I find myself drowning in a sea of frustration. Entering back into academic spaces fills me with a potent dread. I am afraid of the parts of my mind that remind me why it is hard to exist as myself.
I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, or at least my therapist said so when I was roughly eleven. But it does fit the bill. Executive function is seemingly eternally out of reach, focus and motivation hard to come by, and impulsivity seems to be the only way in which I manage to generate any kind of action in my life.
It is debilitating.
At my current age of twenty six I have managed in my adult life to keep my head above water in spite of a lack of medication or rigid self imposed structure through mostly finding ways to accommodate my nature instead of fighting with it. When necessary, I will concoct ways in which to manipulate myself into function, provided that there is an urgent and digestible need to tackle. Still, the combination of my neurodivergence and the rather impressive lack of discipline are eternally obstacles as I attempt to survive in a capitalist society that is entirely based on rigid structures and deadlines.
But now, I am again a student. And not a full time grade school child who is immersed in somewhat immediate demands and external structure to promote some kind of function, but the kind of academia borne out of the hope of an aging young adult quickly realizing that their current shitty coffee shop job is not, in fact, a sustainable career. I’m attempting to ease myself back into school by attending an online class at a community college, and I am (absurdly enough considering how seemingly small this newfound responsibility is) d r o w n i n g.
Finding time and energy in an irregular schedule packed with the responsibility of a disproportionately draining full time job, fighting with my brain to focus and dedicate myself to tasks at hand or meeting deadlines, and object permanence issues cropping up due to the online nature of the course have all boiled into a perfect soup; simmered and stirred in such a way that reminds me how completely hostile life in our society feels to a person who operates like me.
I AM STRUGGLING SO MUCH. IT IS SO DUMB. OBJECTIVELY ALL OF THIS SHOULD NOT BE SO CHALLENGING. WTF.
Ok. Rant over.
Extraordinarily Ordinary 