Hush, Inward Squidward

The day after a wonderful experience tends to be not quite so wonderful. I slept fitfully. Woke with a headache. Excitement about writing remained, but specific ideas jumbled and slipped away before I could pin them down into a possible topic.

My problem is too many ideas all at once, but I often phrase it too myself that I don't have any idea of what to write.

So I guess I'll write about that today.

My brain contains multitudes. I always have one or more songs playing in my head. My mind's eye constantly roves over the landscape of ideas and possibilities, while simultaneously an inner critic questions the validity and worth of my every thought and action—past, present and future. Seeing so much at once can be fantastic. Making connections, seeing patterns. But more often it is simply paralyzing. I’m a creative perfectionist which means there’s always something out of place and chores undone while I hyperfocus on a new inspiration or rabbit trail.

The creative half of me loves it (whee!) while the critic is like an inward Squidward or that hornbill Zazu shouting, “Now see here!” The inner critic wants me to be as "normal" aka "neurotypical" as possible. It unforgivingly shames me for everything I do that falls short of that standard, with an order to "just try harder."

Day after day of trying harder, striving for an unachievable standard, feeling a failure but hoping no one noticed, that wears a person out. My self-talk over the past three years increasingly sounded like Eeyore regarding his tail:

“No matter. Most likely lose it again, anyway.”

I've had to fight against that chatter again today. What have I done by letting people know about my intention to write and post writing here? Set myself up for failure when I inevitably lose interest or motivation or self-discipline or succumb to ?

Hush, Inward Squidward! So what if I do fail to meet some imagined standard of writerliness?

I'm a writer, not because I post to a blog regularly or cultivate an online brand or get paid to write in any capacity. I'm a writer, not because I write the most eloquent enviable thought provoking prose.

No, I am a writer because God made me to be one. Throughout my whole life I wrote, stopped writing, started again. Throughout the rest of my life, I will write, stop writing, start again.

On a side note related to the felt need to appear as neurotypical as possible, some fresh outside perspectives have helped me shift my thinking on that.

Lately I've been reading posts from a group of women with ADHD on Twitter, eloquent articulate women like Rene Brooks (@blkgirllostkeys), Dani Donovan (@danidonovan), Erynn Brook (@erynnbrook), and Pina ADHD Alien (@ADHD_Alien).

Their threads, and especially the comments sections, have brought me a new level of self-understanding and therefore self-acceptance. (Sings to myself, "All I ever have to be, all I have to be, all I ever have to be .... is what He made me." —Amy Grant)

Pina's work in particular resonates with my experience. I encourage you to check it out.
http://adhd-alien.com/

I'm sure it will help you understand someone you love a little better. Maybe that person will be yourself.