Category: Dev Notes

A place for more journal-style postings and behind-the-scenes. Generalized and informal.

Dev Notes: 4AM

theadhdtherapist

I figure that I should chronicle the process as well as the (eventual) success because the journey is every bit as important as the destination.

Who knows, maybe this will someday be the guide to some other enterprising individual, sleepless at 4AM, a stranglehold upon the existential terror of nonexistence.

Maybe it will also serve me, someday when I have moved far beyond this stage, to remember what it was like to be in it, drowning in it and dredged the agony of my own uncertainty.

The uncertainty of destiny. I say that ironically now. Perhaps I will mean it more literally someday.

You see, I am trying to start something big. Something that has me envisioning myself standing among the Greats, or at least feeling less inclined to grovel in their shadows.

Maybe I should call this section the Dev Notes. The parts where I am allowed to be unpolished and clueless and rambling. Human, instead of professional. Rough draft instead of print edition.

Right now, the steps all tumble together for me. I read blog after blog about how to get started, and maybe they’ve all done it enough to get the process down.

But is it so easy to overcome the terror? What does one do to counteract that tension in the soul, that dread of trying so hard and going nowhere?

Let’s think. Let me think. The trouble is that I think it should be easy, even when I know it is not. I wonder often where I would be if I were not me. If I were not my ADHD and my inconsistencies, deficits and fears. Maybe then I could truly “put my mind to something and succeed,” as they say.

Maybe I would not still be awake at 4AM.

The voice in my head says it has to be “perfect” in order to be presentable. It must have the right “wow” factor. It must be able to stun and please and inspire, right from the beginning. Maybe that has been the experience all my life, and it is playing out again: a classic tale of the child, unable to swim perfectly the first time he jumps into the water, who then refuses to try again.

What is my first step? My very first step: the one tiny thing that I can do that is surely of no consequence, and will never be noticed for better or worse?

If I want to do this: if I want to become a speaker and be hired to present like I dream of doing… Then I need to speak. I need to record, and I need to let my voice sing.

They will not hire me if they do not know how I can speak. The talent is there. I know it is there. I must simply be willing to show it off. The time for preparation is over. I have prepared enough.

It is time to be out there.

I just need to write.

theadhdtherapist

I just need to write. I just need to put words into my fingertips and let them drip down unfettered, helter-skelter, nonsense.

I must not be terrified by the size of the mountain or how large a shadow it casts; I must simply focus on taking the first step.

I remember that it will all be mush for now: terrible and self-conscious, inglorious and undignified. Raw and unprepared in its irredeemable insecurity.

But I must be brave. I must not worry about the edit and re-edit. Fear is my motivator, terror the nip at my heels that I need to spur me forward. Onward.

In truth, I pray for failure, because it will mean the safety of anonymity: no one to see my mistakes and deride my undeserving attempts.

No one will laugh. I know that no one will laugh.

And yet the longer I stall, the more I know the weight of the “what if” will chain me down.

So no more what if. No more edits. No more revisions or looking back or backing down.

I must only press “send.”

The Start of Something New

theadhdtherapist


“This is the start of something new.” 

It is a phrase that should fill me with wonder and excitement, but I admit that I am fearful, too. I find myself at a crossroads, and I must remind myself that I am not the only one: everyone falls. Everyone fails. At times, anyone could give their best, and find out that their best is not enough. 

On March 6, 2020, I resigned my job. It is more accurate to say that after months of honest effort to manage a caseload that had become greater and greater, with time restrictions that had grown more and more demanding… I was told that my best efforts were nonetheless unsuccessful at keeping up with the requirements of the position I held, and I was asked to step down. 

In the days since then, I have had the time and opportunity to listen to the way my mind speaks. Self-Talk, it is called, and in the haze of the everyday it is often quiet. I am grateful that I have had the luxury of silence on my side, to put a voice to the welling discomfort within my chest. 

“Maybe I’m just not good enough.” 

The phrases run through my mind on repeat. I know myself well enough to sense it when it begins to plague me, and it is not what my conscious mind believes. But unconsciously, it is the echo of a lifetime of little failures attributed to not my efforts nor my skills, but simply…because of who I am. 

I am inconsistent. I am found out. I am juggling so many things in my mind that I often cannot quiet it down. I am forgetful. I am inattentive to details. I don’t know what I’ve missed until I’m told I’ve missed it, and that often comes far too late. 

I do my best to change it around: to depersonalize the experience into a reframe is not so based in shame. It is an active process and an ongoing one. But it is a choice I make. 

To the voice that says, “I could have done more,” I tell myself, “I tried my best.” 

To the voice that says, “This always happens,” I tell myself, “I’ve learned more this time.  I understand myself better. Perhaps this had to happen to gain these experiences I will use for my future.” 

To the voice that says, “I am bad,” I tell myself, “no. That’s not it. The circumstances did not fit me, and I did not fit them. And sometimes, it’s okay to not belong to a place that does not belong to me.” 

Because the hardest part of failure is not the change. It is not the uncertainty of the future, and the worries of what unknowns it will bring.

The hardest part of failure is that part where it tries to confirm as true every terrible thing I’ve ever believed about me. 

In these times, I choose to speak to myself as a friend. I lean upon the encouragement of those who love me, and I hold their words against me like floating rings in an open sea. 

“I can do this.” “I am more than this moment in my life.” “It’s okay to be afraid.” “There is something better out there for me.” 

That’s it.

Moment by moment, day by day.

I will speak gently, and I will make it through.