Big thinkings

[flexagon]

I'm thinking a bunch of deep thoughts, as a result of a few factors:

• The aforementioned career angsting and exec coach, etc. She did try to cheer me up on Friday, in several ways. They included imagining myself being 20 years older and looking back at this (I am such a cool 62-year-old! Do I tell my younger self not to fret so much?), and reading this how will you measure your life article that I didn't like. She encouraged me to find some level of good feelings and delight in making wise choices, in being okay right now, and to actually think about what life success means to me. No answers right now, but I like the idea of an "I know I'm being successful when" list (like this one, but, uh, not nearly as dudebro as that one).


• The bug has a shiny new diagnosis of ADHD, the inattentive variety. It's been fascinating hearing more about how he experiences life, though the lens of this, and I guess I get to meet his psychologist in a while so that's cool. I was fascinated to see this on the list of adult manifestations: "Maintaining excessive personal items such as storing old items of diminished usefulness."


• Lion did indeed send me some journaling. It's a wall of text analyzing some of his troubles (enmeshment? huh), conclusions, and determinations for the future. He's determined to be poly, and has pretty much told Lioness that he's willing to separate in order to allow that to happen, but there's no timeline. And of course no guarantee that any particular person, say someone with nasty issues around abandonment that he already dumped for stupid reasons, would be willing to get back together, or that he even wants that. (I shake my little fist, knowing perfectly well that this is in moth/flame territory.) In the meantime, there's a bunch of stuff in there about difficulty identifying/stating some of his own desires, and about going along with things and conflating his desires with others' and vice versa, that sent me on an evil spiral of hoping I never did anything with him that he didn't want to do. :(

Hypercube is next to me on the couch. So lovely and soft. My "I know I'm being successful when" list definitely needs to include my cats liking me enough to seek me out.

Comments

[flexagon]

Haha, right, the jazz thing. I'd forgotten that, but I can see how it'd stand out to you!

I can't find much difference between enmeshment and codependency. Both seem to be used mostly in reference to one person who needs another (or needs an addiction) in order to feel whole or complete.

https://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/coenmesh.html

(I used to think that "codependency" could only ever refer to a dyad, because "co", right, but that is not how it's used)

AFAICT with ADD, every mental health phenomenon co-occurs and the things we have names for are just the most common clusters. I'd be curious what your Q is if you're open to sharing... I really like hearing what things feel like when a person is a certain way or has a certain trait.

This is random, but vaguely seems to fit in -- I'm still listening to those lectures on behavioral biology. A couple of lectures ago the topic was prefrontal cortex, and the professor mentioned the following: some people who are very disciplined and seem to just effortlessly do the right thing and stay on top of their to-do lists have been shown to have a higher base metabolism in the prefrontal cortex! Chicken and egg issues arise, perhaps, but isn't that interesting. I've always suspected I was somehow playing on easy mode, regarding "discipline" or planning or whatever, and now it turns out that there are some brains that really do.

[coraline]

oh yeah, every human condition is a continuum.
my ADDish things -- enjoying priority-interrupt work, enjoying doing several things at the same time, varying amounts of executive function, quickly tiring of "routines" and "discipline" sorts of things, objects becoming invisible when i stop noticing them... there are a few others. i should go through one of those lists again and see which things are very "yes" (there are always more that are "no", but sometimes i will compare myself to the people around me and go "well... that's very different."

[flexagon]

OK, so I literally just finished a 27-lecture run of a human behavioral biology course and am therefore very dangerous. HOWEVER, some of the stuff you're describing here sounds a lot like a possible variation in dopamine processing / dopamine receptors. There are different kinds of receptor, and it's hard to find plain-English articles on this but the professor said that can make a difference in what a person finds rewarding, how novelty-seeking they are, etc.

I am mildly vindicated in this by finding an ADHD section in the otherwise bad Wikipedia article on this topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_receptor#Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder

but smaller individual variances are possible and common!

[coraline]

oh yeah it's clearly dopamine-mediated -- and the head med i'm on now is mostly useful for its dopaminergic effects! (bupropion).

....i appreciate that you just finished this course, but my degree is actually in brain and cognitive sciences and i have kept reasonably current in parts of this field, so yes, i agree, but i'm reasonably far ahead of "what does wikipedia say" :)

[flexagon]

LOL! Totally fair! I respect your expertise and am just happy with myself that I spotted the pattern.