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I am still figuring out what my new years resolution should be. After all, I am writing this only 2 hours into the new year. Many people love talking about how new years resolutions don't work, and I think part of that is due to having an unhelpful expectation. A resolution is a good motivator to start your year, and ought to help you get your year off with intentionality. I know how hard it is to keep a single mind throughout an entire rotation around the sun. That being said, I do think that it is reasonable to come up with a goal to start my year off, and I would like to tackle my character flaws. We all have em, right? For me, I have noticed two things that trouble me.
(1) I avoid conflict so much that I struggle to stand up for myself. This doesn't mean that I am getting bullied or anything, but what it does mean is that when I sense something is wrong, I will keep my mouth shut. This is problematic for many reasons. Imagine if you learned that a friend hurt someone else, or if another person opened up and told you something that made you uncomfortable. Confronting it by simply making your displeasure known can cause conflict. I find this hard. If someone feels safe telling me things, who am I to shame them in a moment of vulnerability? Who am I to assume I know the whole story? I keep my mouth shut in most cases, but there are exceptions where I should speak up. So I committ to asserting boundaries while also continuing with my compassion. "I understand where you are coming from, and I get that things are hard right now, but you can not treat other people like this. Do you know how badly that must have affected them?" Just as an example.
(2) I eat too much. For those who don't know me, I am not overweight or anything of the sort, nor do I have an eating disorder. I just crave food often, and I end up over eating to the point of getting heartburn on a daily basis. I want to eat better so that I don't need to use medication to regulate these symptoms. I plan on doing this by combining mindfulness skills with my cravings so that I can notice them, but mindfully deny fulfilling the craving. On days I can't take it, I can eat a light snack like a banana or yogurt.
Those are my new years resolutions. I tried to keep the goal specific while outlining scenarios and steps I can take to make sure this goal is measurable, and attainable. It isn't just something vague like "be happier." The best goals are specific, like "I will ride my bike once a day" and such. What will your new years resolution be?
For those who don't know, I am a bird watcher, and my most sought bird is the Blue Jay. There is irony in this because the Blue Jay is one of the most common bird species in North America, and I have seen significantly less common species (Like the California Condor). And last night I dreamt about this
In the dream, I looked up and I saw a Blue Jay sitting there, neon green, and standing out against the forest background. My first reaction seeing this bird was...disappointment. See, I have been bird watching for the last 2 years, and seeing this bird that I wanted for so long, and getting it so easily, without me putting in too much effort to find it felt...off. It felt like I hadn't fought hard enough to earn the Blue Jay on my lifelist. Then I woke up and realized it was a dream, and wished that I had seen it in person...oh well. Maybe I'll get there one day.
Thhey don't tell you when you are young that adulthood gets lonely. Not the kind of loneliness where you are isolated and have zero human interaction. I'm not referring to what was experienced during the pandamic. I am referring to being at dinner, surrounded by other people, and feeling alone in the universe. Sometimes there is a level of comfort with such an experience, because if there isn't anyone around, then no one can hurt you. But it also means that if it feels like no one is around, then you can't be seen.
I went outside today and went to dinner with some friends as well as some new folks I have only met on one other occassion. I would still go out with friends if I could get a do over of today, because it isn't like I didn't have moments of joy among it all, but there were moments that made me feel like I didn't belong. Everyone at the table will be talking about something that just doesn't engage my brain. For a while, I thought this made me socially inept, that I didn't know how to engage in certain conversations with others. For a while it made me question if I was on the autism spectrum since I didn't know how to talk to people. Spoiler alert, I am not on the autism spectrum, and as I would learn and continue to learn with experience, the autism spectrum is more than not knowing how to talk to people. After all, there are people out there that are neurotypical that don't know how to socialize. No, my explanation is my ADHD.
Think about it like this, which is more engaging for you:
a)listening to a conversation about movies
b)listening to a conversation about trigonomotry
Sometimes when I listen in on other peoples conversations, it sounds like trig to me, and my brain just can't engage enough to come up with a follow up question, or even a response. The former however illicits many entry ways into the conversation, whether its the new films of the year I have seen, or my personal favorite picks across my lifespan. The point is that maybe I'm not socially inept or bad at connecting with others, maybe certain conversations that offer the minimum social stimulation for the average person to engage with just don't do the same for me. If they were talking about birds, the story would have been different. Like, did you know that the bird with the longest wingspan is the Wandering Albatross? For being a bird-brained birdwatcher, even I didn't know that until today. Ya learn something new when you are open to it, I guess.
I know nowadays mental health is talked about a lot more. Some may interpret my story through the lens of male loneliness, others may see it through the lens of me growing up with the internet and not getting the right amount of socialization as a kid to understand human connection. And maybe none of these are mutually exclusive. Maybe it's a mix of them, but in my eyes, the way I am constructing the story is that sometimes I can feel alone, when the reality is just that my slippery ADHD brain isn't catching a foothold in an otherwise stimulating conversation for others, and I think it is important that we talk about ADHD in this way that normalizes the experience but also offers compassion for the hard parts of living with that kind of brain. Regardless, I got some work to do tomorrow so I am going to head to bed. Stay kind to yourselves everyone.
Do you ever just feel like modern life is...demoralizing? I was debating writing about this because I don't want every post on my blog to be tinged with pain and suffering, but also, I want my blog to be authentic, and today I am hurting a bit. I had a job interview today for a position I was feeling optomistic about, but then the interview itself filled me with such insecurity and anxiety over whether or not I am even in the right field
I mean, I am sitting there and doing my best to honestly answer the questions I am given, but I can't help but fear I am being judged the whole time. I am new to the work force, and it shows in how I answer many of the questions I am given, which already fills me with a sense of inferiority. It seems like many of life's experiences for me has done something to give me an inferiority complex, and sitting in an interview, being qualified for the position, but also not having the experience of someone who has been in the job for 20+ years just feels demoralizing. And that is after just one interview. I have a friend in a different field who has applied for work consistently for the last 2+ years and hasn't been able to find work because of how bad the economy is nowadays.
Who knows, maybe I did get the job. Regardless of the result, the process of going through interviews and trying to show your best face always feels like a losing battle. When you need an income, and a position is offering it to you, how can I present as showing you my best when I am so anxious about presenting a certain way so that I will have money to take care of myself and live my own life?
I recently had my 25th birthday and so I thought it would be worth exploring what I have accomplished and where I would like to go with my life moving forward. Let's start with what I am proud of.
I am proud of the relationship I have built with my boyfriend. I am proud of completing my education and getting my degree. I am proud of going to therapy a considerable portion of my life. I am proud of all the things I learned; about birds, about religion and the Bible, what anxiety feels like, as well as what self-harm and recovery looks like. I am proud of myself for not giving into any of the suicidal thoughts I have had over the years, no matter how fleeting, and I am especially proud of my deconstruction. I was handed a worldview that was birthed from a cult, and I am proud of myself for moving on and growing up.
I am proud of myself for all the things I have learned about myself, and the ways I have grown in my self-compassion. I am grateful for all the little memories I have made over the years, as well as the friends I have made and kept through it all. And finally, I am proud of myself for exploring my sexuality and learning about who I am on my own terms, without listening to other people's biases against me.
This all makes me see the trajectory of my life in a grander scheme, because I have essentially lived out the starting years of my life and have developed many tools (and problems) that can grow in the next 25 years, so where do I wanna be when I am 50?
I would like to move out from my parents house and get my own place with my boyfriend. I would like to see at least 200 more bird species, including the Bluejay, and maybe end up traveling to another continent to go bird watching. I would love to develop further in my career, ask for a raise at least once while actually getting it. I would also love it if I ended up vegetarian, like for real. Not just with where I am at now where I don't eat birds like chicken or turkey, but where I also avoid beefs and pork. I still want fish though~
I hope to make a habit of going to the gym frequently, after all...I will be 50 and probably need the exercise for my blood pressure and such. I think it is a realistic goal, as I only need an accountability partner to see it through, and I already stated that I wanted to end up living together with him. I'd like to explore my gender more, wearing more feminine clothes and really experimenting with my appearance when I enter my daddy era. I would also love it if I used the computer less and, when I look back on my 25-50s, see myself sitting down by a fire talking with my partner, or going for walks and having long conversations about movies. I would love that with him.
I would love to see the end of this aweful presidency, as well as this god-awful maga movement. I want it to just be a sad footnote, a memory that can't hurt me, and a history that won't repeat itself. Finally, I hope I can build a life for myself that would make 50 year old me look at 25 year old me with eyes of compassion and say "I can see your anxiety, if only you knew how everything would turn out, you would slow down and take each step in life with confidence and calm." That is the life I want for myself.
My boyfriend and I were watching a video where autistic people reacted to "Music", the movie Sia (the singer) made about autism that didn't land well with most people, particularly the autistic community. While watching, my partner (who is on the spectrum himself) stated he sometimes genuinely thinks that I am on the autism spectrum. While I view this as a compliment because it would mean my mind is more like his, he actually gave a good list of reasons for why he thinks so (outside of me being very invested in birds and birdwatching). That list of reasons is not the purpose of this post, but moreso about why I would even want to be a part of that community.
I say this with the utmost affection. I do think that it would be cool if I got formally diagnosed as being on the spectrum, rather than just having ADHD, and I think the appeal isn't that autism is some kind of trend that is cool to have, but that it would mean being a part of another community and getting to connect more with humanity. Community is a deep need of mine, especially given what I have written on here previously about my family. But I won't label myself as autistic, as I have not been formally diagnosed. I have been assessed before, and while it was a very lacking assessment by many metrics, it still had cause to point to anything "autistic" about me being explained by my ADHD.
I think a lot of people forget how similar ADHD and autism can present. While one has to do with regulating one's executive skills (focus, emotions, task completion), and the other has to do with a difference in social expression that is able to be seen on a neurological level rather than being a personality quirk, there are many similarities between the two. For one, special interests (autism) and hyperfixations (ADHD) can look the same, while having a different cause. A person stumbling in school could be due to autism or ADHD, and having unique strengths in varying areas of life can be equally explained by autism or ADHD, which is why trained clinicians diagnose this stuff, rather than TikTok's or strange intuition.
I know it is becoming somewhat of a trend nowadays to self-diagnose autism, which on one hand, I get because healthcare can be so out of reach, and it is not like these people are gaslighting themselves about their experience. They are noticing something, even if that something isn't officially named (neurodivergence or otherwise). But then on the other hand, autism can be difficult to diagnose for the average person who isn't trained to know what it looks like. Did you know autism looks radically different dependent on the person's age and their sex? What about how autism can overlap with gender-nonconformity, and even be diagnosed reliably before an individual is able to talk? This takes training and expertise I don't have so I will not label myself as autistic.
I do wonder though what it would be like to have another pride flag, to be a part of another community and instantly be able to connect with someone on a shared experience. Maybe this is why seemingly everyone desperately wants to self-diagnose themselves with autism, because we are looking for a community to help appease our loneliness...either that or I am just projecting.
I am a boomer's worst nightmare, and I say this not cuz I am queer, or that I oppose their outdated values of what it means to be human and not support predators like Donald Trump. No, I say this because they would have a field day talking about my ADHD. I hear this image a lot in the chronic pain community, the idea of you having only so many spoons in a single day. Let's say you have 3 spoons, and taking out the trash is one spoon, homework is another, and you have several other tasks to complete today, but you only have 3 spoons...so where are you going to focus your energy, knowing that you won't get as much done because of the pain. Sometimes I think the experience of ADHD is similar to that.
I am by no means stating that ADHD and chronic pain are the same, but I won't also invalidate myself or others by stating one is harder than the other. Each come with their difficulties and struggles. With ADHD though, I always thought of the inattention and hyperactivity as symptoms of how an ADHDer doesn't see life as essentially stimulating to the same degree as a neurotypical person. Think about that for a second. There is a level of stimulation that typing paperwork and taking out the trash have for a neurotypical person that helps them stay engaged enough in the task to do it, even if it isn't fun. For ADHD it is so much worse.
I am not just talking about homework and trashbins, but things as simple as cleaning a dish in the sink when you are done, or doing anything that isn't extremely stimulating like video games or movies. Some people confuse this behavior with depression, which often is comorbid with ADHD, but sometimes life just ain't stimulating and that can make functioning as an independent adult so hard.
I think about what my first impressions of ADHD were. I didn't see why ADHD would dignify the title of being considered a disability, or some hardship for a person to deal with, after all what is so distressing about losing focus and seeing the butterfly pass you by? But of course, ADHD is not this simple. People drop out of college for stuff like this. It can make accomplishing your day to day goals extremely difficult, and when I watch movies or hear what other adults can do in a day, it so often feels like they have many spoons, and I only have one. "Yeah, I just went grocery shopping earlier and then picked this up at another store before coming home and doing my taxes." What?!? Are you Superman? What kind of superpowers do neurotypical people have? It is no wonder these folks love taking Adderall to make them overpowered in college environments, whereas it just helps a person like me be able to complete basic tasks like turning in a paper on time.
I don't know where I want to end this post. I felt like writing about this because I have zero spoons today, and I promised myself that I would reposition the hummingbird feeder in the backyard, which should be easy but feels so difficult today. I hope that if you have ADHD that these words resonated with you and that you felt seen by them. Just remember that you aren't less, nor are you a lazy person, for having a different brain with different needs.