Can't Stop, Won't Stop

but like, really need to stop. Seriously. Stop.

I promised myself this summer, at the lowest point I’d hit in years, that I would pause everything going forward and focus on my health. I wouldn’t take on any new art or illustration projects. I’d shelve my novel-in-progress. I would drastically reduce my (already barely existent?) socializing, and would refrain from the current social norm of signing my kids up for every enrichment activity that could possibly fit in their schedules. I was just going to be, to breathe. I was going to heal.

Anyone want to take a guess at how that’s working out for me?

I kid. I’m honestly doing an ok job, I think? I’ve worked really hard at pacing myself and asked my family for lots of help. Many days I feel fine with putting aside my work goals. Many days I can’t help but feel fine, because just taking care of my body and my children is literally all I can do.

But lately I’ve been getting a little…antsy. There’s so much my sweet, well-meaning, gold retriever ADHD brain wants me to do. Open a bookstore! Clean out the kids’ drawers! Apply for a residency! Go back to school!

My brain hasn’t gotten the memo that my body can’t do any of these things*. I mean, it probably got it, but then chewed it up and melm-ed it out as a soggy pile of pulp, rolled on it’s back in it for a while, then asked me why I wasn’t volunteering to run an after school club at the library or start a Girl Scout troop.

I know this is something that everyone deals with. We all have to decide what’s worth our time and energy, and sometimes we have to say no to things even when we really want to do them. But knowing this doesn’t make it easier for me to tell my kid that I can’t coach soccer this year, and that no, no matter what this new doctor does for me, I won’t be able to run again.

There’s this part in the Bell Jar where Esther, the main character, describes sitting in a fig tree, picturing each ripe fig as a potential future for herself, and watching them wither and rot because she’s unable to decide which to pursue and which to leave behind*. Being sick is kind of like that, only choice paralysis isn’t rotting the fruit—you are. Your body. And every day, every Big Idea, is a new, unattainable figgy loss to grieve.

In case you can’t tell, which you probably can’t, I over did it yesterday. I had multiple appointments, walked farther than I have in weeks, took one of my kids out to dinner, and did a new/old exercise at PT that I knew was too hard but goddammit, I just wanted it to work. Because if I didn’t wake up this morning feeling like someone stuck an icepick in between my shoulder blades, and oh hey, behind my right eye, too, then it might mean that someday I’d be able to grab one of those figs before they shriveled up and dropped off. Which I know by now, I know, is not how this works. Increases in activity need to be sloooooooow. Calculated. Measured. You don’t get a fig by Doing All the Things.

And yet this is the opposite of what we’ve always been told, isn’t it? Work harder! Do more! Hustle, and you will achieve! Those pathways don’t shut down overnight. I don’t know if, for an ADHD brain, they shut down at all. I’m trying to figure out how to gently reroute them, and it’s very, very hard.

Meanwhile, I take meditation breaks. I take anti-anxiety medication. I watch Bluey with my kids. And I remind myself that dried figs are fucking delicious.

Are you chronically ill? How do you manage the schism between your body and mind? Have you rerouted some pathways? Share your secrets! Please!

*I can probably clean out the kids drawers eventually. While wearing neck and shoulder braces. One drawer at a time.

*Fun fact: I wrote about this scene in my college admissions essay. I can’t remember how I spun it so as not to be horribly depressing, but I guess I must have, because I got in? I mean, it was the 90s. Totally possible no one even read it.