ADHD Paralysis

adhd and trauma had a baby. It's me, I'm the baby.

I have a deeply rooted fear/disdain of technology (and a mile long list of other things.)

There, I said it.

I have *problems* with not being good at things I have arbitrarily assigned to myself and set into a box of Things You Should Be Good At.

That list includes-

deleting and/or categorizing emails (did you know that you can set up *something* that deletes emails instead of “archiving” them when you swipe left? I didn’t until 2 weeks ago and still haven’t managed to set this up. Exhibit A.

using a planner

updating/designing my website

referencing my calendar everyday

Learning how to use things like email lists, Zoom, Canva, literally anything that you can think of that involves technology, I’m not joking. #OkayBoomer

xxx

When I was a kid I was academically smart and/but held the trauma and chaos of both my mother and I and our lives and her mother and all my mother’s men and my father and my step-mother and her mother and and and

I was good with/at books, I was good with street smarts, but the “common sense” things that people seemingly just *get* have always been (mostly) lost on me. When Anaya watches me do things involving a computer I can see his face shift into horror, not judgement, as his own (autistic) brain is screaming Why Are You Making This Ten Times Harder Than It Needs To Be.

I wish I had an answer for him or myself, really. I don’t know why I do that, it’s just the way I know.

Adding things immediately into Quickbooks to make the 4+ sources of income a bit more streamlined? Who wouldn’t do that? Me.

Now I’m just showing all my cards.

I don’t remember passwords, I have 6 email addresses that have been used to create/login a gazillion different social media platforms, bank information, addresses etc

Somewhere along the way I have acquired double contacts for every single contact in my phone + everyone’s Facebook contact? Why tho?

I can teach my kids how to respond to cops, how to make spaghetti from scratch, how to fry an egg.

The best way to organize your life and brain so that it is actually helpful to how you function? I’m still learning myself- godspeed, kids.

Very unintentionally I make a lot of things harder than what they need to be. Is it my neurodivergence? Is it all the nonsense I have tried tirelessly to untether from that just clogs every pathway in my brain? Am I… dumb?

Context/TLDR:

I got a new phone last week (finally! my previous phone has been shattered on the back for a year! have you ever tried to make content for your job(s) with a barely functioning camera lens?) and I felt like a real grown up. Look at me! I’m doing the things that I need to do to help myself and therefore help my neurodivergent brain!

However, I got overwhelmed knowing that I would have to re-enter all my passwords and try to remember what name I used for what.¹

Was it my *maiden* name? My ex-husband’s last name? Did I use my given-first name (Sarah) or my middle name that I use everyday (Ava)?

Overwhelm to my ADHD brain looks like paralysis so I happily half-way set up my new phone, used both phones throughout the week (so convenient?!) and then tried to finish setting up the new phone so that we (Anaya) could send in the old phone (you know, the day before the “send before this date to avoid a $300 charge”)

TLDR x 2:

It didn’t work. My new phone was mad that I was still using my old phone. They weren’t talking to each other the way they should.

I can’t access my iCloud for 24 hours.

lol

It’s giving first world problems. The same ones that make me bang my head against the wall in an attempt to get my brain to understand that A. It Doesn’t Have To Be This Hard and B. The shame of feeling like these are my problems.

Except it does feel this hard and I do feel shame and if I’m being honest, I fucking hate it and it makes me feel like a child.

It’s a phone. I’m an adult. I should remember passwords and be able to reference my calendar everyday. The calendar that I do use because I do try to help myself.

Writing about trauma, motherhood, divorces, sex-work, substance misuse, STIs, poverty; the topics that are generally associated with vulnerability are all very much accessible to me.

Sharing what happens inside my brain when trying to do a thing that I am inherently not great at and therefore fumble hard? That feels like the ultimate exposure to me.

Titties on the internet? Cool.

Locked out of your iCloud? Paralysis.

What is this? A call for recommendations? A system? If I could pay someone, and I have when I could afford it, to take some of the back-end load off my plate in an effort to clear some brain space, I would. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here because I think I have given up on Quick Fixes and have softened around how my brain works instead of pushing against it so often. When I push too hard I feel inadequate. You know what makes it really hard to do sex-work, write, cook, R&D, bookkeeping, query agents, admin, be a wife/mom/community member/friend and and and?

Feeling small and/or inadequate.

One thing about me, and one thing I’m trying to build muscle around while being mindful of discerning the difference between Pushing Through Hard vs Hustling, is not becoming paralytic when I feel dumb/small/inadequate because when I am paralytic I am anything but creative which I need to be in order to literally wear any of the hats I wear besides Paralytic Potato.

Jesus. Christ. On. A. Cracker.

Fancy planners? Tried them.

Notes? I have 1000+ in my iCloud that I don’t currently have access to lol

Google docs that I only recently started categorizing and then actually using the folders for said categorizing? Yes/and.

I am medicated, yes, in case you were wondering.

I do this with other things, too. I can remember what I was wearing the day I found out I had a sister when I was 6. What I can’t always do is keep up in conversation about historical moments without getting quiet and having to let my brain do a slow come-up of remembrance. Do I even remember? Who doesn’t remember that?

Don’t get me started on what happens to my soft spots around parenting with ADHD. That’s been a draft-post for months (look! I’m doing an organize!) and I’ll get to it because, damn.

If you’re neurodivergent, I’m curious to hear what your I Am Inadequate triggers are. Even if you’re not neurodivergent, I still want to hear them. Hell, maybe I’ll compile a list of Shit That Unravels Us so that we can reference it together (you know, when I actually think to) and perhaps someone, one of us, will feel less alone.

xxx

You know what this post was originally slated to be?

Blueberries & Cream Cornmeal Tart.

You know what it’s not?

It’s not that because I don’t have the photo of said-tart because I don’t have my iCloud and you know what I can’t do if I can’t do it perfectly?

Anything.

So, there you have it.

I have really just let y’all have it and me over the last 7 days.

I don’t mind. In fact, I prefer it this way. It helps me feel like there’s no smoke & mirrors. I like to think I’ve made a concerted effort of honesty and truth over the years of various types of public-presence. Do I always show all my cards? Maybe not in the moment but eventually. I really can’t even think of any more cards to give you in this moment. Oh, I won’t parallel park if there’s someone behind me because of the anxiety it provokes. The idea that I have kept someone waiting. Walking into a room full of people I don’t know in a place I have never been? I have to talk myself out of gagging, no joke. I don’t write like an “academic” and struggle with proper punctuation, I over-use commas, and my grammar is a C+ at best. It makes me feel, you guessed it, dumb. I assure you it’s not for a lack of trying or caring.

There- a couple more cards.

Now you know just little bit more about what goes on in this already crowded brain space. I’m going to keep learning how to best support my brain and my heart and my body. I’m going to keep cord-cutting my penchant for perfectionism because it’s tired and if I’m being honest, fucking boring.

I’ll be back with that cornmeal tart, okay? That, and the low-lift summer menu that’s catered to people like me/us that live in capitalistic hellscape climate crisis and, like, no my garden will absolutely not have tomatoes come the first day of summer, okay? If yours will, I love that for you.

I’m serious about compiling that list so tell me if you’re up to it. You can leave a comment or email me or find me on Instagram/avarobinson_23.

Let me be a container of softness for you while I try to be a better one for myself.

Updates/Things That Don’t Suck

Evocative- the weekly/ongoing CNF workshop on Zoom at 11 am MST hosted by yours truly has been really wonderful so come if you like. It’s donation based (it’s free, for now) and built around people’s ability to drop in/out when they have time. Low impact.

My essay taken from the food-adjacent memoir I’m querying, The Facts of Your Body, in Hippocampus Magazine that I penned as a letter to my mom after receiving her autopsy last summer, a few weeks after her 10th death anniversary. I wasn’t expecting her autopsy, just her death certificate, and it is my favorite published piece to date.

My husband and his own affinity for softness for me when I am shit at it.

The fact that we’re going to Italy in 8 days.

Our kids unless Maddox is telling me that I’m no longer his best friend/best mom because I wouldn’t let him sustain solely on frozen yogurt sticks.

Our community.

This right here. I love this space and am grateful for all of you.

Biggest love,

AR/AT/SS/ST/SR (the list that just keeps listing)

1. Yes, I know that you can store passwords in my iPhone and somewhere along the way with what the three different names/email addresses that doesn’t happen seamlessly for whatever reason. I am <this close> to, what? Deleting my iCloud and just creating a new one in an effort to start from scratch?

I do love a fresh start.