TRUSTWORTHY TRUST
On trying to trust myself
Monday, June 24th, 2024
10:32 a.m. I’m helping to run a Foster writing workshop and we’re in a 20-minute free writing portion of the facilitation. I have a looming deadline this coming Saturday for this very piece you’re reading since it’s part of a quarterly series I publish along with
, , , Michael Mohr of , and . You might remember our series on fatherhood, recovery, and work. This week, we’re all wrestling with what trust means to us.I’m not trusting what wants to come through me in my writing. With a single-word prompt, there are countless directions I can take this piece. How can I be sure I’m picking the right one?
I’ve found that my writing flows more easily when I’m telling a specific story from my life and attempting to make it interesting for you to read. Hmm, although sometimes it’s a concept or structure that can get me going. Ohh, yeah, I read that great HOMEBOUND BOUND piece by
yesterday where he did this cool timeline-type thing. Maybe I’ll try something like that!12:35 p.m. I’m back at it. Instead of writing during the last two-ish hours, I:
Finished up the Foster workshop where I listened to a super-powerful reading of a draft-in-process by
that left me flooredWent to the bathroom
Read and archived some emails
Replied to a WhatsApp DM
Sent a reminder about tomorrow’s Foster workshop
Ate lunch
Chatted with my mom for a bit
Anyway, speaking of that piece from JG, I keep thinking about this Søren Kierkegaard quote he shared in it:
"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
JG goes on to explain what it means to him:
You can understand this line, as I do, with no other context about the rest of his thought. All it says is, as we face more freedom—more choice, more to decide, more paths to take in our lives—we also have more opportunities for misstep, failure, and catastrophe. These can not only doom our efforts, but destroy our very lives. Financial failure, prison, ostracization.
That’s beautiful. Perfect. I’d only add indecision to the end of it. Maybe that doesn’t sound as big or life-ruining as financial failure, prison, or ostracization. But indecision erodes my intuition, which erodes my conviction, which makes me trust myself less and less over time. It feels like one of those math equations where you can graph the output over time and the curve asymptotically approaches zero (in this case, zero trust) without ever actually getting there. That feels pretty life-ruining to me!
There are simply too many jams1.
None of us are equipped from an evolutionary standpoint to handle the amount of inputs flying our way in a given day. You don’t need to go back that many generations to a world in which humans lived a much simpler and essential existence. We all come from a long line of people who were mostly just trying to figure out how to survive each day.
Even TV shows are more complicated than they used to be. We have to hold a ton of different storylines and characters with all their backstories in our heads to follow what the hell is going on at any given moment. Gone are the days of relatively simple 30-minute episodes that had a clear beginning and ending. Most shows these days are designed to get you to binge and watch the very next episode immediately afterward.
We’re free to indulge in all of it. But that also means we’re setting ourselves up for feeling all of the anxiety-inducing fallout from it.
9:47 p.m. I read everything above this to my wife, Allison, earlier and she said, “I’m curious how you bring it back to trust.” And here I was thinking I was still on the topic of trust. It appears I’ve gotten distracted.
One thing’s for certain: I can trust my mind to go off track.
I originally thought this line below would be the opening sentence for this piece:
The tough thing about getting diagnosed with something later in life is that it makes you question everything that came before it.
It’s apropos now since the diagnosis was adult inattentive ADHD and it has clearly been affecting my writing process lately. Not to mention how it has been affecting my life more generally.
On the one hand, it’s helpful to have a diagnosis and to be working with a psychiatrist to hopefully find something that can help me manage my symptoms. I only just started a med a few weeks ago and I’m not totally sure if it’s doing the trick. It’s early on and still a work in progress.
On the other hand, the diagnosis has contributed to me reflecting and ruminating on the past.
I’ve had some a-ha moments. Like how when I was a kid I had an aptitude for math and I liked how working on a math problem led to a specific answer, whereas my English classes left things more open to interpretation—and my interpretation was often deemed wrong by my teachers. And yet, I failed high school geometry and had to retake it.
I’ve been thinking about how if I had known about the diagnosis earlier, I might be happier and have found more success in life.
But then I think, Is the ADHD thing real, though? Or am I just a product of the crazy connected world we live in where I’m maintaining dozens of parasocial relationships, keeping tabs on too much, my inbox is overflowing with emails and newsletters, and meanwhile, I’m desperately trying to stay present with my family?
I discovered that migraines are tied to ADHD. I certainly get those. The unpredictability of them has been frustrating over the years. I’m mostly able to treat them with as-needed meds, but that sucks. I thought they were stress-related. Maybe they’re not, though. Maybe they’re part of this diagnosis.
Or, am I being an amateur WebMD sleuth connecting dots that shouldn’t be? Y’know, correlation, not causation.
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Wednesday, June 26th, 2024
2:33 p.m. My schedule was nuts yesterday and I didn’t get any writing done, beyond a small bit I needed to do for work. I was supposed to write today during one of the Writing Circles I facilitate at Foster, which just ended three minutes ago, but instead I:
Ate lunch
Emailed a coaching client
Bought a hat online (lol)
Read and replied to some messages in Slack
Read and archived some emails
Even after all of that, in the 10 minutes before the end of the session, I was still clinging to my original intention and thought I could crank out a small cadre of coherent clauses. Welp, that didn’t happen and I’m struggling to remember exactly what I bounced around doing on my computer during that time. That 10 minutes of my life has completely disappeared into the void, like sending a tweet on a brand new Twitter account.
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Thursday, June 27th, 2024
9:10 a.m. Woke up with a pounding headache, but now it’s gone. I just started a new med today, so I’m feeling a mix of cautious optimism and trepidation. It feels strange to be taking a med since I always viewed myself as someone who’s well-adjusted and put together and not someone who needs anything like that to function properly. But, I’ve come to embrace that these things have helped millions of people and I’m not above that. I mean, the fact that they’ve helped millions of people is proof enough that they work on some level and I’m lucky to be alive at a time when I can potentially get some relief.
I think I’m feeling better today? I certainly have more energy right now. It’s day one, so we’re at the “N of 1” stage in the experiment, but it feels good to feel pretty good.
It’s tough to trust that my felt experience is real, though, because when I reflect on the past I wonder if I’d been running on faulty wiring all along. Would I trust a computer that’s riddled with bugs and viruses and desperately needs an upgrade? Probably not. Why trust myself then?
The idea of a possible ADHD diagnosis never occurred to me until I listened to a podcast episode Allison sent me back in April. We had been talking about how I frequently feel overwhelmed, behind on things, etc., so she thought of me when she heard it. It was an interview with Jaklin Levine-Pritzker, a woman who has ADHD and is an advocate and coach for others who have it too. She shared how she was diagnosed with ADHD later in life and recounted her day-to-day felt experience living with it. And A LOT of it resonated with my felt experience.
Oh shit, I’ve got to head out to a meeting across town. More on the podcast thing later today.
10:38 p.m. I originally thought I could get back to writing this piece earlier, but my day filled up with too many other priorities. I won’t bore you with a bullet-point list this time around. I will mention that procrastination and distraction—like, for example, buying a hat online instead of writing lol—weren’t involved, so that’s a win.
One of the things Jaklin mentioned on the podcast that struck me was how she has difficulty managing chunks of open time—specifically around knowing how long tasks will take and prioritizing them accordingly to fit into the open time. She described how she might have two hours free from calls or meetings in her workday and not know how best to fill the time with the things she needs to get done. She’ll spend the bulk of the time bouncing around nudging a handful of tasks along, but never quite finishing them. Then, invariably, she gets on a roll with one of them during the last 15 or so minutes of the two-hour time slot and she scrambles to get it done just before the time is up or she runs over and she’s late to her next thing.
I do that ALL THE DAMN TIME. Or, I should say, ALL THE DAMN TIME WHEN I HAVE A CHUNK OF TIME OPEN ON MY CALENDAR.
I’ve tried to-do lists, reminders, and various productivity tools, all to basically no avail. Sure, I have days that are better than others, where I’m able to prioritize things and get through them steadily, sometimes even with time to spare. But most of the time I find myself flitting from task to task to distraction to task to distraction, and then hurriedly getting something across the finish line right before a deadline or before I need to hop on a Zoom call or whatever. I mean, you just read that I did it when I was writing earlier today! This does not breed trust in one’s self!!
For my entire adult life, I’ve chalked my propensity for poor time management up to procrastination. I thought it was a character flaw of mine, and I’ve often been really hard on myself for it—y’know, negative self-talk, a frustrated, “C’mon Lyle,” some choice expletives, and the like. I never once thought it could be due to ADHD. The “H” in that acronym has always brought to mind the one kid in my kindergarten class who didn’t pay attention and ate paste. Not me. I’m a chill guy, for the most part, and have never thought of myself as the hyperactive type.
Despite my tendency to procrastinate, I’ve gotten (mostly) good at not being late for things because I spend a lot of my energy trying to not let other people down. It’s distinct from people pleasing. It’s more that I want to be viewed as reliable and dependable. Meanwhile, I frequently feel like I’ve let myself down, so it’s no wonder that I don’t always trust myself.
Speaking of letting myself down, I’ve recently been trying to head to bed by 11 p.m. at the latest, but this section took more time than I thought it would—surprise, surprise—and it’s 11:38 p.m. now. Thanks, ADHD! Ugh.
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Friday, June 28th, 2024
12:38 a.m. I’m having trouble winding down still and I just thought of another thing I learned about ADHD because I realized it happened last night. Folks who have ADHD also tend to lose track of time and can get into a hyper-focused mode when they’re doing something they’re interested in. I’ve been very into writing this piece this week. I was thinking about it while driving around town yesterday, considering where I might take it next, but also not wanting to plan it out too much because I wanted to trust what emerged in the moment.
I’m trying to trust the process, as it were, and let my creativity flow freely.
(I’m not sure I trust that this piece will read as a reflection on the trust prompt and might come across more like me grappling with ADHD, but I’m in too deep now, so I’m pressing on!)
It’s not all doom and gloom. There are some ways in which I trust myself. I’ll get to those later today because it’s after 1 a.m. and now I REALLY need to get some sleep.
5:13 p.m. I’m standing in line at CVS Pharmacy waiting to pick up a prescription for my daughter. There’s a woman ahead of me at the counter picking up her prescription and it’s taking awhile.
Lately I’ve been trying to resist the dopamine machine that’s in my pocket (i.e. my phone) in these types of situations and observe whatever’s going on around me instead.
She’s wearing a sundress yet she’s extremely pale and I wonder if in her case it should just be called a dress since she clearly doesn’t get much sun. I immediately feel guilty for having this thought. She seems like a nice enough person and I’m sure there’s a perfectly fine reason why her skin doesn’t seem like it gets enough melanin.
I look down below the countertop and scan the magazine covers. Huh, Drew Barrymore has a magazine now? I had no idea she was that popular. There are health-related titles: Men’s Health, Woman’s Health, and the like.
And then I see it.
What You Need To Know About ADHD
Wait, is ADHD a trend now? Am I falling for a memetic trap?
No, it doesn’t feel that way. It’s not like some fad diet or those big dumb cups that will be replaced by something else in a year.
This is a real thing that has had a material effect on my life. I shouldn’t feel ashamed about needing to treat it.
9:10 p.m. N has reached two now! That’s two promising, hopeful, joyful, glorious days in a row. Okay, glorious is overly dramatic. The point is that I felt more like myself today than I have since, well, yesterday. But before that, it had been quite a while.
It has felt like the clouds billowing up in my brain for decades have lifted and I can think more clearly2.
It’s like I took my brain to the Apple Genius Bar and the Genius3 ran some diagnostic tests on it and then they took it to the back room where they did who knows what and then after 20 minutes or so they brought it back and it was working not like new but definitely way better than it was when I brought it in and then I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a new one, although man, they do look pretty slick and shiny and new so I’m tempted but then I’d have to spend hours doing the whole syncing thing so I just thank the Genius and walk back to my car and listen to a podcast during my drive home.
And yet.
I wonder if this relief is temporary. I’m curious if my body will get accustomed to the med and it’ll eventually have diminishing returns.
But.
Not too long ago, those two sentences would’ve started with “I worry” and “I’m scared that.”
I feel more patient and ready to face whatever comes next. I feel more hopeful.
My body feels more trustworthy.
And I trust that my future will be brighter.
More from the Trust Series:
Out Of The Therapy Labyrinth by
Wayfinding and social adventure in Sardinia by
Trust (Part of a Series) by Michael Mohr of
If you liked this piece, you know what to do4.
Do a command-F or ctrl-F search for the word “jam” on this webpage to get this reference.
I forgot to mention earlier that cloudy thinking is another symptom of inattentive ADHD.
Yes, Apple calls their in-store tech-support people Geniuses, which I find hilarious. They even have some Genius job openings if you’re feeling like a Genius (and you need a new job).
Okay, if you don’t know what to do, I was trying to cleverly hint that it would be awesome if you could tap the heart button below because then I can see that you liked it and that makes both you and me feel good and I think it might also help other readers see it but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, please click the heart button if you enjoyed this one. Thank you!👇
Glad you're gaining some confidence in your body -- that's a key step forward at the end of the essay. I'm not questioning the diagnosis, but I wonder if some of these things exist on a spectrum, like autism? Maybe an ignorant question. I face a lot of the challenges you do, and I think everyone needs a strategy to fill random calendar slots with productivity. Mine tends to be setting timers and adding even mundane events to my calendar. I have two weekend days before a big trip West, and I have to block out time for garden chores, grocery shopping, packing, etc. Sometimes a to-do list on my desk or kitchen counter helps me cross things off. Or a list of Reminders on my phone. Without those things, I very easily while away free time.
I think another part of this is the felt urgency that comes with a deadline. Since Substack isn't our actual job, what's the rush? If I have a whole week to write a post, often it will take exactly that long. If I've been slammed all week and I need to set a timer for two hours to hammer it out, it will get done then. But these are self-imposed deadlines with pretty low stakes. When I was teaching, running a first-year seminar, chairing a committee, or chairing a department, there were pretty significant deadlines that had higher stakes. It's kind of like the principle that we apply to our writing: a reader won't feel compelled to keep reading if there isn't clear urgency to see what happens.
It takes a rare kind of person to be able to summon that kind of urgency all day every day, or for an unexpected block of time on the calendar, without a clear external consequence for *not* being more productive. I guess that's the question I have at the end of this windy post: do you think some of your struggles have to do with the fast that you don't experience much significant pain (other than vague guilt) if you're not more efficient? Would having a Sword of Damocles like that hanging over those open calendar blocks change anything? It would/it does for me.
Gotta admit, your unproductive writing breaks are a heck of a lot more productive than mine 😂 I've always chalked mine up to old-fashioned laziness... wish there was a med for that haha.
And, oof, are you right about that reflection on indecision. I suppose I didn't think of it partly because I'm earlier on in the journey of writing publicly—and one always imagines that things such as indecision will get easier as one gets further along. But it stands to reason that this threat never really does go away.
The trope of the one-hit-wonder writer/creative exists for a reason, I guess—you get your one big hit and then indecision cripples the road ahead from there, not least because of the challenging expectations the initial hit gave rise to. Success itself ironically then becomes one of the dangers of freedom, because it is a success that can't be so easily replayed.
Staying connected to the essence of the writing instead of the outcome is maybe the key. That's my best guess at the optimistic take, at least, haha. Turns out this approach is generally my solution to the laziness, too, to tie together these threads!