So I have pneumonia. I thought maybe it was my allergies or asthma. But no. Walking pneumonia. Rest assured, I don’t feel that bad. In fact, people have to tell me not to do things like play pickleball. Or record podcasts and write blog posts. Before I knew I had pneumonia, I had recorded a podcast–even though it was a little hard to breathe. The irony is that the podcast is about how my drill sergeant tells me I have to be productive at all costs.
The Perils of Productivity
Let me take you back over 12 years ago to the original blog post Be Productive! Or Not. I talk about how hard it is for me to tolerate the smallest amount of down time–like the time between clients. How my drill sergeant will rush to fill a day off from work with tedious chores. The list of chores is so long that it makes it hard to get out of bed. As a result, I end up sleeping for as long as possible and then rush through all the errands. However, despite task completion, I still don’t feel a sense of accomplishment because I should have gotten up earlier.
To make matters worse, the goal that would supposedly earn me a gold star is constantly moving so that I can’t hit the mark. Had I successfully gotten out of bed earlier, my drill sergeant would have told me that my actions were still not worthy of praise. I had simply achieved status quo and done what any normal person does. In some twisted logic, it tells me that because I’m below average as a human being, I have to make up for it. I have to be perfect because my unworthiness pulls down my grade. Only perfection allows me to average out to a normal human being.
Progress
Am I better off now than I was 12 years ago? In some ways. Many of the changes have been fairly recent. Basically, since discovering that I’m neurodivergent. I’m not sure why this discovery has made such a difference, but since then, I don’t sleep as much. I want to do chores now because my house looks nice, and I don’t like the messiness. Doing chores before they pile up means I have increased bandwidth.
In general, I focus more on what I want to do, rather than what I should do, like I discussed in the post Look Who’s Talking.
However, the drill sergeant still looms large.
When I went to the PCP on Monday, she advised that I reschedule my 3 hour onboarding meeting for my jewelry and rest. She said my brain is deprived of oxygen and I couldn’t think clearly. Even I noticed that not being able to breathe was making me become anxious more easily. So I rescheduled my meeting.
But the realization of drill sergeant activity made me want to write a blog post. And I wanted to do a bunch of other things. I wanted to fill the hole in my day from not going to my meeting and not playing pickleball. Again, my intolerance for empty space in my schedule, just like 12 years ago.
However, after talking to my therapist about it, she told me not to do anything. So then I struggled to rest. And continue to struggle. Which is why I’m writing this post early in the morning after not being able to sleep.
Look Who’s Talking
In examining who is talking, Anxiety speaks up about every random thought because I can’t breathe, kicking me into fight or flight. I have been putting my hand on my heart, which is the gesture for compassion. Which helps right away, surprisingly. I highly recommend trying it.
My Inner Critic is not as harsh. Not much inner dialogue about sucking or needing to prove myself. As I mentioned previously, the Inner Critic is the worst part, because it doesn’t seem like it’s trying to be helpful at all. So that’s an improvement, not to have it be as involved.
The Drill Sergeant, although not as harsh, still pushes and prods me not to be lazy. Just face the thing I dread, it says. Which can be a helpful thing if I weren’t already insanely productive. And since my PCP said I could get worse, productivity is actually medically inadvisable.
When practicing mindfulness and self-compassion, the expectation isn’t to get rid of these parts. It’s to be aware of them so that I can free myself of whatever suffering is under my control. Which is why I am practicing radically accepting where I am at the moment. In this moment, I want to write about the drill sergeant. So I am.
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