Be the change you want to see.

Q: What prevents me from getting started?
Q: What are the obstacles and impediments?
Q: What are my goals?

I'm keeping myself accountable for this writing by way of a facebook post where I asked friends to say: write the thing! and give me a number between 1 and 9, labeling each writing prompt with a number in my ADHD journal.

Actually the goals part is the most difficult, so it's appropriate to use it for last.
shall I write about writing? or about this therapeutic process to address the impact of adhd in my life, now that I know something about that being a THING for me?

I think I'd prefer to write about the therapy process and unpack some ideas or thoughts or just basically ... well, hopefully do better than just word-vomit but I shan't make any promises tonight. I have 10 prompts I've culled from the group on monday and therapy with Lara yesterday.

Q1) What prevents me from getting started?
--- Interest. Now that nobody's making me do shit, now I'm not accountable to a boss, a schedule, a clientele (well not precisely) I mainly spend my days doing what I want with a few commitments per week, mostly self inflicted. There's stuff that I know I COULD be doing, even SHOULD be doing,
...and I don't. I don't do them.

I used to judge myself on that, but I don't. I used to tear myself up about that, but I don't. Thank god, I used to literally be my own worst enemy that way.

---Accountability. For reasons that I hope to be able to dig into later, accountability is huge in my motivational force. If I promise to someone I will do something, I will do it solely BECAUSE I SAID I WOULD and that seems to be sufficient. If someone asks me to do something, and it's pretty direct, like Jeff asks will I pull out that part of the garden full of aphids, and I say I will, that seems to be sufficient.

However. If I don't have some kind of outside accountability, I don't do things on any kind of coherent timeline. Which is maybe not always important, but like, it feels like it would be good to shower three times a week, but I can't always hit that. And sometimes that's the depression, but also that I don't get enough human f2f feedback to notice and then to feel embarrassed when I stink.

I've actually planned to chain the showering habit to the working out habit... but haven't been successful. I don't at the moment know how to force that.

Maybe I could find a depression/neurodivergent partner, who also has a not-daily habit they want to build, and we could encourage each other.

It seems that I am better about keeping other people on track than I am at keeping myself on track.
also I am better about staying on track if I have someone else helping me stay accountable.

The last writing prompt out of ten, is, why is it more effective to have Lara or anyone else, tell me what to do, than it is for ME to tell me what to do, in this accomplishing tasks.

1) The oldest part of my brain says because what I want doesn't matter. Because you're always supposed to put other people first, because you can't figure stuff out on your own. (interesting that I chose to use second-person there...hmmm) There's a LOT of old messages there, traceries of a former self. What my friend Chelsea recently called... something like spent seed pods, or carapaces, or used envelopes.

what I want DOES MATTER. I don't ALWAYS have to put other people first, I am ALLOWED to be first on my own priority list godsdammit! and I definitely CAN FIGURE STUFF OUT ON MY OWN but I do have old learned helplessness and my constant fight against distraction to get the stuff figured out, and then the steps sorted out, and then get the shit DONE.

2) when I was teaching about study skills (bear with me a moment, it will become relevant) I had the kids take a test which would help them figure out what their learning style was like. Howard Gardner had a theory of Multiple Intelligences, for which there are Varied tests, now available on the internet. (gosh that would have been much more easy and fun to do on the internet! but it was nearly fifteen years ago that I started that unit, & in an inner city school with limited computer resources.)

I suspect that I have a deep need for interpersonal learning. I'm only sometimes good at teaching myself new skills; I hunger for someone to see me and teach me. I love dance class and working with my trainer for that... but having a teacher teach me and walk me through the material, help me build skills? so much more satisfying than YouTubing my way through something new. (I bet Jeff has a strong intrapersonal learning drive. It would make so much sense.)

What are my goals?

• I want to feel productive, truly productive, every day.
  
• I want to help other people every day. (I can be the person helped, it's allowed. *smile*)
  
• I want to feel like my mind and my time are under my guidance and control.
  

That last item is going to require a new skills base, or a return to old skills (Flylady or Franklin-Covey 7 Habits territory), probably some new skills base. My needs are different now than when I first learned those, ages and ages ago. My mind is different.

Okay. that's enough for the first two prompts.

Thanks for listening, hopefully this isn't too much of a plate of scrambled spaghetti noodles for anyone but me to find benefit in.

Yesterday was a day for what Louisa May Alcott called, IIRC, "the black megrims" (aka depression)
which, I can't believe I remember that since it's been so long that I haven't read her stuff.

but I posted to Facebook,

Hey, y'all.
The Black Dog has me
tight in his jaws tonight.
prayers or good thoughts
or mental health spoons would be welcome.

and like, something like 80 people commented with encouragement?

I had dinner at the Thai place, wrote some self care stuff down, and also wrote down the obsessive thoughts to share with my therapist (who I'm seeing this afternoon).

After dinner, went for a long drive up 280. Got lost for about a minute because I had remembered there was somehow to turn around and go back south again at the junction for 92, wound up in a pull-out for a few minutes to let traffic clear so I could u-turn safely.

(note: the Prius headlights may need adjusting, field of vision when driving uphill is terrifyingly short)

and I came home, piled into bed, slept like the dead.

Didn't pile everything onto Jeff, which is good. Didn't drink to drunk, which is good. (had one beer with dinner, was tempted to drink to the point of stupid and resisted the temptation.)

I did good self care.

I can be proud of myself.

Came to realize today that working out meets my physical needs but also my depression needs, and my ADHD needs. It meets the depression needs by giving me the endorphins. I always feel better and more cheerful after workout. Meets the ADHD needs by providing structure. Working with a trainer helps give me much needed social time/interpersonal time, and because my trainer is how she is, she provides praise readily and she provides corrections so that I'm doing things right. I always feel calm after working with her because she always tells me what I need to do to make sure I'm doing it correctly, and she praises me when I do it right so there's emotional needs that get met in the course of a workout that I wasn't even realizing.

I'm so glad I can afford this investment in my health. I'm so damn glad.