On Medication
Everyone else is out there digging with shovels all day, because that’s what we do around here. When I say “with shovels,” I mean, so far as you can see most of them actually have shovels FOR HANDS, like moles, hardened hands and claws just going at it. Sure, some people don’t, so they have to actually pick up shovels to use, and you know that’s valid. It’s a tool. You won’t judge.
But you’ve always been so good at things naturally. Like, okay fine, you accepted glasses because you needed them to drive and seeing things is nice and they look smart on you, but you’ve always been really good at most things. And the allergies REALLY became a problem, so you do take allergy meds now. Headaches, whatever. You can deal with them on your own (though you DO complain). Because you don’t NEED tools.
So you’re out there digging by hand. Now, you’ve noticed that when you dig by hand, it’s a lot slower, but that’s okay. You work hard, train, and really just put absolutely everything into it, because you know you’re a high-achieving person, and that’s what high-achieving people do. The others with shovels aren’t working THAT hard, so you are able to mostly keep up, even if you collapse afterwards. You’re a bad person if you don’t work hard.
Some days you really can’t keep up no matter how hard you work, and then depression sets in. But after a day or two, anxiety pushes you out of it and you get back to mostly keeping up.
At one point you ask someone about the idea of holding a shovel, and they narrow their eyes at you. “I mean, you know that using a shovel can give you blisters, right?” You look down at your bruised and bloodied hands. Wow, you really don’t want blisters on top of all this. You get back to digging.
Another time you ask about the shovel again. “You know,” someone says, “sometimes people — even people with shovel hands — get addicted to holding shovels. You don’t want that.” That’s true. You don’t want to get addicted to something that might be bad for you. You look down at your bruised and bloodied hands and get back to digging.
Eventually you find someone else without shovel hands and ask them. “Yeah,” they said, “I tried using a shovel once. It worked, but it was pretty expensive, and I’ve found other ways to cope.” You hide your bruised and bloodied hands. You want to be like them. You’ll find other ways to cope too.
After three decades of this — exhausted and struggling — you look at that shovel leaning against the wall in your garage. You feel really guilty about this, kinda like a bad person even. Obviously you’re faking. You’re not being true to yourself. You’re being lazy. You’re betraying who you were. As far as you know, the highest achievers don’t use shovels… not that you can actually tell the difference from here between the shovel-handers and shovel-holders.
So you try using the shovel. There’s nothing dramatically different about the digging you do, but you get your digging done at the same time as everyone else, AND you still have energy at the end of the day. Your hands aren’t as bruised, and you’re not as depressed.
So you start to finally internalize the sentence you’ve accepted about other people but never yet really allowed to apply to yourself: If your body doesn’t naturally make something you need, store-bought is fine.
[October is ADHD Awareness Month, but this applies to plenty of other things too.]
[After every article, I’ll supply a not-necessarily related musical pairing. Your music video for today is “Plasticities” by Andrew Bird. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwC0u0Yb3Zw]
