Feeling My Brain Shut Down...

Ironically, I came here to write this post as a "sidetrack" to doing something else I was trying to concentrate on.

For some time, I have been wanting to write about the strange ways I sometimes "experience" my own brain chemistry in action. And then I found myself needing to concentrate on the tedium of processing a bunch of images for eBay items... and I could-- quite literally-- sense my brain chemistry starting to "do" things to interrupt my attempt to get some work done.

Perhaps much of this doesn't make any sense. After, what possible functional reason (from nature's side) could my brain have for wanting me to shut down?

And frankly? It sounds like so much mumbo-jumbo I wouldn't believe myself, were it not for many years spent learning a meditation and mindfulness practice... if I weren't able to sit back and "observe myself" when my moods and activity levels are in the process of changing, I also wouldn't be able to write these words.

So anyway...

I am sitting there getting ready to repeat the same PhotoShop procedure on some hundreds of photos, and I am well tuned in to the reality that "I need to just knock these out." And all is well, inside my head. And all is well, as I fly through the first ten minutes, or so.

And then "it" happens. This "thing" I have battled all my life.

I am now 15 minutes into the process... and it suddenly feels like I have not slept in six days! You know that feeling of having pulled four all-nighters in a row, while living on fast food and two hours of sleep a night? Yeah, that. I'm not "bored." I'm not "distracted." I just want to sleep. NOW!

In the space of about 5-10 minutes, I go from feeling fine, alert and ambitious to... well, I virtually couldn't keep my eyes open to save my life.

Now, I should add that I had a good night's sleep, and have felt rested and alert all day-- it is now close to 1:30pm. I didn't come to this process with "residual sleepiness" or fatigue that was just waiting to happen. I also do not suffer from narcolepsy-- I've already covered that ground many times.

This is something I will continue to study... but if you can relate, do let me hear from you-- leave a comment!

"Systems" are good, BUT...

Over the past few years, I have created myself a bunch of "systems" that seem to help me focus more and basically live as a somewhat "functioning human being."

That's of course a "good thing," on the greater scale of things, and I recognize that I have put so much effort into it because I really do not want to become "one of those people" who ends up living their lives functionally only as a result of taking a giant handful of medications and supplements every day. It's bad enough that I've had to accept that I will probably be taking blood pressure meds, for the remainder of my days. I am not sure why-- although my mother being a functional alcoholic might be partially to blame-- but I have always viewed the need for "chemical help" with considerable suspicion and loathing.

Part of that suspicion is also related to my general belief that our society tends to excessively "medicalize" perfectly normal parts of the spectrum of human experience.

"Oooh! He FELT something! Give him a pill..."

I really hate that crap. It's a cop-out, in my opinion. Now, I'm not suggesting that there aren't people who genuinely need medication to function, but I am saying that we tend to just "throw medicine at problems" rather than trying to actually discover and isolate their root causes... and then promote actual healing, rather than ongoing "treatment."

But I'm digressing. Because that's what I do, as a person with ADHD.

The point here was that I have created myself a bunch of "operating systems" (lists, timers, etc.) by which I stay some semblance of functional. However... as effective as those may be in keeping me on an even keel, I sometimes find myself wondering if the 30-45 minutes I now spend every morning "setting up for the day" are really worth it. Has the "system" I've created become more of an encumbrance (and a time-waster) than a help?

Ultimately, I don't think so. I feel helped by my increasingly spotless home office and my system of notes and schedules, and that bears out... in terms of what I can look at and say "I actually accomplished that" at the end of the day. However, it's important that I remain mindful of my tendency to eternally "fine tune" and create "subsystems of subsystems" when all that's really needed is an overall framework.

Mindfulness is essential, when you live with ADHD... because there are "tempting distractions" around every corner; even those "corners" actively designed to help.

Cleaning my Desk so I can Do my Work

It is a new month.

So often, I find myself immobilized by the fact that I don't know where to start on the eternal "pile of things" that follows me around... and so, instead of actually starting on something, I "zone out" by deciding that I "can't DO anything" until I have cleaned my desk.

Where to begin has always been an issue for me. It was an issue when I was a kid and had homework in five classes, it's an issue now that I'm an adult with multiple irons in the fire.

I was seldom overwhelmed by the actual work needed to be done for my five classes... I was overwhelmed by figuring out my order of operations.

The irony of that is that I am a really excellent organizer. If you need me to figure out your event using CPM or something else, so you can get everything done on time, and in order... I can do it. Of course, planning your event is a "theory." Figuring out how to get started on my own stuff is the reality involving where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

Much of the time-- when I feel stuck-- I "busy myself" with reorganizing all the "notes to myself" about what I need to get done in the next week, month, year.

It's difficult to simply choose one note, and start work... because what if I missed something more important, that should have been done first?

A lot of needless "wheel spinning" results.

It was my birthday, a couple of days ago. My lovely wife gave me a framed picture of her (she was out of town for the actual day), and I decided I wanted to keep it on my desk...

... which necessitated cleaning off my desk...

... which reminded me that I needed to file a bunch of stuff...

... which reminded me that I had been meaning to design a better "filing system" for certain parts of work...

... which reminded me I needed to move some "other files" from my office to combine with the "better filing system...

... which inspired me to "do it properly" rather than just toss it all in a box "for later."

All I was trying to do was put my wife's picture on my desk. Seven hours later, the photo was on my desk where I wanted it... and I had started a new filing system for my web work (which is great, btw!), a new (better) way to organize my writing ideas, a new (better!) way to keep track of "ongoing projects" for a couple of my web businesses, and my desk actually was a better work space.

However, I didn't get any actual work done.

It made me pause and ponder... and I realized just how much of my life has been spent "getting ready to work" rather than "actually working." I'm sure I have lost untold thousands of hours in that distractionary space.

For years and years, I attributed this simply to "bad time management" and "being a slacker," but the more I learn, the more it seems like a significant part can be traced to how my brain works... and how it seems so incapable of holding onto a thought. "Slackers" typically slack because they want to... for me, there's not that much of a "wanting to" element... I'd much rather be "engaged" in things, but it always feels like I am paddling upstream against a very swift current.

The Issue of ADD and Taking On Too Much

I've previously talked about this thing I call "Too Many Interests Syndrome."

It seems like it might not be as "bad" if only I was able to take all those interests, hold the trains of thought, and then carry out the ideas to their natural conclusions. In fact-- in some fantasy world-- I think that would make me a marvelous, interesting and stunning human being with lots of interests.

Alas... not how it works. Having "too many interests" seems to do little more than set up a breeding ground for eternal sidetracking.

This morning, I was looking at my pile of loose "to-do notes" and trying to sort them. And the thing is... I have eight "categories" of things I feel like I would like to get done, today. I don't merely have "40 things" on my overall list, all clustered around one common theme (which is what I imagine neurotypical people do)... oh no, I have odd bits and pieces clustered around eight different "themes."

So even if I were a "focused" person, I'd still be "wandering all over the place" in order to keep up with what I find interesting... even if there were NO sidetracks involved. And just looking at the eight piles gives rise to a little anxiety, because I am acutely aware that I will be "wasting" time, trying to get my brain to switch from one "group" to another... it's that "losing my place" thing, again.

Anyway, it all makes me ponder whether "too many interests" is the common theme among those living with ADD/ADHD. In other words... we don't even start with "simple" minds; we start with something already complex (and potentially cluttered) and then derive ADD from there.

The irony is that there is actually a certain "compulsiveness" involved here... almost like I am a "hoarder" of ideas and concepts. I say "irony" because I actually love simplicity. There are few things I like more than having a day where there is "nothing to do." Unlike many, that would not make me all antsy and bored. And that's perhaps one of the "weirdnesses" of my life that made me question whether it was even ADD that was affecting me. After all... I once went and spent two weeks at my aunt's summerhouse in Denmark-- where there (literally!) was "nothing to do" but sit in a lawn chair and read. And with all the distractions of life absent? That's precisely what I did... and quite happily.

It may sound completely implausible (and like a lie) but I am actually a BIG fan of "voluntary simplicity" and it's one of my aspirations in life. I'm just failing miserably at it...

What's the point?

Sometimes it feels like I actually create the "distractions" in order to scatter myself all over the place to "pursue" them. It's almost like a "cart before the horse" issue-- I'm ADD because I take on too much. The issue isn't "ADD" but "taking on too much."

There's probably no scientific validity to this line of thinking.... but just putting it out there.

Referrer Spam is an Annoying Diversion

Maybe it's just part and parcel of the modern Internet that it is filled with idiots trying to find ways to get "money for nothing."

When you keep a blog, you also get to see your visitor logs. That can be kind of cool, because looking at statistics for page views and where people are visiting from is interesting to me... I like to know what posts resonate with people.

What is extremely annoying is this pervasive "referrer spam" everyone seemingly has to deal with.

What IS it?

In short lay terms: "fake traffic."

"Fake" visits that show up on your visitor logs... usually with a link back to some web site that's probably going to either put malware on your computer, or pitch you some stupid irrelevant product that should never have been created, in the first place.

In the past week, I have had "hundreds" of visits from a web site that sells some kind of diet plan, another that's about "how to pick up hot chicks," one about how to "successfully date women," and one that masks some kind of anti-spyware app, disguised as a "blog directory."

This post, of course, has nothing to do with Attention Deficit Disorder... except maybe for the fact that I am even "getting sidetracked" into writing this, in the first place.

This post is just an experiment, for my own edification. I'm expecting it to become the most read post on the site, because it contains all these phrases that lure all these "nuisance sites." Which is basically proof of just how stupid they are...

Anyway, if you have a blog or web site and see stuff like this... don't EVER click on any of the links, and don't stoop to even using the names of the sites. Because that's precisely what they want you to do. If you write "what is >> insert link to mystery web site <<?" you just gave them a free link. But of course, you got NOTHING.

I'm a highly sensitive person or HSP... and an INFJ by Myers Briggs... both of which make me an idealist. And ideally, I like to believe I can help make a small difference in containing this kind of crap behavior, by publicizing the truth about it.

Vignette: The Fly in my Room

There's a fly in my room.

I expect it got here because we've had mice in the crawlspace above my office, and something died up there.

I realize that my annoyance with the fly's presence isn't what most people's might be, namely "It's a gross disease carrying creature-- ewwww!"

When I see the fly, out of the corner of my eye, it annoys me because it represents "another moving data point" in my existence-- another "thing" to watch, and to pull me away from what I was doing.

So now... I must stop what I am doing and get the fly.

There are layers, at times.

I broke off writing an article, when I saw the fly... and realized that I wanted to add these words about how I experienced the fly, in my space. Now I am breaking off these words, so I can go deal with the fly.

Sometimes... it gets hard to get off the "branches" and back to the main tree...