Hello Dear Readers!
After a few months off and reflecting on what I'd like to do next with this blog, some answers have come to me. The next goal I am looking square in the face is overcoming what I call, "soporific ennui." More on what that means in a moment.
An ADHD friend of mine recently recommended the book, "Scattered" by Gabor Mate', and after reading many ADHD themed books, this is the one that has resonated the most for me. Why this is so will be answered in the next few essays.
Lets get to it:
One quote (amongst so many) that struck me as I read, Scattered is, “a powerful ennui and drowsiness would come over me whenever I opened [my mother’s] diary...It must have evoked painful emotions I was not prepared to re-experience on the conscious level” pg. 88-89. This powerful ennui and drowsiness feels like my everest; paying bills, working on music, planning long term (with short term goals in between), cleaning and so much more. What is ennui? From Merriam-Webster, “a lack of spirit, enthusiasm, or interest.” I would add disconnect. I cannot connect whatever present action I am doing to a future goal.
Another accurate descriptive word is soporific: “tending to induce drowsiness or sleep, also sedative, calmative, tranquilizer, narcotic, opiate.” Paradoxically another word that describes that space is, “wordless.” For someone who craves words and revels in narrative, it’s a funny place for me to be.
It is this space of abandon and vulnerability that I resist letting people see or enter into. I think because I haven’t figured out how to resist or avoid altogether this ennui. In that space I am worthless. I give up nor can I find the tools to get out of the space. Not only am I NOT solving the problem in front of me, I am totally wrapped up in keeping my brain on. How to explain that to people in the moment?
