Distractions and Depression

Sand was dribbling out of the bag of her attention, faster and faster.

~ Sarah Blake

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month.  Join me in blogging to erase the stigma of mental illness so our loved ones can seek the help they need.

D

istraction is a large part of my depression.  I don’t enjoy my pain, so I find ways to forget it.

Some good ways.

Some bad ways.

Laughter is a good way.  But I’m not sure laughing like a hyena at Pinterest pins of crazy Tumblr posts is entirely healthy.

Then again, Pinterest is like crack, and crack is whack…so there you go.

Distractedly Creative…and Sad

I read somewhere that easily distracted people are more intelligent and creative.  Perhaps it is more realistic to say that creative and intelligent people are easily distracted.  Makes sense ~ there are always several story and post ideas zipping around in my head: bright and colourful as humming birds ~ and just as elusive.

A good friend describes his ADHD as his brain being cable TV with several channels playing at the same time.  He thinks he’s crazy. 

I know he’s brilliant.

Preparing to write this post, I clicked through Pinterest to find a good image, and came to an hour (or three) later.  And had three or six more ideas on where to take this.  Which, despite what you might think, is actually a gift.  Because those ideas got written down and might be used later.

Yet my energy is still low.  I still have a little spot of quicksand sadness that’s just sitting here in my chest, waiting to suck me down.

Less Distractions = More Sleep…and Vice Versa

Energy levels are a huge factor in my distraction equation.  The less energy I have, the more easily distracted I become.  And the less restful sleep I get, the less energy I have.

You would think that with my depression, sleep wouldn’t be an issue, but that is a myth. Yes, depression causes a drop in energy, which can cause us to sleep more.  But sometimes the depression walks hand in hand with anxiety and that keeps us awake.

One night, I had a waking dream that was so real and touched on a deep seated insecurity, that I cried so hard and so long that I gave myself a quadruple play: depression, dehydration, migraine, and lack of REM sleep.

The next day was so ugly, my friends, not even Tumblr’s antics could turn my sad into glad. (Although this one made me laugh so hard I snorted.)  Hey admit it, we've all felt that way once or twice.

Tonight, though, I’ll try to up my energy levels in a more constructive way.  I'll work in my garden, walk around the property, soak in a bubble bath, drink a cup of chamomile tea with lemon, read for an hour, and turn out the lights earlier.

Hopefully that will equal less distractions and higher energy levels tomorrow.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Are you more distracted when you’re depressed?  How do you deal with distractions?

Addicted to Distractions: An Epiphany for a Snow Day

There is something comforting about writing in Word.  Some people are Mac people, some are Scrivner fans.  But typing in Word is like coming home for me.  Ideas just seem to flow faster when I’m tip-tappng away on a blank screen with a familiar toolbar at the top and rulers all around me.

~ Mikaela D’Eigh

Beginning in January and continuing throughout the year, I’m participating in the One Page a Day writing challenge.Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have 365 pages worth editing.  I’m also trying to follow My Plan for 2014. I may need therapy by December.  Oh wait…

I

had an idea.  I thought it was a great idea.  I thought that I would revolutionize the world with this idea; people would fall over themselves to join me.

I was going to go social media-free for a month.

Sounds great doesn’t it? I mean, there have been studies that show that too much time on the internet in general and immersing oneself in social media specifically, makes it more difficult to connect with real people in real time. 

There are even retreats where you can pay to be unplugged – no cell phones, no computers, no internet (no pool, no pets).

But I was going to go cold turkey and not pay anybody.  Just some quiet time with me, myself, my books, my music, and my writing.  And an old fashioned phone call or two to stay connected.

Then the first big snow-storm hit the Washington, DC area.  I was cooped up in my house for four days.  The power was on, but the internet was not.

I felt like I was ready for my Shining debut.

The inability to check my Twitter feed; the inaccessibility of my Facebook notifications; the sheer isolation engendered by email silence turned me into a real live member of the walking dead.

How the hell did I think I was going to last 30 days!?

Day 3 was the worst.  I thought my brain had caught fire, but not in a good way.  Nothing interested me:

All my books were read and the ones that weren’t were boring.
My friends weren’t worth writing to because I was stuck in my house - I was boring.
The movies I owned?  Boring. (Even the ones I hadn’t watched yet.)
Walking outside in the snow, enjoying nature was boring.
Sleep? Boring.
Even eating had become boring.

Bored. Bored. Bored!  I had become Sherlock Holmes waiting for a case – minus the massive attention to detail and the drug habit. It wasn’t until Day 4 that it struck me. 

These were withdrawal symptoms.  I am an internet/social media addict.

More to the point, I am a distraction addict.

Image credit Liberty Voice

Without that constant hum of social media and email alerts hitting my phone or pinging my brain, I was a basket case.  I couldn’t function.  It was like my brain, accustomed to operating at high speeds and rapid multi-tasking, was forced into a traffic jam on the the beltway. 

All that mental energy – nowhere to go.

Why didn’t I channel that energy into reading?  Or writing long letters to friends.  Or hell, writing anything!? 

When I’m engaged in working on a project, I’m constantly bemoaning that I don’t have enough time to write.  Well, there I was with loads of time to write, write, write, my brain on high alert, and....nothing.

It was demoralizing.

Obviously, since I wrote this (on Day 4 actually) I had a break-through. I don’t know what did it; perhaps there is a period of time for mental detox just like for any physical detox and I just hit the last part of it. 

Maybe now my brain would get used to the slower, almost stand still pace and would re-adjust itself and allow me to write and dream, and write some more.

I never found out.  Day 5 saw the roads cleared, the trains running, and it was back to work, back to multi-tasking, back to business as usual.

But I learned two valuable lessons during those four days.  That I indeed was addicted to distractions and needed periods to detox.  

And that there was a positive side to all this social media that we lament. 

But more on the second lesson in a later post.  Time to check my notifications.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Are you addicted to distractions?  Do you try to detox? How?

Distractions: Hinder or Help Your Art?

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for a writer to have a day job. . . .The thing I’ve learned about creativity is that it can’t always be forced.  Some things just take time. . . .Writing is simply not a linear process.

~ Christine Amsden, How I Wrote My First Book

A

nd yet, that’s just it isn’t it?  That some projects take time.  And if  you have other obligations, and other deadlines, those things will intrude upon your creative time.

I’ll admit, there are times when the fear of a looming deadline kicks my procrastinating bottom into gear and the ideas fly out of my head faster than my fingers can type them out.  But if it’s a project that requires a little more thought, or a whole lot of research, then a tight deadline is not my friend.  And in my world, deadlines really only become tight because something else popped up that needed to be done, and the project that was due tomorrow is now due in an hour.

And that’s when inspiration decides to take a vacation and I’m left staring at a blank page in full panic mode.

Personalization, Location, Motivation

I think the key to finding your artistic groove is to work with your personality type.  For Christine Amsden, having to fit her writing schedule around naps and bedtime (she’s also a stay at home mom) makes the hours she does write more productive.  But it would drive me nuts!  I know this about myself (even though I don’t have children) because outside interruptions when I’m working on something creative, I lose my rhythm, get frazzled, and then once I’m able to come back to it, the well is dry.  Or worse ~ everything I’ve done up to that point on it sounds (or looks) awful.

Another example is my friend Sullivan.  He produces some of his best writings while sitting in a noise crowd in a café or diner or even at the mall ~ which you wouldn’t think would be his style because he’s an introvert.  But he did grow up in NYC, so crowd noise, the rush of humanity all around him, is like a background symphony.  It helps him focus.  Me the extrovert (with an introvert’s heart)?  I grew up in the country, so peace and quiet and the background music of birds and insects, and the wind in the trees ~ that helps me focus.



© Michael Novelo



As for motivation, well, I’ve told you that fear (more often than I’d like!) motivates me to get projects completed.  But some people freeze when they’re given a tight deadline.  They’re motivated more by a to do list that they check off:  Chapter 1 – done! Yippee!  Others are motivated by rewards ~ whether material or otherwise.  This has never worked for me either: I can remember my mom trying to get me to clean my room when I was about eight or nine, and promising to pay me or buy me something if I did.  I would just shrug and say, “Nah.  I don’t need it.”  What she never picked up on was that if she had said, “Clean or you can’t read that new book you got at the library” then that room would have been eat off the floor spotless.

Distraction…

Sometimes, however, none of these things work because your brain just isn’t wired to block things out and you have the attention span of a pebble.  But pebbles don’t have….oh.  Let me tell you, ADD and ADHD are real (although I wish I had more “H” in my brand of it!) and not always fun.  I like to think of it as being a different kind of brilliant ~ after all, my brain can grasp so many different ideas, etc, that it couldn’t possibly be bothered to. . .hey!  Look at that article!  I need to write about that. . .oh.  Sorry!

See what I mean?

…or Prioritization?

If I’m having a good day brain-wise, I’ve found that prioritizing my tasks can help keep me on track.  But I make sure to tell myself that this list is a reminder and not a strait-jacket.  Otherwise, my inner artist goes into tantrum mode at what she perceives as being “confining” and then nothing gets done. 

Ahh, the things we tell ourselves.

Since I need to feed myself as well as my imagination, having a day job is necessity.  And in the end, I fall somewhere in between: being around people motivates me, but it needs to be in a place with minimal distractions.

If only I were a morning person. . .

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What motivates you?  Does having a day job help or hinder your creativity?