I've managed about 2000 words of the 4000 word essay that's due in on Monday, and to be honest I'm no longer worred about it because quite simply it no longer feels possible. All the 'shoulds' have melted away now and it's gone beyond frustration/despair into acceptance - I am not able to do this thing that I am meant to do.
I started seeing a counsellor last week - the result of my January meltdown in similiar circumstances - and today's session was entirely about not being able to write this bloody essay.
Even though she admitted she knew next to nothing about autism or ADHD, she got a better grip on the problems I'm having than the specialist student support person assigned to me by the university. That person gives me study skills handouts which instruct me to take helpful notes and plan essays (no shit Sherlock), and she keeps telling me it will get easier with practice which is not helpful RIGHT NOW and also I have ADHD and autism so it probably won't. Executive dysfunction does not just magically go away on its own.
The fact that this woman is making money from me and my problems without actually helping me in any tangible way has started to rankle this week. While she is friendly and fun and I enjoy our Zoom chats, she spends most of our sessions telling me about her holidays, her family and friends, her gardening adventures. Meanwhile I am close to having a breakdown because I cannot write this essay and cannot communicate to her that I need more help that she is giving me. Apparently I should just sit down and write it. Apparently I am an excellent writer so it should be easy. Apparently I should just put more effort in, try a bit harder. What she does not seem to understand is I am already trying as hard as I can but I still can't do it.
The counsellor, however, seemed to grasp straight away that whatever is going on here was a bit more complex than mere procrastination. She echoed back to me in her own words exactly what she thought the problem was, and absolutely nailed it, which melted my heart because being heard and understood happens to me so rarely.
Her advice was to do exactly what I'm already doing - just keep chipping away at it; do what you can; and if you don't hand it in on time so what, nobody dies - which made me feel a thousand times better than the student support woman saying idiot things like "think of when you've got a PhD, you'll be like Mary Beard."
After the counselling session I ended up on YouTube looking for comfort from the ADHD family and found Jessica McCabe's heartfelt TEDx talk:
When she cried, oh man, I knew why she was crying.
Today's Photo: Raindrops On Feather
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