#I'm gonna slam dunk it into the trashcan | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

some27-url · 2 years

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This one is for all my anxiety/adhd babies out there, diagnosed and undiagnosed.

One of the most frustrating things for me about my brain is that I can't get it to shut up when I'm trying to focus on something I want to do. Like write. Or spend time with my son. Or with my husband. Or do schoolwork. Etc. I almost always try to engage with one of these activities only to find myself running to do something different which I then abandon for something else, etc until I'm angry and have done nothing I actually wanted to do to a satisfying degree. Or I just find myself staring at the wall letting my thoughts run circles around each other without ever really coming to any sort of satisfying or helpful conclusion.

This is something I've viewed as a hopeless condition for a long time. I've seen it as a mindset that sometimes decides to take a hike, at which point I can actually focus on what I want to do for a precious few hours before I find myself running circles again. I saw this as one of the top three things I was hoping medicine would help with. (Thing one: being a more present driver. Thing two: Being a more attentive mother. Thing three: being able to sit down and do things I want to do when I want to do them.)

I'm still hopeful that medicine will be beneficial for me, and this is no way a slam on anyone who requires medication to function. Take your pills guys!!!

But I found a technique yesterday that has... fucking changed my life. Like I'm not being overdramatic I've seen results immediately. Even typing this.... I've gotten this far without being distracted by any of my "flying thoughts" at ALL because of this technique. That's almost fucking unheard of for me. Four fucking paragraphs? ZERO STARING AT THE WALL OR CHECKING MY PHONE?? Unbelievable.

Okay FIRST I'm gonna tell you the concept, then I'll tell you how I found it and provide you with the tool that has helped me.

The concept is that if you're trying to focus on something (LIKE READING! OMFG I HAVEN'T TRIED THIS WITH READING YET!!) you're trying to focus on something and then you realize that you've lost focus and are thinking about something other than the book in your hand, you first identify what the thought is. Are you thinking about something that maybe could happen some day? Are you thinking about that dog you saw on the side of the road earlier and whether or not it has a family to go home to? Are you thinking about your family and whether or not they're ok right now or if something disasterous has happened that you just aren't aware of yet?

Once you've identified the thought you assign it a label. For me it's helpful to have consistent categories. Planning/Scripting (it's almost always scripting for me, imaging conversations I might have with someone in a very particular scenario which may or may not ever happen) Ruminating, Catastrophizing, Judging (This one is interesting too because I found that a lot of my distracting thoughts are imagining what someone would think of what I was doing as I was doing it if they were somehow perceiving me in that moment. I'm calling that judging because I'm judging myself, which I hadn't fully realized until I started doing this.)

Once you've given your thought a label, you think to yourself "I'm _____ing right now." and then you SLAM DUNK THAT SHIT IN THE GARBAGE CAN. Let the thought GO and IMMEDIATELY go back to what you're doing. Don't file it away for later, don't worry about whether or not it will come back to you, just drop it.

When I was introduced to this concept yesterday I was like "yeah right what bullshit. If you're thinking thoughts you don't want to think you just stop thinking it?? As if it were that easy."

But there's something about stepping outside of the thought itself, identifying it and acknowledging what I'm doing that really has helped me let the thought go. Does it come back? Yes. and then I throw it away again. Do I sometimes throw it away and have it just pop back out of the trashcan and invade again? YES and I've found that letting it play out for just a few more seconds and then throwing it away again KEEPS it gone for longer.

I've edited a bunch of Hands in the Sand over the last day or so which is obviously a win... but I've also been less frustrated and irritable while playing with my son. For those who maybe don't have kids who maybe shied away from that sentence thinking it sounded harsh, here's a little breakdown for what I mean. My son is an excellent independent player. He likes to play with his toys without input from his caregiver. He also like to play WITH his caregiver. He bounces back and forth between these two states with whimsy, and that can be difficult for me because when he's playing without me my mind starts to wander, and then when he suddenly wants me to interact, my attention is still trying to drag me back to what I was thinking about before he asked for my input and attention. It's irritating. And it's not that HE is irritating.... he is just a catalyst. A catalyst who I love very much and who doesn't deserve to pick up on my frustration with the situation. Employing this technique has helped keep me PRESENT with him, even when he's across the room doing something else. This is also an issue of safety so we've got a win win here.

So I'm vouching for this method. If you think it might benefit you, I'm asking you to try it. I would like to say that I also found it helpful to incorporate a physical marker for when I'm chucking a thought. I flick my fingers when I'm throwing it away. I feel like this offers a sense of finality to the gesture. Does it look weird? Probably!!! but I'm choosing to be ok with that.

Now, as for how I learned about this technique. I was telling my therapist about how starting new job is always hard because I find myself thinking about the job in my downtime. I told her I keep thinking ATORVASTATIN ATORVASTATIN ATORVASTATIN and that I keep having little waking dreams where I'm searching for drugs on the shelves. She told me that this was normal and that my brain was just trying to create new neural pathways as I learned a new trade. She then asked me how I've been trying to clear those thoughts when they come up at inopportune times (like when I'm trying to write or sleep or spend time with my son) and I told her that I just try to busy my hands in some way. Been cleaning a lot.

She then asked if I'd considered not piling more on TOP of my thoughts but instead CLEARING my thoughts.

and I fucking sighed huge and rolled my eyes like an asshole and said "mediation??? UNNNNGGGGGHHHH I can't meditate that's impossible." (Yall see where Leo gets it?)

And that's why I didn't start this post by saying "hey guess what!! the key to hacking your adhd is to meditate! yeehaw!" because that sounds like bullshit. And honestly, it is sort of bullshit to just say that and leave it there. But the fact is that my therapist then referred me to a meditation app called "insight timer" and I told her I'd try it "if I remembered to" lol and then when it was naptime I did decide to try it. There are many different guided mediations on the app and I searched around for a bit before I found one called "Calm Your Busy Mind" by Andy Hobson. It's 9 minutes long. He tells you to do it in a seated position and I chose to do it reclined on the bed with my eyemask on and I called bullshit on what he was saying no less than 5 times in the first few minutes but then within the second half of the mediation... it was like a switch flipped. and after it was over I pulled out my laptop and opened a draft to edit and began flicking the thoughts away and...

And I really just have to recommend it. I feel like I need to write ol andy a thank you card or something. Did he cure my ADHD? no, I still have to flick off the thoughts and sometimes they are rather persistent... but I'm making more progress on things and feeling more fulfilled and just. <333

I know I'm acting crazy it's literally been a day.

If you try this let me know how it goes. I've done the mediation itself 3 times now and plan on continuing to do it once or twice a day for a while to see if I stick with the technique.

ok bye

#personal #adhd hack??

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