Tag: overstimulation

104b – dreams, neurodivergence and the need for rest

People keep talking about dreams all the time. Or so it seems. People tell me how proud of me they are and how inspiring it is that I’m following my dreams. I don’t even know what my dreams are, though. To live a creative life? Yes. To spend more time with my art, with myself, with people I love? Yes, of course. To not be doing too many things that I don’t want to do? Yes, indeed. 

Financial privilege and in general— privilege— aside, I don’t feel like I’m living a very good life. My relationship has been hard work, lately, and career stuff weighs heavily on me too. Do I want to be a writer, or a musician, or nothing at all? Am I really just afraid of hard work or am I not able to tune into my gut and figure out what I want? Or hell, even if I don’t know what I Want, am I able to at least know what I want next? 

Having freedom and privilege makes me feel like I’m supposed to do something with it. I don’t know if I want to. In certain moments, yes, I do want to do something that could be useful to someone (even if that someone’s just myself), but in other moments— I really just want to rest. 

I know I’m definitely some sort of neurodivergent, and vocalising that more loudly and more frequently has come with its own set of challenges. Now that I’m more in touch with how easily I get overstimulated and tired, there is a need to also accept that it makes sense to need the amount of rest and alone time that I tend to need. But society’s voice is stlll way too loud. 

It tells me that I’ve had my “year” of rest and now it’s time to get back into work and productivity. A month ago I tried writing a goodbye letter to this “year of rest” but it wasn’t enough. I don’t think I’m ready to get back to work. Not the trad 9-5 kind anyway. I’m talking to some people for part-time work but none of it comes with pay. Sure, I can afford that for now but at some point I won’t be able to. Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Or like six months before we have to, I guess. 

I’ve been considering art school or music school more seriously since, well, all of yesterday. Talking to Y made me realise how suppressed this desire has been, in me. Yes, last year I did consider it seriously, but then I did some research which convinced me thoroughly to not go ahead with any of that at this point of time. Even now, I don’t think I want to go to school right away. I just want more motivation to work on the things that I do want to work on. I do want to reduce TV time and gaming time so I can feel more energised. I do want to eat better, exercise more, but I feel like these wants are still outcome oriented. Is that okay? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can just eat better SO that I feel more energised. That kind of thinking is not motivating enough for me. But I do want to find some way of getting over all this, because otherwise I’m just denying my body what it needs. 

Anyway, I think that’s it for now. Going to try out a couple things to summon some energy! Happy October, folks xx 

066b – more on being HSP

I mentioned a few posts ago that I’ve been learning more about the highly sensitive person trait lately. Today has been a bit of a gloomy day because of some of the things I read. Although in many ways this feels like a puzzle piece that had been missing for a long time from my landscape of self-understanding, it does come with its fair share of sad-ish realisations. 

  1. I will not be able to express all my ideas. 

    I think this hit harder because yesterday had been a very prolific day (from my standards) in terms of creative expression and I’d been feeling overjoyed and extremely enthusiastic about a lot of it. I did feel a little overstimulated already today morning, since I hadn’t caught enough sleep, but then I ended up reading the book I’ve been reading on HSPs which coincidentally also hit this point. That someone like me can feel overstimulated or over-aroused not just because of “intrusive thoughts” but also thoughts (and ideas) in general. And we need to be aware that we won’t be able to do justice to them all. 

  2. The balance between finding peace/calm and “satisfaction” might be a constant struggle. 

    If I’m someone who wants to work on, express and share a lot of my ideas, but can only operate on a lower productivity than the “majority” of the people around me, I’m probably going to find myself either a. a bit dissatisfied or b. regularly overstimulated. So, yeah— I suppose this is going to be a constant struggle. I might have to REALLY ask myself what’s important.

    In other words, sustained peace might also be a bit elusive. I imagine it’ll be a regular dance of arousal and calm as opposed to just staying calm for a whole day, for example. 

  3. I need to not use social media as a way to calm myself down. 

    This one isn’t sad, it makes sense actually, and I need to work on this anyway. I was checking Instagram a lot throughout the morning and even after waking up but by the afternoon, I felt completely depleted even though I didn’t really do anything exhausting or tiring, really. I’ve noticed that I end up feeling not very great if something important to me doesn’t get the response I expected. I’ve talked about this before, but this is my reminder. Definitely need to be cautious about this. 

  4. Paying attention to and not compromising on sleep will be of utmost importance. 

    I am susceptible to letting sleep suffer if I’m really enjoying certain activities (whether it’s hanging out with friends or really getting in the zone with something creative etc). However, I need to remember that that short-term gratification is NOT worth fucking up your entire next day. We’re pretty good at accepting that that’s true for things like work and partying (for example) but I need to remember it applies to almost everything. Except like really urgent situations. (Health-related, etc). 

Okay, this is all for now, I imagine I’ll be talking more about this regularly. Like I said earlier, bear with me! And if you’re HSP too, let me know!