Mood introspection
Dec. 10th, 2017 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's not escaped me that my previous post sounds a bit like "coming out of depression". For a long time I've wondered if I have a... specific brain Thing. But I've been really shy about thinking about it openly, partly because of being scared to realise it if I do, partly because I know many friends who experience severe problems[1], and I don't want to trivialise them by speculating that I might have a mild form of... something when the evidence is pretty ambivalent.
Ironically, feeling better has made writing that post trivial instead of a giant chore I didn't think I could ever force myself to do :)
I know brain Things often come in groups, so it wouldn't be surprising if there were several related things. Conversely, some things are very binary, you do or you don't, but other things are "everyone does this, but if you do it so much it's a problem for your life, then that's probably A Thing that needs to be fixed".
What could there be? Ill-informed speculation follows.
Depression? I definitely have some signs. Difficulty forcing myself to do things. General feelings of worthlessness, and lack of being excited about things.
ADHD? I drink... lots of caffeine, and it seems to help me sleep more than keep me awake. Until recently, successful projects were always ones I threw myself at 200%, any other time, if I was doing anything worthwhile, I'd usually switch to browsing the internet really quickly.
But OTOH didn't feel like I was *distracted* by the internet, more that, forcing myself to do anything which was achieving something, as soon as I started, I felt a massive pressure away from doing it. Even with things that were important to do, that was one simple step, I felt a massive pressure to... not do them.
My clearest description is something like "uber procrastination". Doing *anything*, even things I actively want to do, has usually involved finding it really hard to get started. Even every day things -- if I had all weekend to do something, it would TAKE all weekend to get started. Even if it was something I wanted to do. But some important things took for years, because I'd shy away, or start shaking, when I forced myself.
Like, it feels ridiculous to describe procrastination as a life problem. But it clearly WAS. It did any number of harms.
I eventually improved that a LOT, partly through breaking through some of the biggest barriers through trial and error and forcing myself to do those things (much much thanks to the people close to me who helped a lot and were patient when I couldn't understand or explain why things were difficult). And partly through slowly cultivating an awareness that if something seemed intimidating, if I roughed out how well I could probably do it, even if that wasn't really good enough, doing that was a reasonable win, and that made starting big tasks a lot easier.
But I still felt a lot of small scale procrastination, of "don't want to stand up and go to work", "don't want to do the thing today", mostly procrastination for its own sake, not because the task would be unpleasant.
My working theory is something like, bad habits were screwed up in my brain for various reasons, probably due to some unfortunate tendency in my brain that became self-reinforcing, and got so big there were a giant problem, and caused symptoms that happened to be similar to Official Brain Things for related reasons.
What are the reasons to think that I don't have a specific Underlying Brain Thing? Well, I'm really not sure. But for depression, it always sounds like, things can make you happy, but usually can't make you not depressed unless they specifically treat it. But if I manage to get, like, a week of surmountable problems, a bit of social company, some relaxation time, then my brain seems to start working ok. It's just that I've built up the problems so much I almost never did experience that.
For ADHD, it doesn't seem like I can't concentrate -- I seem to have a normal ability to remember things, to keep concentrating across distractions, to work on something boring but worthwhile for long periods of time. It's just anything with a deadline that I can't concentrate on.
I'm sorry for this massive introspection dump. Especially, I hope it isn't bad for anyone who does have Actual Brain Things. But I'm also interested, if my description makes more sense to anyone else than it does to me.
ETA: Oh, right. Anxiety. Or anxiety?
Ironically, feeling better has made writing that post trivial instead of a giant chore I didn't think I could ever force myself to do :)
I know brain Things often come in groups, so it wouldn't be surprising if there were several related things. Conversely, some things are very binary, you do or you don't, but other things are "everyone does this, but if you do it so much it's a problem for your life, then that's probably A Thing that needs to be fixed".
What could there be? Ill-informed speculation follows.
Depression? I definitely have some signs. Difficulty forcing myself to do things. General feelings of worthlessness, and lack of being excited about things.
ADHD? I drink... lots of caffeine, and it seems to help me sleep more than keep me awake. Until recently, successful projects were always ones I threw myself at 200%, any other time, if I was doing anything worthwhile, I'd usually switch to browsing the internet really quickly.
But OTOH didn't feel like I was *distracted* by the internet, more that, forcing myself to do anything which was achieving something, as soon as I started, I felt a massive pressure away from doing it. Even with things that were important to do, that was one simple step, I felt a massive pressure to... not do them.
My clearest description is something like "uber procrastination". Doing *anything*, even things I actively want to do, has usually involved finding it really hard to get started. Even every day things -- if I had all weekend to do something, it would TAKE all weekend to get started. Even if it was something I wanted to do. But some important things took for years, because I'd shy away, or start shaking, when I forced myself.
Like, it feels ridiculous to describe procrastination as a life problem. But it clearly WAS. It did any number of harms.
I eventually improved that a LOT, partly through breaking through some of the biggest barriers through trial and error and forcing myself to do those things (much much thanks to the people close to me who helped a lot and were patient when I couldn't understand or explain why things were difficult). And partly through slowly cultivating an awareness that if something seemed intimidating, if I roughed out how well I could probably do it, even if that wasn't really good enough, doing that was a reasonable win, and that made starting big tasks a lot easier.
But I still felt a lot of small scale procrastination, of "don't want to stand up and go to work", "don't want to do the thing today", mostly procrastination for its own sake, not because the task would be unpleasant.
My working theory is something like, bad habits were screwed up in my brain for various reasons, probably due to some unfortunate tendency in my brain that became self-reinforcing, and got so big there were a giant problem, and caused symptoms that happened to be similar to Official Brain Things for related reasons.
What are the reasons to think that I don't have a specific Underlying Brain Thing? Well, I'm really not sure. But for depression, it always sounds like, things can make you happy, but usually can't make you not depressed unless they specifically treat it. But if I manage to get, like, a week of surmountable problems, a bit of social company, some relaxation time, then my brain seems to start working ok. It's just that I've built up the problems so much I almost never did experience that.
For ADHD, it doesn't seem like I can't concentrate -- I seem to have a normal ability to remember things, to keep concentrating across distractions, to work on something boring but worthwhile for long periods of time. It's just anything with a deadline that I can't concentrate on.
I'm sorry for this massive introspection dump. Especially, I hope it isn't bad for anyone who does have Actual Brain Things. But I'm also interested, if my description makes more sense to anyone else than it does to me.
ETA: Oh, right. Anxiety. Or anxiety?