Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: ambition

Overcoming my brain

I have come to the conclusion that I have a weird brain. Yes, that is my official diagnosis–a weird brain. I have read up on ADHD, and I think I may have some version of it. Some of the traits hit home and some don’t. One, the flitting from thing to thing like a magpie until one thing catches my interest. Then, I hone in on that with laserlike focus until I’m bored with it. that could be days, weeks, months, years.

Some of those things last a lifetime. Those are few and far between, but they are there. Writing is one. Taiji is another (especially weapons). FromSoft games is a third. My cat is another, but that’s more because I love him to bits. Even when he’s being a picky prick (at mealtimes).

Another thing is that I am much better at coming up with ideas than actually following through on them. I have a hard time motivating myself to do–well anything. Even something I like. K and  I used to joke that when we got together to go out, it was pure agony. Not the going out part, but the actually getting our shit together enough to meet. First, finding a date when we both  could meet was not easy. Then, actually getting the energy to leave my house was a problem. Our way of going out was that I would drive to her house and then she would drive us whenever we needed to be.

She would be not dressed when I got there. Not dressed to go out, I mean. She wasn’t naked or in her underwear; she just didn’t have her going-out clothes on. She would ask her husband to dress her (essentially) becasue he had impeccable taste. We would chat as she got ready, which could take up to a half hour. Then, we’d finally leave to go where we needed to be and have a great time.

I’ve read that time management is a big issue for those with ADHD. People have tried to describe how they would honestly decide to do ten ‘things I can do in 10’ minutes and not add up all the ten minutes. Then, they would be surprised when after the first thing, they had run out of time for the ‘just one more thing before I leave’ task.

I don’t have that, but I do have a problem that is related to time–I always, always, always worked to the back of a deadline. I have done a lot of editing for my mother, and I finally had to tell her that when she gave me a deadline, it had to be a concrete deadline. You see, before that, when she gave me a deadline, it was the absolute latest time she wanted it back.


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What to do with my life

Once when I was in my twenties, my mother was probing me about my life goals. Which, that’s a mother thing to do so I can’t blame her for it. At one point, though, she was exasperated at me and snapped, “Do you not want to work?” I, being stupid, took her at face value and said, “I would prefer not to.” The disappointment in her face and tone was heavy. She made it very obvious that she thought I was a failure for admitting that.

Story of my life, though. One of the things my last therapist said to me that turned on a lightbulb was after I was lamenting about all the ways I had failed my mother. I was very much aware of my mother’s checklist of things that her daughter should be. Skinny was at the top of that list (but not skinnier than she was because that made her jealous0.

Side Note: After I came home from the hospital, eating was difficult because my father could not understand my diet. I did not eat gluten or dairy. He and my mom would eat something with one or both of those and he would offer me some. I would decline, which should have been the end of it, but half the time my father would question why I didn’t accept it. He would say, “Don’t you want any?” Not in a nasty way, but in a puzzled tone. I would explain I couldn’t eat it, and  I could see that he didn’t understand. That was fine. Annoying, but fine. It was when he conflated my hospital experience with my diet that it got frustrating. He thought my doctors had put me on the diet and would ask when I would be off it. He couldn’t understand that I had been eating that way for several years, which, again, was fine in and of itself. It just got old after some time.

Anyway, my mother wanted a skinny, feminine, perfect clone of herself. She wanted a daughter who had a career, yes, but also was a mother of two children. Someone who went to church every Sunday and was heavily involved in the church life, and someone who did not swear.

What my recent health scare had done for me was make me see with brilliant clarity that my mother does not like me. I already knew she didn’t love me as a person (I will concede that she loves me, her ‘daughter’)., but it took me longer to realize that she doesn’t like me. At all. She likes nothing about me, in fact. Not that I do Taiji (she thought it would invite the devil to dance on my spine. Which is surprisingly poetic for her, but a bunch of horseshit) nor that I am a writer. The one short story she read from me elicited the only comment of ‘there’s a lot of swearing in it’ and nothing else. She doesn’t like that I’m fat, single/unmarried, and she most definitely does not like that I don’t have children.

She doesn’t like that I don’t have a regular job (which is fair), and she doesn’t like that I have a cat. She wishes I cared more about performative femininity, even though she has a complicated relationship with it herself. Yes, she wears makeup (has eyeliner tattooed on her lids), but she does not wear skirt/dresses much, and she is much more comfortable in pants. Plus, she plays sports. Or used to, anyway. She exercises every day, too.


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