It is a couple of hours post-lunch. I am sitting at my desk, gently poking at my work as if just prodding it with a stick will make progress. I have already cleared out my “easy tasks” backlog, and I am uncertain why I am so listless. Is this a sugar crash? Am I bored with my work? Am I overwhelmed by something?
Interoception
the feeling of knowing what is happening in your body, for example if you are hungry, thirsty, warm, cold, etc. Cambridge Dictionary
The questions I am asking, are a form of interoception. Something which is tied really tightly to neurodiversity. We aren’t known for being good at this. I am told that hunger, thirst, cold, tiredness, and chocolate cravings are all clearly distinguishable for others. I can tell you that “I need a nap”, “I would like some chocolate”, and “a hug would be nice” all feel more or less the same to me.
Knowing I am thirsty is obvious, right? That’s the feeling when your mouth is dry, the back of your throat is toasty, and you are a little headachy? I am told these are when you have gone beyond basic thirst. To be fair, I do actually know that. It doesn’t always mean I drink more water or juice, but I do know there are times when I probably should.
So why do I not know why I am feeling listless? Mostly because I go through a list. Did I eat? Yes – I eat breakfast and lunch even if I don’t have active hunger.. Did I drink something? Yes – I make tea when I don’t know what else to do with myself, so I drink a lot of tea. It isn’t perfect for quenching thirst, but is a lot better than coffee or nothing. Have I moved recently? Yes – see the above about making tea. I can’t do that from my desk.
At this point I have to start looking at other states of being. Sure, the “I need a nap” bit might apply. I have been getting up early to run, but I pair that with going to bed early, so I have been getting, nominally, enough sleep. I don’t know the difference between bored, tired, and overwhelmed though. Or maybe it is just that I finished something and until I have the next proper project in place I am going to be flitting between things.
Post-project crash
I don’t know if this one is well documented, but it is something I have seen mentioned by at least one other person, so it is not just me. You have a big project. You work intently on getting that thing done. Whether it is for your home, your work, or anything else. When it is mostly done, and you just have to wrap up some little bits and bobs here and there, the project is no longer interesting. It is complete. Tidying up is the worst part of playing with the Lego.
In these moments, I usually need to slow down, regroup, and find the next thing to capture my attention. If I do that wrong, I will fill my attention with little things which don’t really make an impact, or doom scrolling. If I do it right, I will start planning the next big feature which needs to be built. Spend time disambiguating hard concepts, or otherwise making up work for myself to do.
This is also why, I believe, ADHD/Neurodivergent people collect hobbies. We get “good enough” at the one that it is no longer interesting for its own sake. After that, it is a means to an end. I love painting minis. I have not sat and painted anything in months. I love writing and stories and this blog. You can look through the history of my posting to get your own view of how consistent I am. It is something which is currently “good enough” and where I do not have a need to express concepts on a regular basis. Additionally, it uses many of the same brain areas as my work, and so if work is sufficiently engaging, then while I am sitting at my computer, I will be thinking about work.
The problem with this post-project time, is that the effort to figure out the next thing which will hold your attention feels too much. You have just finished the race. You need a week or so to relax and recover. Once that is done you can be back in the mix at full power. For now, you need to be able to coast along without thought. If you mis-time it, the people who would provide external direction may be in a similar place, and you all coast together, feeling like nothing useful is getting done. Finishing off busy work, small things which add noise to the system and prove you are definitely still doing something, not rambling on a blog post during work hours.
Overwhelm
I’ve mentioned overwhelm here before. When there is so much going on, so many choices to make, so much to keep up with, that you just opt-out of everything and shut down. When your inbox is so full that you just declare email-bankruptcy, delete all of it, and claim “if it is important they will try again”. It is the boredom of nothing to do because you are able to do anything you want, and now you don’t know how to pick, so you do nothing and then at the end of the day just feel mildly annoyed with yourself for not getting anything done.
Opting-out and dissociating are not uncommon ways of handling overwhelm. Unfortunately, unless you opt-out in very specific ways, it isn’t particularly helpful. A good way to opt-out, is saying “I can’t be there” to a set of things. I do this in September, if I remember to. I have just spent about six months pushing my body hard, staying up late for training, and interacting with people a lot. By the end of August, hockey season ends, and I have run the gambit of all the birthdays. I am tired. In September I am allowed to go to bed early, and say “no” without a strong reason to social activities. By October, I am mostly back to reality and capable of actually humaning in public.
I can choose which overwhelm to opt-out of in a healthy manner there. However, if it is just “you can do whatever work you want” opting-out isn’t a viable option. If I chose to just not do any work for a couple of days, I would have to take those days off. Which is a valid option, but is different to opting-out of overwhelm. It is not the same as hiding my head in the sand because I don’t want to decide on the colour of carpets I am going to put in my bedroom (I think sand was a colour option).
So what is it?
The crash is real. Whatever the cause, it doesn’t matter. This is why we have terms like “touch grass”. It is why we recommend having different things you can do or focus on to reset the brain. The time it takes to write a blog, or read through an article, or do anything other than what the brain was previously doing can not only help find perspective, but also wake you up from the crash. Give the sugar you ate a chance to kick in. Give you a kick of dopamine for an achievement.
So, the lists and the challenges are there to work through. The overwhelm is there to be handled. The next steps to be taken. Best of all is the looking back at the past, seeing the patterns, knowing that some times of the year are harder than others. Then choosing to accept that it is okay to run at 75% during the tough times, because your 75% is someone else’s 150%. Not beating oneself up emotionally, mentally, or physically, for being imperfect.
Take the time to interrogate your crash. If you can’t understand it now, maybe you will in time. Don’t freak out though. It might not look the same for everyone, but you are certainly not the only one who has to face the crash.
