege in this arena.
20) You could never show your work in Math, because you didn't HAVE to do the steps they talked about. You would look at some part of the problem, and skip *several* steps, because the answer was OBVIOUS. Like, WHY would I have to show that 2+2 is 4? It just IS.
Often. Not so much in math, but in other areas the connections may seem glaringly obvious to me and unpacking them takes so much work.
21) You have never participated in a draft process for a paper in your life. You may have even faked a draft, writing a finished paper and then hand-writing a worse version of it. You edit WHILE you're writing. Then you're happy with what you wrote.
I definitely did this as a student, in the pre-word processor days, in part because generating clean copies was such a hassle. I still write pretty clean first drafts, but I do a lot more editing than I once did.
22) You'll save a thing to read later in another tab, and keep it there forever, not reading it, until you close all of your tabs in a great clearing out.
Or my browser/machine crashes without saving my tabs. I have been trying lately to close tabs more often, in part by being honest with myself that if I haven't read something within a few days, I don't actually want to read it.
23) Similarly to the math thing above, while you don't always know the solution to a problem, you usually know how the solution is shaped. Like, you can almost see the various parts of the problem, and the hole left by the thing that would solve them. Once you find something?
No. I can often see what the end result should look like, but figuring out how I get from A to K is not my strong suit. If I can't just make the leap, then I start at A and move confidently in a direction that I'm pretty sure leads to C and assume that B will emerge in the process.
24) You've always loved group work. Even when you wind up being the one doing most of it.
For some reason, you're more able to do things when people are around. You're easily distracted, sure, but suddenly it's like you have the ability to /do/ the work that's missing when solo.
I have very mixed feelings about group work. I enjoy it when I'm the leader and am invested in the project. Or when I'm a minion and have a clear role. But I don't enjoy consensus building and I did resent doing most of the work, or being held to the standard of the other individuals back in school. I do appreciate having company while I'm working--it's one of the things I miss most about working in an office.
25) You can't understand why people say that putting together IKEA furniture is hard.
It's... obvious? The instructions are clear? Everything just obviously makes sense?
I don't find it particularly challenging, but I generally leave it to the many other people in my life who enjoy it more and have more patience with the process.
26) You interrupt people, a lot. Or so they tell you. It seems like you're only talking when they pause, but it turns out they weren't done.
Yes. Some of this is cultural. Some of it is misogyny. Nevertheless, I'm working on it.
27) If someone says something wrong at the beginning of a thought, conversation, argument - you can't proceed past that. You need to correct or agree on that before you can move on to the next thing that follows from that. If they make you just sit and listen? You're lost.
I do get hung up on things like this sometimes. I recall a sermon in which the preacher was talking about "ambivalence" when what he meant was "indifference". I have no idea what else he had to say on the topic.
28) You were a gifted kid who never lived up to their potential, and now you have depression. At uni, all of a sudden things weren't smooth anymore. It's like everyone else had tools you didn't have.
You let work pile up to finish in a heap, like you always do. Then didn't.
Everything until the work piling up. That never happened, but I did hit other walls for reasons that probably included undiagnosed depression at the time.
29) You doodle, draw, fidget, jiggle your leg, play with your pen, whatever, while listening. Otherwise you get too distracted. When someone's talking to you, you can listen better if you're not making eye contact. If you're staring over their shoulder, or have your eyes closed.
Yes. I actually like Zoom because I don't have to control these behaviors as much.
30) You close your eyes so you can listen better.
No. I have to have my glasses on, or I can't hear you.
31) Conversations work best for you when there's a constant back and forward. No one person is talking for too long, and errors or confusion are addressed in the moment when they happened. You have to regularly re-state the main point or goal of a convo to get back on track.
Yes, those are the best conversations. Other forms are also possible and even enjoyable, but my best friends are the ones who communicate this way. "So the rabbi..."
32) You start a new game, or new book, or new hobby, or whatever, and it's an all-consuming thought. You go to work, and you NEED to get home to do it. No guarantee you'll actually do so when you get home, because of your energy, or something else drawing your attention.
The last bit is not the case for me. Making myself not read an oh-wow book straight through is an effort. I'm not a multi-episode binge-watcher, but when I find a show I love, I want to watch an episode every day. When I'm really engaged with a project, it's the only thing I want to do and I resent things that keep me from it. So yes, some of this.
33) How easy/hard it is to do something depends on how it’s asked for. Someone just explaining their day to you drags on forever, but saying “I really need to vent about my day, could you listen for a bit? Don’t need feedback, except on one thing at the end” frees up your brain.
No--if the person is someone I care about and a good storyteller, then I love to simply hear about their day.
34) When they do that, the TASK is clear – whereas if you’re not primed, you’re spending the whole other conversation trying to find either
A) something that is interesting or
B) an actionable request.
You get distracted by listening, and then you can't listen.
This makes me think of some relationships I have/had, where it is now clear to me that this was happening on their end. Mostly I think my way of holding conversations is powerful enough that over time they either leave, or get used to it and come to enjoy it. But if you're not willing to come along for the ride, then you do not want to get in this vehicle.
35) You have an "addictive personality." You drink too much soda or coffee. Strangely, it never seems to make you more awake, just less of a zombie. Also never seems to keep you from falling asleep at night. As long as anxiety thoughts don't show up, you're out like a light.
Yup. All of this. I have my ruminative thinking under tight control and if I'm not asleep inside of seven minutes, then I am just not tired. This is very rare for me these days--I haven't had insomnia in about a decade and the quarantimes are exhausting.
36) Saying something out loud - examining it outside of your head - lets you problem-solve on it in weird ways. Often, when you'll ask someone else for help on something, just you describing the problem will make the solution obvious.
To paraphrase Flannery O'Connor: How can I know what I think till I hear what I say?
37) You're both very good at figuring out when someone is lying, and you somehow are trusting everyone to be telling the truth all the time. You take what people say, especially about themselves and how they think, as given. You're a good liar, and you hate that about yourself.
I don't hate myself. But I also don't think most people know themselves very well.
38) You can't understand why people will talk about movies like Inception as a mind fuck.
When people in sci-fi shows complain about temporal mechanics giving them a headache, it seems so cheesy. The threads are... obvious? You just... SEE them. There.
I don't really care about the mechanics of plot devices, so I rarely bother to unravel them (also having been too often disappointed when they fail to hang together). That said, I find that about the time I'm really loving a story, other people start complaining that it's "too complicated" and cancellation generally follows shortly thereafter. I think most of this is related to strong reading comprehension skills.
39) You've had someone tell you you can't have #ADHD, because you're too functional.
People ascribe a lot more functionality to me than is really warranted, but it's certainly true that I don't have ADHD.
40) The more steps a process has, the harder it is, particularly if you've gotta do different steps in order in different places. Tax stuff, the DMV, school paperwork - you LOVE filling out the paperwork, because it's like a puzzle, but the steps are exhausting.
I don't love the process. I would describe the forms more like a quiz where I know all the answers. NAME? Ooh, I got this one! DATE? I know that one, too! ADDRESS? I am rocking this! Plus, I'm very vain about my handwriting.
41) You've found yourself staring at a chore you need to do - let's say dishes - and knowing you need to do it, and telling yourself to do it, and somehow not being able to move your arms and legs. And then you just think about what a piece of shit you are for not doing it.
Well, yes. Get up, Trinity. I do not tend to beat myself up for it. Right now, I'm aware that one of the effects of the pandemic is executive dysfunction. But in general I find being gentle yet firm gets better results with myself.
42) You will set up rules for yourself - "I can't do [thing I like] until I do [chore]," and you follow it. But that doesn't actually motivate you to do the chore. So instead you waste time mindlessly playing a flash game or watching youtube, that you don't even want to do.
Sometimes. I am more likely to procrastinate by actually doing other useful things with much lower priority.
43) You don't get credit for things you're good at, because they came easily - you only deserve it if you had to work hard, after all. You don't get credit for things that are hard for you, because they're simple things everyone can do - you can't get credit for that, after all.
I tend to think I get way more credit than I deserve and try to spread that around as much as possible. I am aware of discounting the things that are easy for me (often through long practice) but I work to accept that I'm actually quite good at a number of things and deserve credit and compliments for them. I'm also aware that "bragging" is something that women are particularly discouraged from doing, so I keep an eye on that.
44) You can easily take praise like "this was very well done."
You have no idea how to process praise like "you are very good at this."
Your work can be complimented, not you.
Nah. You are welcome to tell me I'm awesome. I would really like you to also carefully notice my work.
45) You can fall asleep anywhere. In the car, at a desk, wherever. Except, often, for bed. Because there, your brain has nothing to process, and it starts devouring itself.
As noted above, I do have a tendency toward ruminative thinking, but I've learned how to manage that and I fall asleep quickly. Sometimes too quickly--I find transportation extremely soporific when I'm not the one in control and I can sleep quite comfortably sitting up.
46) A teacher has said these exact words about you:
"If [x] would just put half of the energy into the rest of their work as they do into the things that are interesting to them, they'd be my best student."
Nope. School was always well inside my capacity and I just did all the things and then made up other things to do. Boredom was a much bigger problem for me.
47) You can’t choose what you're interested in. Things that interest you are like gravity wells for your focus. The more interesting it is, the more energy it takes to pull away. Listening to something that isn’t interesting is literally exhausting, even if it’s a topic you like.
I would like to discuss the use of the word "interesting" with the person who wrote these questions. I think they use it to mean a few different things and possibly something different than I mean when I use it. That said...
I can generally choose what work I do, but I can't choose what I find interesting. I've done lots of boring work and tedious tasks that are part of more interesting work. That said, there are definitely topics that engage me and topics that my brain just slides right off. When we were renovating our house it turned out that I can look at thousands of different light fixtures quite happily, but when it comes to tile I max out around the seventh one. Fortunately, Jason was able to engage with tile and narrow down our choices to a set that I could grasp. If someone is a good storyteller, however, there are very few subjects that I can't generate enough interest to focus on.
48) Your ability to focus on things, be present, pay attention to social cues, or do work has an engine with a finite amount of gas. Listening to someone talk about their day takes the same reservoir of energy as taking part in a boring multi-step process. (Spoon Theory)
I'm not confident this person has really grasped Spoon Theory, but I'll try to focus on the question. (See, back to the problem with defining terms as a stumbling block.) Different tasks require different energies--accelerating, braking, and running the AC are all different systems--but there is only one engine. Listening to a friend talk about their day may be a relief from a boring multi-step process, but it can also take more energy than I've got after the earlier task--all depends on the task and the friend and the state of my spirit.
49) Speaking of which, your unopened mail. Once you open it, you’ll have to do something about it – until you open it, it’s not real. You can’t just throw it away, because it’s MAIL, it’s IMPORTANT, but you also don’t have the mental energy to DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, and it turns out the part of your brain that connects the will to do something to the motivation to do so (like a belt in an engine) just ISN’T FUCKING THERE. You don’t realize that it’s not there, because this is an easy thing that everyone can do.
This harks back to #17. I don't do unopened mail. And while I certainly resonate with the difficulty getting myself to do things--sometimes, some things--I don't resonate with the idea of "will" and "motivation" being separate. Do I think that it would be good if I deal with $THING? Yes. Do I wish that $THING would be dealt with and never darken my TO DO list again? Oh yes. Do I want to do $THING? Nope. Do I do $THING? It depends. A genial "that would be nice to have done" is not the will do it and I'm not clear that there's a meaningful difference between the will to do it and some effort in that direction.
50) You "do your best work on a deadline." You're drawn to competition, and get called over competitive. You find relationships with a lot of passion... and conflict. Because your brain turns Adrenaline into Dopamine. It's the only way you feel.
I have told myself that myth about deadlines in the past and sometimes it is true, simply because some work is certainly "best" compared with no work. I've mostly overcome that one at this point and recognized that I will be less stressed out if I get things at least well underway fairly far in advance. I am not at all drawn to competition--discovering collaborative games has made me much more interested in games in general and my preferred forms of exercise are walking or yoga. I am willing to endure conflict in a relationship when I have the sense that conflict yields progress and rather than subjugate my own needs, but my favorite relationships have very little conflict and no sense of competition.
51) Time isn't real.
In these quarantimes, time is soup and we are croutons. Last night I said "I remember that when that happened..." and my friend said "Yesterday. That was yesterday." That said, I do usually know what day it is and it is rare for my sense of time to be more than a few minutes off, when asked. I just have to think about it more than usual.
52) You have high energy, and say yes to a lot of interesting projects. And you've got the energy to do them! And it's great! And then you find yourself swamped, out of energy, with a dozen things to do and no spoons to do them. And you PROMISED yourself you wouldn't do this.
I have gotten a lot better about not doing this to myself over time. That said, it still happens that having made discrete commitments to different groups, they all decide to schedule things on the same day and then I have to scramble, delegate, juggle, and tapdance not to feel that I am letting anyone down. I *think* this is mostly not obvious to other people and that they value my learned ability to say no when I am not going to be able to commit to their projects.
53) You have no idea how to estimate how much time a task will take. You're constantly leaving late because you realized belatedly you needed to feed the cat, go back for your keys, start the dishwasher. You try to give yourself more buffers, but they never work.
No. I am very good at estimating timing and managing taskflow. This is another thing that has taken a hit this year, but I am still rarely late.
That said, I learned early on not to make myself dependent on people who are challenged in this way. If you show up late more than once to meet me, I will make plans to meet you at my house, so that I can continue my own work until you make it here. Or I will call you when I think you should be preparing to leave and make sure you're on the way. I very much respect people who acknowledge this issue and ask for help in the form of reminders, backup calls, etc. rather than simply leaving me to bear the brunt of it.
54) You have no idea what it would be like for your brain to be quiet or empty.
It's called "valium" and I have declined prescriptions for it based on this knowledge. I can also get there through meditation, but rarely do.
55) Time isn't real, redux:
Every single thing you've ever turned in has been started and finished last minute.
That was much more true for me in school. It has become less and less true over time, as I learned the joys of productive procrastination and the truth that whenever I start it, it will still be finished at the last minute.
56) You're terrible at code switching. You've only got one identity, yours, and MAYBE a good "out in public" mask. But you can't switch easily between appropriate behaviors for different groups.
Yeah, this is tough. I mostly avoid the problem by living in communities where the real me is welcome and valued. When I venture out of my bubble, I become aware, very quickly, of what a different planet I live on than many people seem to.
57) Right now, reading this, you've got TV or YouTube or a podcast on as background noise. You've also got one or two things you're doing in addition to reading this thread. It never seems to be too much. It seems to HELP you focus, weirdly.
Mostly no. I do like music or something like that on if I'm alone and not otherwise engaged in communication (e.g. reading, writing, watching, meeting) but I can't stand the tv as background noise and I am more and more able to create a single focus. That said, having a fan on while I sleep is very helpful.
58) Your desk space is built up vertically, so you can see everything. Shelves above your computer, or in easy reach. Anything that goes into a drawer stops existing forever, until you open it. Then you pick up each item in turn, re-acquaint yourself with the flood of memories.
I have a mix of this. I do keep open shelves and things that I like to look at above my computer. But I also have a lot of drawers and I mostly know what's in them, at least by category. Over the course of this year we've gone through the entire house--every drawer and cupboard and closet--to remind ourselves what's where, clear out things that we don't find useful or sentimental, and reorganize them. I enjoy that sense of knowing where everything is, so I don't have to have it all visible.
59) You may not be able to remember a thing on your own - but when someone asks you, you have the answer close at hand. Because them asking you is THEM operating the search function in your brain, which you don't really have control over.
This happens to me sometimes. The strangest part is that I often don't know WHY I think that's the answer--it's no longer connected to an experience, just free-floating information--but I'm often right. Brains are mysterious places. I do not look forward to more of this, but I suspect I should get used to it.
60) You don't feel GOOD when you finish a project. What you feel is the TEMPORARY ABSENCE OF PRESSURE. Relief, not joy.
I have to think more about this and pay attention. I definitely feel satisfaction and sometimes pride when I finish something, but there's always the next thing to do and I'm not sure I really feel joy in being done.
61) You can’t start on the paper, because it’s got too much mental inertia, and you can’t summon up the energy to do it. You CAN go over and fold your laundry, because that’s something you can get done with a clear start and end time, and you know all the steps of it. It’s procrastination, but maybe you’ll be able to roll the momentum from finishing the laundry into starting the paper. Instead, you probably do another chore after. Or just stare into space. Or eat. Or nap, and tell yourself that you can start it later.
Yup. On the one hand, the activation slope for the target task becomes steeper and steeper. On the other hand, I do get a lot of other things done while I'm waiting for the cogs of my motivational wheels to mysteriously click into place.
62) You have a mountain of half-completed projects, because you work until the focus gets pulled to something else. Wonderful ideas – AMAZING IDEAS – which, because you’re only accountable to you, are sitting piled somewhere waiting for you to come back to them.
This isn't quite how I would describe it--my mountain is made less of half-completed projects and more of ideas and half-STARTED projects, very few of which are tangible objects. (Have I mentioned that I'm not really into things per se?)
63) When you’re accountable to someone else, your AMAZING idea runs smack into the realities of deadlines and constraints, and it’s rare that you finish a project that is as grand as you imagined. You're always paring down, not building up.
Well, sure. The real world is a terrible place to build things, what with gravity and all. On the other hand, after years of experience with what's possible, I'm still impressed by what I do manage to accomplish and how beautiful it can be. This is phrased in a way I find depressing, but I do not find the translation from cloud to castle to be disappointing, even if the towers never reach quite as high.
64) You cannot start one thing while waiting for another. Don’t sit down to browse twitter in the extra five minutes you have before going to work – you’ll do it for a half hour, because it’s DESIGNED to be interesting. Avoid waiting wherever you can; you aim to be early instead.
This is definitely a problem for me.
65) CW: Self-Abuse
You’ve spent time and energy, the night before a thing is due, sobbing about what a piece of shit you are because you have no idea why, AGAIN, you let it slide for this long. You’re JUST lazy, you’re JUST stupid, you JUST didn’t do the right thing, AGAIN.
No. I have felt bad that I didn't get on top of the project in time, but this is not one of the things that I have ever really beaten myself up about and these days I do not allow myself that kind of negative self-talk about anything. I really resonate with the idea that if a friend spoke to me that way, they wouldn't be my friend any longer, and I try to be a good friend to myself.
66) You’re super susceptible to Thresholding; walking into a room (through a door) and forgetting why you came in.
Moreso through the "doorway" of the internet, but yes. I pick up my phone to check my calendar and I am distracted by notifications and next thing I know I've read Facebook for twenty minutes and put my phone down, only to realize that I never checked my calendar!
67) You also say yes to things because you are desperate for people to like you, to not reject you, because every time someone has chastised you for something you didn’t understand (talking too much, interrupting, etc) it has felt physically painful to you.
I am not desperate for people to like me any longer. I was, for a long time, and it led to some deeply unattractive behavior, but I finally realized that I sometimes don't like people and that's ok and it is ok for people to not like me. I have a lot of wonderful friends who do like me very much and that's enough.
That said, the episodes that have haunted my memory are largely times from childhood through early adulthood when my natural self-confidence and maturity led people to think I understood much more than I did and the humiliation and shame I felt when I got it wrong.
These days I've learned to be wrong, to apologize, to figure out how I can do better, and to move on. I learn a lot more that way than I ever did through shame.
68) You get chastised for trying to clarify instructions. Teachers, bosses, or parents accuse you of talking back, or “being smart,” or say “stop getting hung up on that, just listen.” Then you do what people tell you, but because their instructions were unclear you do it wrong.
I don't really have teachers, bosses, or parents these days. Thinking back, I did sometimes have this experience, but I don't know that it was a pattern.
70) Tasks need to have specific steps to take, which are actionable, and given with clear instructions. Once you start down a chain of steps for a multi-step task, you find it difficult to pause or move on to something else.
This is very much not me. Almost nothing I do is framed this neatly and I think I would find that level of structured tasks irritating and stifling. I tend to take on projects that have an end point, but with a lot of different moving parts and freedom to work on whichever part captures my attention or takes priority at the moment. I don't tend to break tasks down into steps--I just start working toward the end goal and the necessary parts of the project become clear along the way.
71) If your task at work is to “answer these e-mails,” and two of them require input from another person, you will have to struggle to “just save those for later” or leave the project half-done. You need to interrupt that person and get the answers now, THEN you can move on.
I get frustrated when I'm actually getting work done and that flow is interrupted by the need to wait for someone else's input, but my life involves so many external factors and interruptions that there are usually convenient pause points where I set things aside until the other person's response lifts that task back up the queue.
72) You have sobbed at least one of the following on the regular.
“That’s not what you said!”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Words mean things!”
“But that’s not what that means!”
“But that’s different!”
Well, yes. This harks all the way back to #3. Communication is hard.
One of the funniest (in retrospect) fights I've ever had came to a climax when the other person said "When you said it was important, I didn't think you meant that it was important TO YOU!" Um.
73) Someone “harmlessly” picking on you can absolutely fucking destroy you. Similarly, finding out you did something “wrong” or in a way that hurt or made more work for someone else is like physical pain.
These feel very different and not closely related to me. Teasing is obnoxious and unfunny. Don't say negative things to me--it's not joking, it's verbal violence with deniability.
Finding out that I did something that caused someone else pain takes my breath away. I hate to be the cause of pain in someone else.
Making more work for someone through my mistake or inattention is regrettable and I will happily apologize, learn from that, and sincerely offer to help in a different way. But to me this also falls in the "shit happens" bucket, not something that I internalize as a judgment on myself. Perhaps that's because this feels rare in my life--which then sounds arrogant to me.
74) Being shitty to someone on purpose is one thing; finding out you were *accidentally* shitty to someone is so, so much worse. It’s one of the ways that Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria manifests; think of it like “Social Anxiety but After the Fact.”
This is pretty rare and when I'm made aware of it, I address it pretty straightforwardly, I think. I have good intentions--sometimes those don't matter to the impact my words/actions have and I take responsibility for that, but it doesn't make me a shitty person, just a person who gets things wrong. The initial feeling is sinking shame, but I don't dwell there. It's worth noting that I can't remember the last time I was intentionally shitty to someone.
75) Having the trash can being inside a cabinet, with a lid you have to remove, adds extra steps, EACH OF WHICH IS A TASK WE MUST SEPERATELY MANAGE. A trash can in the open, with a foot pedal lid you can open while stepping up to the can, makes it ONE.
Nope. I like things to be "away" so they are not demanding my attention. Having drawers for our trash & recycling is one of the great joys of our house.
76) You're as bothered as me by the idea of this thread ending at 76 instead of 75.
I'd rather it ended at 80, that's a nice round number. I do have a preference for numbers that feel "neat".
78) You can easily do a chore *right now*. A one-step chore that someone asks you to do? Great! Done! Faster than they expect, even! But "hey, could you [xyz] while I'm out later?" Oh god, that is my nightmare.
If you're not going to do it with me, then I'd rather be asked to do something when it's convenient for me.
79) You are far more motivated by "this person wants this," or "this person will think better of me," or "this will help these people" than any kind of more tangible reward.
Definitely.
80) Your tastes cycle, and the drop-off is QUICK. You'll play minecraft every waking moment for [x] weeks, then you CAN'T open it again. Then it's Skyrim. Then it's Fallout. Then it's Flash games. Or maybe it's with genres of music, or styles of podcast.
I tend to stick with things remarkably long, actually. I eat the same thing for lunch almost every day. I play the same games for years. I add music, but I can't think of anything I've loved that I wouldn't enjoy hearing again today. My tastes evolve, but they don't change quickly.
81) You have a hard time processing injustice. Things just ARE right or wrong. Nuance absolutely still exists for you, but you have a super hard time going along with the lesser of two evils, or making "necessary" sacrifices.
I tend to see most issues as complex, with multiple perspectives, different potential solutions, etc. How to move forward is the goal. I tend to focus more on compassion than justice.
82) You are easily swept up in other peoples' moods. You can be riding high, and then hear the wrong piece of information, and then you're in a depressive state. It's not like it's happening for no reason; it's more that you don't have an anchor. You get blown every which way.
Varies for me, sometimes true, sometimes not true. I'm definitely more susceptible this year than usual.
I think the thing that I am noticing most is how young the questioner seems to me--a lot of my answers would have been very different thirty years ago. It's good to see the ways that the work I've done and the experiences I've survived have had impact and taught me how to be kinder to myself and others, to work more effectively, to build better relationships, to live the values I hold closely. And yet there is still work to do and this really points that s
I'd be intrigued to read some of your answers to these questions. Don't feel like you need to do the whole list--you could pick five that feel interesting. I confess that I haven't been reading DW much these days, so if you do these, please comment so I know to go look.
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Date: 2020-10-28 02:28 am (UTC)I love this sentence: "I do not find the translation from cloud to castle to be disappointing, even if the towers never reach quite as high."
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Date: 2020-11-20 09:30 pm (UTC)