A Thousand Thoughts

We live in a world of haste.

Doing things quick, getting there, sorting it out, being there, NOW.

I have a speedy, excited, creative, and usually overwhelmed ADHD brain. I often do want to be ‘there’ now or to hurry someone else up because either my brain has already moved on, or to the conclusion, or I’m anxious about a number of related things to do with my feelings, their feelings, other things to do, many ‘what ifs’, and a fair bit of my lifelong companion – getting ahead of things as a means of avoidance. Avoiding unnecessary or uncomfortable conversations or conflict. Avoiding not measuring up by making sure I exceed the measure. 

I find it very hard to sit still. Very. Even if my body is there, my mind is not sitting still. I find it very hard not to think. And to wait while someone else thinks. There’s probably no harder place for me to NOT. DO. ANYTHING. than as a parent. To wait. To slow down. To not say anything. To be and just bear witness. I can’t get there for them. And for them to get there actually takes real, hands ticking round the clock, time. 

It is not time, yet. 

Unless the feelings have been felt and heard and respected, it is not time to move on. It is not time to comfort. It is not time to speak. 

In a meltdown, it’s not always the time for saying no, even if it’s going to be a no. The intensity of the feelings about something being broken, lost, the shock and surprise, the nervous system reaction… That’s the stuff that (to me) is the centre of the meltdown. It’s impossible to rationalise in that state, and arguing about it worsens it, plus adds in a parent’s frustration and conflict which often ends up being experienced as shame. The work in progress for me is learning to just provide company in the experience of all those feelings. That’s all. That’s the co-regulation thing. But if it’s not authentic, they know. 

Why can’t we wait? 

I internalised extreme pressure around time. Some of that was about achievement. Be better, sooner, faster. That makes the thing more impressive. There was also a spiritual pressure about a gospel urgency in both communicating to others and also making every moment of your life count. Then there is the ‘time is money’ element. As a lawyer literally charging in six minute increments, the pressure was ever present. Get there, faster. But get where, and for what? In some ways the anxieties from metaphysical concern and from the capitalist sausage factory that underpin education and employment feel remarkably similar.

And whether or not there are redeeming features in those beliefs and structures, for my neurodivergent brain and certainly those of some others I know, the effect is dread. Discomfort and loss of connection to the here and now. And for me, that has not been a fulfilling way to live.

So here we are, unschooling and ungoverned by any employer’s requirements; time is our own. And yet that hovering feeling of ‘I should be doing more’ remains. A sense of ‘this is taking too long’. ‘This’ can be many things, but in my current daily life, it is most often a child’s feelings and the time it takes for them to run their course while being appropriately nurtured by me.

An emotional and cognitive resolution is only one if the time for actual experience and processing has taken place. Being given the ‘answer’ is not the same thing. On a much larger scale, when someone is deeply gripped by grief or depression, as much as we desire to help or see them through pain, that time may not have arrived. And the next stage, maybe a stage where help might be received, cannot occur without the stage of ‘not yet’. A stage when there is nothing that can be done. It’s not that we can’t understand someone else’s wisdom or perspective, it’s that we haven’t been honoured with the time to walk through that ourselves.

The here and now. The insistence on caring about improving life now. The rejection of false hope in some future life after squandering this one.

Hilary