I don't exactly know if there is an appropriate place for me to talk about...whatever this is. But a low readership blog seems like it might be a good place for honesty. This place is a rolodex of memory for me in a way, so maybe it's a good place for this:
Every once in a while things are clear. I’m not sure if that’s a statement that’s true to everyone, but it is for me. There are a lot of metaphors for how I feel most of the time. It’s either grown slowly, or it has always been there. but when *it* lifts, the world is so much…clearer I guess?
ADHD is one possibility. Some guy with a lot of Native American drums once diagnosed me. And some lady with bare walls once gave me medicine. I didn’t take it for long enough to know if it worked. It seemed to, near the end, vaguely. But I was on Summer vacation, and the school’s mental health clinic was closed to me at the time. So I ran out. And I guess the fog, if its there at all must have thickened up again.
That’s the problem with deciding if you have a problem like this. *If* I do, it’s been there the whole time. And without putting on metaphorical glasses, the world has always looked like this to me.
Here are a few metaphors for what this feels like:
-A battlefield of ideas where everyone wears the same uniform.
-A spider web, where my thoughts can progress and get caught along the way. The inertia slowing.
-A sandstorm
-A fog
-A whirlwind
The most apt one has always seemed to be a whirlwind. I’m at the center. All the ideas are circling at different speeds, knocking into each other. To focus on one I reach out and grasp at it. It’s moving so sometimes this takes more focus than others. The strength of the wind varies.
And now we come to clarity. Sometimes the wind dies. Dust lifted from the ground along with ideas and memories settle down. And I can organize them. Group them. I can see them. And what’s amazing is I can ignore them too. I can pick one up and just walk around with it, turn it over in my hands. But eventually and sometimes suddenly the wind picks up again.
I don’t know if this is just *life* or if this calm desert hardpan is what everyone else sees. Perhaps my ratios are just off. With more dust storms than most people. Maybe everyone has them, but they’re occasional annoyances.
So, if anyone reads this these days, what does your desert look like? Is it as tumultuous as mine? Or calm most of the time?
2 comments:
You're definitely not alone with the whirlwind of ideas. My strategy has just been to choose to harness them *all*. My experience has shown me that what I've had to eat and drink within the last 6 hours, who I've been around, where I am, and what resources I have available (monetary, physical, and social) very much dictate what aspects of the maelstrom I can harness at any given time.
The overwhelming part, when I finally have everything bridled, is that I can't effectively *explain* what this particular storm looks like: there's just *too much*. I can't calm the storm to let them see a passing cloud, and most people aren't willing to sit with me and tame the tempest to learn its temperament.
What you've described is something i've experienced my whole life, since i started school, or since i can remember. Its a challenge because even after you grab an idea that's been whirling around you, its still easy to lose it. it can slip away with a big gust of wind. I've come to the conclusion that its what the medical field call ADD or ADHD (is there really that big of a difference between the two?). I've compared my notes with those who have been diagnosed. Anyway, its incredibly frustrating when you need to concentrate and you just can't seem to will your mind to do it. Its helplessness.
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