My vigilance post

[BeHereNow]

...Inspired by Greg!

 

As promised, I'm going to post when times are good and when I'm struggling.  I am currently facing an insane amount of pressure and now-or-never deadlines for grad school and my thesis.  I am out of time.  I have a huge deadline at the end of the month, which isn't really enough time, but it's do or die time.  I can't let all these years of hard work go to waste.  I need to get it together.

 

And even with this looming pressure, I'm still only making baby steps of progress.  I tell myself every day that I can do this, that I'm ready, etc.  But then I start self-sabotaging by either procrastinating or feeling like a fraud and a failure ("imposter syndrome")-- like I really can't do this after all.  And then I go do something else, or lay around in bed.

 

I don't want to discourage anyone new.  Getting clean from a chemical so toxic can only be a good thing.  That said, although it's getting better, I am STILL feeling lack of motivation, lack of inspiration, and the desire to depend on other chemicals like caffeine to get me going.  I am almost 3 years clean.  Sometimes I wonder if I permanently damaged myself psychologically with this stupid, stupid drug.   I wonder if I'm always going to have to contend with a mind that just isn't as sharp or flowing as it used to be.  If I'll have this paralyzing anxiety, depression, panic attacks, occasional agoraphobia, and probably the saddest part of all, the anhedonia.  The lack of ability to really feel and experience the beauty, pleasure and enjoyment of life-- activities, things, and people that used to be exciting, motivating, inherently interesting.  I'm scared I'll never again be as inspired as I once was, before I fell back into the adderall trap. 

 

Or is it because I am grieving?  I just started therapy for a major, traumatic loss within the past year., and had another loss the year before.   I wonder if that's part of it.  It's definitely part of the anxiety and depression.  But there's just something about the adderall.  I always have maintained hope that I would get better.  That I would feel and experience and think even better than ever.  But sometimes I wonder if adderall changed me forever, and although maybe I'm better than I was then, maybe I've recovered a lot, I'm still not where I want to be.   And I'm not sure if I can ever be there.

 

So, I've been feeling triggery lately.  I am posting to remind myself why I quit, and that relapse is NOT AN OPTION.

 

2012, my final year on adderall, was one of the worst, saddest, most depressing times in my life.  I was so depressed from abusing so much adderall for so long, I was "looking forward" to the "apocalypse."   I was severely depressed, a hundred times worse than I am now.  I was having massive panic attacks all the time, barely sleeping, living on smoothies and beer because I couldn't choke down any food, and taking way too much xanax and adderall.    I was habitually begging all my professors for incompletes in most of my classes because adderall had started undermining my work.  My thoughts got to be really disorganized and incoherent.  I could no longer just write an essay.    I would go off on tangents, I would get overly ambitious, I would get caught up in the details at the expense of the bigger picture.  Even if I felt that fake adderallspiration, even if I felt like I was doing something REALLY PROFOUND, my work was all over the place and didn't lead very far.  I would take craploads of adderall and sit there writing outlines obsessively, writing tangents obsessively, whittling down my word count obsessively because I had written over 50 pages of crap for ONE PAPER, or I would take the pills and sit there just feeling dumb and empty...hollow.  I was a zombie and I was NOT THINKING CLEARLY.  Or at all!  I was MISERABLE, living in a self-created HELLHOLE, and I'm seriously surprised I didn't die alone in my apartment of either an overdose or choking (I came to a point where I had trouble swallowing food, and almost choked a few times while forcing myself to eat on adderall.)

 

I was completely unable to enjoy ANYTHING in life.  And that feeling of anhedonia is only slowly going away, even now.  But it's getting better and I DO NOT want to ruin that!!!!  Life is way too short!

 

I am FINALLY finding little traces of inspiration and momentum, and these are GENUINE.  They are MINE.  MY THESIS IS MINE.  It is NOT and will NEVER be a product of Shire!!!!!!   I will NEVER have to question whether I wrote it or if adderall wrote it, because I WILL HAVE DONE IT MYSELF.   And in the process, I am learning how to focus, and write and overcome the resistance, and be productive even when it feels like pulling teeth.   I CAN DO THIS.  AND I WILL.  And Shire will not make a dime off of my project!!!!!!!

 

Okay, I'm going to take all this anxious energy and go follow my own anti-perfectionist motto: MAKE IT CRAPPY!!  REALLY REALLY CRAPPY!  I'm going to go write the crappiest thesis proposal this school has ever seen!  Because as they say, "the ratio of something to nothing is infinite."  I am going to go produce SOMETHING.  I AM READY AND I WILL OVERCOME EVERY HURDLE IN MY PATH.  NOBODY AND NOTHING CAN STOP ME.

 

 

[Zerokewl]

[Doge]

Thank you so much for sharing.  My experience with life sounds so much like what you described right now.

 

I think a huge part of your feelings stem from the fact that being in graduate school sucks.  There is no short term validation, it's all one big long grind that never feels like its getting any closer to completion.  Couple this with abusive/absent supervisors and barbaric administrations and its a recipe for depression and feeling like "you'll just never be good enough".

 

But grad school is just a means to an end.  Remember that.  Whatever it is that you are really good at, passionate about, you aren't doing that right now.  But when you are doing that, I think you will be much more motivated and naturally driven/excited.

[Cassie]

My motivation, confidence, and general badassery burst back hardcore in year 4, if that helps. Also, The War of Art is a gem of a book that kicked my ass into gear and got me out of self pity mode.