The last couple days I’ve finally been able to work on some of the big projects I care about and have wanted to do for months. But wanting to do all the things I want to do and having lots of ideas is painful, like before I got anxiety, ADHD treatment (which my doctor interpreted as being more of an anxiety thing) but also stopped doing the big things.
It’s so tempting to ignore the things I really want and go burry myself in a video game or something.
Two things.
A really great goal for meditation or just mental health in general is trying to be conscious of the pleasantness of having an idea and desiring to do it or even just having the desire to do something before you have attached any higher level executive functioning type of thoughts and rationalized that desire within a framework of events and logic. Just try to enjoy the feeling without rushing to attach things to it. WAYYY harder said than done of course :)
Second thing, prioritize getting high quality time burying yourself in video games or whatever else you go to hyperfocus on and shut out the outside world. Set an alarm, play the video game and make yourself forget about all those anxieties hanging in your head about what you should actually be doing right now. Lean into your ability to get lost in a thing and trust the alarm. I am realizing if I don’t do this I just feel always exhausted from a thirst for stimulation, and often people are unfortunately disgusted or repulsed when they perceive how much stimulation my ADHD actually needs for me to feel balanced enough to become functional and adult.
I find that everyone in my life will frequently start to be disgusted by how much I am focusing on one thing to the exclusion of all others but those outside perspectives don’t understand no matter how much they say exactly how much I need those long stretches of meditative pursuit of a single thing in order to be functional or even remotely happy. As someone with ADHD unless you are really lucky, you have to hide how much time you spend doing this or there are very real social consequences (again it really doesn’t matter what people say they accept, people won’t accept you for it unless they have a mind like you). One of the best ways to do that is to just ensure the stimulation you are getting is high quality, distilled stimulation that fits best into your life.
From another perspective setting an alarm and leaning into a favorite hyperfocus is a great way to slow down the feeling of a day sliding by, it helps counteract one the worst consequences of time blindness which is just a general feeling that you are never actually arriving anywhere but just chasing after things you are behind on.