 Image by Piyapong Saydaung from Pixabay I wish I could explain it. It's not just mental or medical.
It's not just executive dysfunction. It’s not just being tired. It's an intense fatigue that consumes my entire body and mind. I have to fight to hold my head up. I want to cry, but I don't even have the energy to do that. Medicine doesn't help. Encouragement doesn't help. The only thing that can make me move is the NEED for survival - the external pressure and commitments. Even fear of judgment can't make me move. I couldn't even take my dog out last night. I'm racked with guilt any time this happens. I wish I could predict it. Over my lifetime, I've tried exercise, diet, cutting out alcohol and caffeine - None of it makes a difference. I'm not in pain. I'm not sick. Not really. I'm not always sleep-deprived. I feel like this invisible force - this monster no one can see - is holding me in place. It’s like those dreams where there’s a crisis, but I can't make my body move or my voice work. Except I’m awake. It ruins my life because it can't be seen, predicted, or described. From the outside looking in, I’m sure people think I’m lazy. I can do everything right, but this monster still haunts me. I can plan everything perfectly, and the invisible monster will come out of nowhere to incapacitate me and leave guilt and self-deprecation in its wake. Doctors tell me to do the same things I've tried for years. Friends and family can’t quite understand. The mental gymnastics and organizational tactics I employ hoping to mitigate the effects of the always looming “NEXT TIME” are never enough. It's not depression because I'm not sad. It's not apathy because I care. It's not anxiety paralysis because the anxiety doesn't come until after the monster has taken hold. It's an intense nothingness - a physical and mental black hole that I have to pretend to ignore for fear that things will fall apart worse than they already have. I don't know the reason and I don't know the solution. I just know that it is.
0 Comments
 (First published on Write Like Me on 9/7/15) Last week, I had a moment. It’s one that I haven’t experienced often, but it was significant anyway. I was sitting in front of my computer staring at a blank screen, and I just couldn’t make myself write. It wasn’t because of the dreaded “writer’s block.” I had ideas. I had lots of ideas. But I couldn’t manage to form the words to get them on the page. My eyes were drifting in and out of focus, and somehow the (rare) silence in the room was deafening. The only thing I could hear was the clock on the wall ominously ticking away the precious moments of nap time that I so desperately needed. I soon found myself staring out of the window to my right and watching a cardinal flit from tree to tree. Then I found myself refilling my stale cup of coffee and wandering out onto the back deck. I stood in silence for several minutes and breathed in the warm, humid air. It was too hot to be outside, but I couldn’t make myself sit at my laptop for another second. I sat down on the deck with my legs crossed and sipped my coffee as I watched the cardinal continue to hop on the branches and chirp to his heart’s content. Even though the cardinal is our state bird, it’s often possible to go months without seeing one. That is, unless you live at my house. This little guy makes an appearance every few days, and there is often a female that joins him. Today, it was business as usual. He was chirping, playing, enjoying the sunshine. He had nothing to do except anything he wanted. Then I realized what I had to do to get out of this writing funk: Stop writing. I know, I know. It’s the opposite of what I was trying to accomplish. Writer’s write. It’s what they do. But my brain was in serious need of a break. I can only do so much research, scribble so many notes, type so many words before everything starts to run together and the screen starts to morph into a weird gooey blob. If you’re anything like me, you might find it really easy to shut yourself up in a room and work on your craft, whatever it might be, for hours on end. I know I’ve constantly got something new in the works, something I need to be writing, something I’m excited to finish. But this makes it really easy to forget one of the basics of writing (or any art for that matter): Writers build their craft from life experience. At some point, they have to put down the pen or shut the laptop and go out and experience life. There are times when I need to stop seeing everything as an opportunity to write and just experience what’s happening around me. Like a mother taking pictures of her child is in danger of missing the moment in her attempt to capture it, writers often focus too much on the experience as it relates to the next piece rather than the experience itself. So, I stopped writing. It was just for the day, and then I was back to work feeling more refreshed with a slew of new ideas. Take some time to stop writing - maybe for just an hour, a day, or even a week. Do some yoga, go for a run, take a day trip with your family, visit a friend. Stop writing and take the time to drink in the world around you. If the experience is significant enough (or even simple enough), you will have the opportunity to write about it when the time is right.  Broken. Shattered. The glass… it shimmered in the fragments of light peeking through the blinds. The floor, scattered with broken pieces. One fragment – the size of her hand – fit so well – came to a point. A tempting, sharp point. It pressed perfectly against her wrist. A nearly straight, vertical slice. Everything wet… her jeans… her feet… drenched. Dark… peaceful… … she couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. The picture frame lay shattered. The face… smiling. Bright eyes twinkled at her lifeless form.  (First Published on "Focus on Yourself" on 6/13/15)
This morning, I decided to spend some time playing Play Dough with my almost two-year-old. As you can imagine, this activity requires a great deal of vigilance on my part to ensure that the Play Dough doesn’t become a permanent fixture in the surrounding carpet and furniture. So, I pull out the cheap, red vinyl tablecloth that I got at Wal-Mart for about five dollars, and my daughter squeals with delight. I spread it out on the floor, and she immediately falls down onto it and rolls around on it screeching, “Yay, Mommy! Yay!” I place the container holding the little jars of Play Dough, and she immediately grabs one and thrusts it at me. “Open geen, Mommy! Open!” “What’s the magic word?” I say. “Pweeeeeese!!” she says at a pitch that I’m sure will break all the windows in the house. She giggles with delight when I hand her the ball of soft, green dough. “Sanks, Mom!” And so we begin to play together. I make easily recognizable shapes or simple, small creations using my limited imagination, and she smashes them between her tiny fingers amidst fits of giggles and says, “More! More!” I show her how to roll the dough into balls, and then I chase them as she launches them across the room. “The Play Dough stays on the mat,” I tell her. “Otay, Mom!” At one point, my daughter picks up two different colors of dough and squishes them together. I feel my pulse race and my vision go blurry as I hear my Mom’s voice in my head saying, “Don’t mix the colors! It’s a waste of dough, and you’ll never get them apart again!” Then I noticed that as we have been playing, I have been very diligent about keeping the colors separate from one another. When I make a shape or create a brand new animal, it is out of all one color. Well that’s no fun, I thought to myself. My daughter is currently ecstatic over her multi-colored creation. “Dat’s so pretty, Mom!” she says. Yes, yes it is. So why haven’t I done this before? Suddenly, I’m back in my parents’ dining room sitting on the floor on a similar, but different, cheap, red tablecloth. My sister is making “pizza” while I’m cranking the arm of an incredibly creepy Play Dough dolly and making her hair grow in yellow, spaghetti-like strands. Then I hear my mom. “Don’t do that! You’re wasting the dough!” I look up to see my sister committing the unpardonable Play Dough sin: she had rolled green and red together to the point of no return. “But it looks like Christmas, Mom!” she says holding it up proudly. But the damage was done. They couldn’t be pulled apart. They couldn’t be salvaged and placed in their correct containers as individual colors. There was no turning back now. No going back to the way it used to be. The dough was forever changed. “You’re going to be really upset when you’ve smashed them all together so much that all you have is brown!” my mom says. “And then we won’t be able to buy you more. And put the lids on the ones you’re not using so they don’t dry out.” My sister shot my mom an annoyed look then made sure she slapped the proper lid back on the purple container. (How else would we know what color we were choosing when we played again?) I shook my head as if to say, You know better than that and returned to fitting a yellow Play Dough bow around the bottom of a yellow braid on the creepy doll whose plastic “hair” was already yellow. I didn’t know why it was so important that the colors not be mixed (other than that brown or gray Play Dough was supposedly an unholy abomination to Play Dough lovers everywhere). I just knew that mixing them upset my mom. Looking back now, I realize how bizarre it was that she was so adamant about Play Dough segregation (and yes, I am acutely aware of the racial symbolism to be found in this story, but that’s not where I’m going with this). Maybe it was because we lived well below the poverty level, and she was trying to preserve what little we had. Maybe she struggled with needing things to be a certain way (in fact, I know this was a struggle in many areas of her life). Or maybe her mom never let her mix Play Dough colors either. Whatever the reason, I was unaware that this was not a universal rule among all Play Dough enthusiasts until I saw others mixing colors. Even then, I stuck with my upbringing and kept mine separate. When I come back to present day and watch my little girl having the time of her life on a cheap mat with a few balls of dough, I realize something. I’m the mom now. I get to decide the Play Dough rules, and I won’t hear my mom’s exasperated sighs or scolding because “the red one dried out, and now we can’t get more!” So, I resolved to do the unthinkable. I took a green ball of dough in one hand and a white ball of dough in the other and rolled them together until they were entirely inseparable and formed a marble-like pattern. And you know what? No one made me stop playing. No one yelled. I didn’t fall through the floor into the fiery pits of Play Dough Hell, and the world didn’t spin off its axis or collapse into itself. Instead, I was praised for my work: “Oh! Dat’s so pretty, Mom! Bitty play? Mine?” I handed the swirly ball to my little one, and she exclaimed, “Oh wow!” and promptly squished it between her tiny fingers. I suddenly realized an element that had been missing in my rigid upbringing: Impulsivity. While it is true that it is the parents’ job to teach their children to control their impulses, completely stifling impulsivity can also stifle creativity and lead to anxiety over such trivial things as mixing colors of Play Dough. Give yourself permission to be impulsive. Stop conforming to an idea that someone has for you and your life. This is your life, your work time, your play time. Free yourself from your anxiety-inducing inhibitions and mix those colors with wild abandon. You will be a happier person for it.  (First Published on "Focus on Yourself" on 7/26/15) Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Have you ever watched it? If you have kids, you have. If you haven't seen it, count yourself lucky. All you need to know is that Mickey and his friends find themselves on a bunch of different adventures that require “tools” to complete - Mousketools, to be exact. These mousketools can range from a pair of scissors to an elephant in a bikini (I'm not kidding). If the characters find themselves in a pickle with a problem they don't know how to solve, they simply call out, "Oh, Toodles!" and a colorful Mickey Mouse head flies out of the trees, lake, sky, etc. to save the day. He ALWAYS has exactly what they need. They only need to choose the proper tool from the present arsenal. How convenient. To be honest, I'm a little jealous. What I wouldn't give to have access to a flying mouse-shaped head that gives me tools to complete any job. Out of laundry detergent? "Oh, Toodles!" Need new sheets on the bed? "Oh, Toodles!" Car broke down? "Oh, Toodles!" Lost baby's favorite pacifier? "Oh, Toodles!" You get the idea. Unfortunately, real life isn't equipped with such a thing (unless you count Amazon Prime, and I almost do). The last time my car broke down on the side of the road, I was forced to use my limited knowledge and resources to remedy the situation. Imagine my dismay when I realized that I had, in fact, NOT added roadside assistance to my insurance policy. "Oh, Toodles!" Oh, wait. I have to handle this shit myself. As I'm sure you can deduce, this story has a happy ending. Husband, toddler, and I are no longer stranded along the side of the road, and I'm not typing this from a dying smartphone and the depths of despair. I managed to contact the appropriate people who came to our rescue. The vehicle runs (most of the time), and my daughter is napping happily in her crib instead of under a tree on the side of the road. There may not be mousketools in the real world, but we have everything we need. When I started this post, I had planned to lament the fact that mouseketools would make life so much easier and that there are no quick fixes for our problems. While this is true, it’s also true that we are much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. It is amazing what we can do when our back is against the wall. When we are sure there is no other recourse, no other options for our rescue, we come through for ourselves. There is no need to wait around for someone else to rescue us from our problems. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, but you have to take action too. Your friends could be pushing your car out of a ditch, but if you’re not steering, you’ll just end up falling over the hill on the other side. You are stronger than you think. Challenge yourself. You may not have mouseketools, but you have everything you need to succeed. You were born with it. Trust me - it's there. |
AuthorI'm Deidre. I exist in organized chaos and occasionally write about it on the Internet. Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed