Today, I had to do something that, for reasons passing my understanding (not really, I just don’t like the underlying psychological reasons involved), was causing me to shut down. It was not hard. I was simply sending an email. I had been told “no” though and that sent my nervous system into shut down mode because being told “no” obviously meant that I had done something wrong and stupid and unreasonable and could not be trusted to ask for anything else ever again. (None of these things are true, I am aware of that, but good luck getting my brain to accept it.)

Additionally, I’ve reestablished my tech blocks because I had a rare moment of clarity on…Monday? I think? And remembered that I don’t actually enjoy spending all my free time on Reddit or playing Sims. I like Sims, it’s fun, my little legacy family is cute, but spending all day on it for weeks at a time just makes me feel bad about myself. I have the ability to block the program on my computer, I have the ability to block Reddit on my phone and tablet, there’s no reason I have to continue to allow them to run my life.

The first days of reestablishing my blocks are always hard, though. I get bored and twitchy and my ADHD brain very much does not like the sudden lack of stimulation. I notice the things that trigger my anxiety and stress more because I don’t have a ready distraction, which means my mental health gets worse before it gets better. After a week or two I reach a more stable baseline again and can work better with my analogue tools and CBT+DBT, but that week or two is rough and I don’t always get through it without returning to what’s comfortable. So it’s not at all surprising that when I woke up today feeling under-rested (I got maybe five hours of sleep), overwhelmed, and generally cranky my first instinct was to say fuck it and disable the blocks.

I happened to be at my desk instead of in front of my tablet, though, and that meant I had the pocket journal I had planned to finish months ago already out in front of me. It didn’t take much writing before I got to my frustration over the seeming inability to do uncomfortable things and my desire to prove that I can, in fact, stick with things when they’re difficult or uncomfortable, which then led to wondering when I stopped believe that of myself because I don’t remember it being a problem when I was a child, or even really into my teens.

Unsurprisingly, I decided this is my father’s fault XD It’s as good a reason as any, and that man’s voice is what usually pops into my head when I feel like I can’t accomplish or finish things (specifically, him telling a third party in front of me that the reason he didn’t want me to take the CHSPE was that it would teach me to quit), so it’s really not an unreasonable assumption. I’d guess a fair bit of it is also the undiagnosed ADHD childhood experience of being constantly told I never finished what I started, probably exacerbated by not being able to finish at London Met or cosmetology school and having to change majors when I finally did manage to get my degree. There were valid extenuating circumstances for all of those, but I suspect a part of me does still believe that should have been able to get past them anyway.

Regardless, I blame my father for a large portion of it. If nothing else, the man is definitely responsible for a large amount of trauma and the greatest portion of the decline in my mental state after about 15. And that then turned into why in the world I am still allowing this man to have that much control over my life. It has been over 20 years since I last saw him, close to twenty since I last spoke to him. He should not still have this much of an influence on me.

So I decided to prove him wrong. I can do hard things, I can deal with discomfort, I am capable of finishing things and putting in the hard work and doing what needs done.

I sent my email, kept my blocks, and celebrated the win…to stick it to my asshole of a father who haven’t seen in a couple of decades XD

Whatever works, right?