week 3 day 3 - 28th january
Spoke to a rlly sweet nice member of the mental health team recently and she actually seemed rlly locked in w hearing me out and trying to get a full picture of my life before jumping into finding solutions together which is rlly appreciated.
We both did come to the realisation that it is very possibly that I am currently in a neurodivergent burn out rn (adhd or autism or perhaps both). I think I rlly need to rlly focus all my energy on recovering and also figuring out what parts of myself I mask and what traits take so much energy out of me, I don’t rlly know if the me who is burnt out is reflective of an unmasked me or rather just someone pushed to the other extremity but I don’t want to start researching it now cuz I have other academic duties to do.
I’ve decided to skip going into class today because ik it’ll be a waste of energy that I don’t have but i’ll still be going into a silent study room on campus to let myself just do as much of my neurology SRAs as I can in 2 hours and then switch over to going insane abt virology. What kills me constantly is I fucking LOVE this degree - even the things I initially find not that interesting, I end up finding rlly interesting because it’s all interlinked and links in w something I do find cool. That’s why i’m so fucking frustrated in how I still struggle to study. I think a big reason in why I struggle though is because I conditioned myself to study with the intent to help others rather than just what I prefer. I am a notes which are either very neat and detailed and pretty or insanely messt and pen and paper mf but I switched to online initially so that I had less to carry and then so that I can “convince myself to study by telling myself i’m going to share my notes” and now whenever I start to make notes or flashcards or whatever, i’m thinking on whether it will be coherent for an invisible person who doesn’t exist to understand. So I will no longer plan to share my notes and they will be made for MYSELF to understand and if someone would like to access them one day or once I do convert them online (cuz I still want less things to carry), then ppl are free to access them in their raw format. This is my life but I am living it for everybody except myself and it’s no wonder that I feel like I can’t push forward anymore or that my life is a never-ending shift.
I think I truly have spent almost my entire teenage and adult life trying to cater to others and it has impacted my ability to do things for myself. I actually was pretty self-prioritising as a child (as most of us are) and when it came to “fitting in” or changing myself to be liked, I was always uninterested. I was uninterested in the concept of making friends in general and the moment I realised that I actually was quite lonely was the moment I realised that my ‘raw’ self is too offputting and my neutral emotions come across as mean and cold. I was (and still am) obsessed with characters who were seen as cold and distant but still able to have friends who just knew that this was how they were and still loved them and in return, they would naturally be less cold and show love back in their own way idk. And I think that rlly was exactly what I was seeking out. Someone who sees my traits as me and doesn’t want me to fix it or hold an expectation on me to fix it and also doesn’t maintain an expectation on me to stay the exact same for everyone and everything. I do still feel things obviously, I do still have emotion and will often switch up to the other end of getting rlly excited and passionate and emotive and ppl often want to restrict me to just one ‘mode’ when I am neither and I am both. I think I hold too much expectation in what I want ppl to see of me and so I will focus on just finding out my authentic self that doesn’t use up tons of energy to maintain and go from there. I think I worry a lot abt the friendships I did make that I feel I can’t sustain because I made them w the expected me being more energetic and ‘fun’ and the group jester who is the embarrassing “cringe” one who can let the others feel more relaxed because hey, you can’t judge the mf who is very open abt not being able to do or remember much. But I will put that worry on a pin for now and express it to my mentor or mental health advisor or whatever and go from there
Anyway; plan for today is to go to campus, do some neurology and virology, talk to my mentor and then go to the gym or go to a walk-in boxing session (if it’s free) and the evening can be just reading whatever I want or looking into whales research / watching my 52 blue documentary that i’ve been putting off cuz I want to watch it in the living room but I don’t want to talk whilst watching it and ppl take me being in a communal space as an invitation to talk to me but that’s a boundary I can set idk. Long ramble over, good morning, let’s get this day started <3
