I HAVE RETURNED and why?

 Yet again I am coming back to you, oh reader and a half, from a long sabbatical.

Yes, I still live.

Allow me to break down my life into easily-digested pieces for you.

Since COVID-19 first closed the world down in March of 2020, my mind has gone haywire. You wouldn't necessarily know it if you just saw me or talked to me; it was in my coping mechanisms.

I have ADHD, a mild-to-moderate case of it. I also have been suffering from depression for quite some time. It is, indeed, rather common for the second to be present with the first. If you have these conditions, you may understand what I've been going through. If not, I will try to explain.

ADHD is not just hyperactivity and SQUIRREL!!  all the time. It has been described as an "executive function" disorder. Executive functioning is that little part of your brain that in most people takes files from your mental "things that need to get done" folder and moves it over into "processing." It is easier to explain its role by showing what happens when you don't have it.

I know *exactly* what to do in order to fix the door handle that broke. It's super-easy. I have the parts. The instructions are right there. It will take me about 5 minutes, using 2 screws that are already provided in the kit.  But I just. Don't. Do it.  I'm not LAZY. I'm not DISTRACTED. It is just much harder for me to get the impetus that gets me started on it. If someone else tells me to do it, puts me on a deadline, watches me, then I have no problem doing it. In that case, the other person is acting as my executive function. If I make a habit out of something, the habit itself can act as an impetus. Schedules and deadlines are great for this, too.
So you can understand, perhaps, what it might be like to have what little executive function I have that actually works shift from "let's get this written" to "OH MY GOD I NEED TO GO TO THE STORE! WHAT IF I RUN OUT OF MILK? DO WE HAVE ENOUGH CLEAN MASKS? THE SCHOOLS AREN'T MANDATING MASKS, I HAVE TO FIND A NEW SCHOOL FOR MY KIDS WITHIN 2 WEEKS!*" Obviously, the more pressing matters take precedence, and they were constant.

But that's only HALF of the issue. ADHD has also been described as a dopamine disorder. Dopamine is a pretty important chemical. Until recently they thought it was the "pleasure" chemical, but new research suggests it has more to do with motivational salience. (sounds an awful lot like executive function) When you do pleasurable things, your brain produces dopamine which triggers the "reward" centers of the brain. Now I'm not an expert on this, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. My understanding is that the ADHD brain doesn't "hold onto" dopamine very well. It essentially gets addicted to it and is constantly seeking it out. For each person, that dopamine rush comes from different things, but it is quite common for video games to provide it, what with their instant gratification and incremental reward systems. Such is my case.

In order to calm my frazzled brain and get that dopamine hit, I turned to comforting things and, essentially, games. But as things calmed down (mostly late 2021/early 2022), I couldn't switch back. I couldn't redirect that motivational salience to what I wanted. This only made me more depressed for many reasons, and depression has very similar effect on the mind. It robs you of motivation. Without motivation, it is much harder to be social, to take care of yourself, to focus. Enjoyment vanishes. Anger, sadness, and irritability increase. You start feeling self-loathing, going through all the things in your life that went wrong or hurt you, and if you don't do something about this, it feeds into itself. Most people with depression hide it fairly well, at least from others. 

I don't know if I'm special or broken or just unaware of things, but I just could NOT rewire things. I will not go into details, but everything I tried to regain that motivation ended up failing or backfiring (remind me to complain profusely about online freelance writing sites). I felt like a complete failure, which only made me want to turn to games more because, at least there, I was somewhat successful. I grew jealous of my brother and his absolutely astounding job/workplace, but he then told me *he* was jealous that I had kids and he didn't. It made me think a lot about what we are taught to value in society, what I valued, and how I determined my own worth.

It wasn't too long after that that I sought help. With my doctor's assistance, I was able to get medicine to treat my depression (though it took months of trial and error on prescription and dosage before I finally felt it working). Now I have medicine to help with my ADHD (again, took months before I found what actually worked). A friend was in a car accident and walked away nearly unharmed because (according to her doctor) she had built up her muscles through 2 years of working out at a gym (and the doc said she could have had serious injuries otherwise). She even told me her arthritis was better because of it. So I got a personal trainer as well.  I've not "taken care of myself" like this since before college.

I believe this is actually working. Now, I have a therapist I go to twice a month, BUT I do not believe she is a good fit for me (I just end up more depressed after a session with her) so I will be looking for a new one.  Other than that, I am feeling better and focusing on work. Perhaps a little too much, but it's far better than the alternative!

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The last key to this puzzle is how I write.

- I've always been a night-owl but with me now having to get up in the morning to take kids to school, I can't stay up as late and still be able to, you know, think. So I've had to adjust the times I use to write.

- For me, writing in complete silence is actually counter-productive. The silence lets that little part of my brain searching for dopamine distract the rest of my brain until I get absolutely nothing done. Because of this, I would go out to write in restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, anywhere where there was a moderate level of background noise to really keep that small part of my brain occupied.  But COVID shut those places down or just added anxiety to the mix if I went there. I turned to soundtracks to play in the background.  My favorite ones are Gladiator, pretty much any of the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtracks, Dune (methinks Hans Zimmer is good all around), and Koyaanisqatsi.  But I may have found something that works EVEN BETTER (for me at least).
There are quite a few ambiance tracks available on youtube. They're free, they're usually very long (10 hours), and there is enough variety that I can change it up once in a while. The ones that work best for me usually involve thunder storms and fireplaces. I was surprised just how well these worked to focus my mind. Unlike soundtracks, there's no catchy part to take my attention and no need to change every hour. Unlike actually being in a restaurant/whathaveyou, there aren't people or waiters or bells or other things that demand my attention. 

Now if you are one of my online friends and noticed I've been absent, I apologize.  I've been so focused on writing that I haven't gamed or roleplayed or chatted or anything like that. I've had incredible inspirations that I believe strengthen my novel considerably, so I've been utterly STOKED to implement them. And, of course, as I'm going through the thing, I fall in love with my own characters and story all over again.  It's emotionally and physically draining (and even painful) to have to put my favorite characters through Hell (in case of my novel, both literally and figuratively), so it only motivates me to get them back out of those situations.  

Next step? Go look for agents and publishers once more.  Write the sequel (much more developed now). Write one of the 3 other stories I've been working on in my mind.  Wish me luck.

*My concern over this turned out to be quite merited. My daughter's school had two 5th grade teachers, and she was in 5th grade. Within the first week of returning to school, one of those teachers contracted COVID from a student. She died of COVID 3 weeks later. She was 30. Take this thing seriously. Get vaccinate, get boosted, listen to the doctors and WHO and the CDC, wear masks, and respect others' decisions.