Sorry I didn't get back to you...

My "Experiential Avoidance" may be crippling me at work. I think I know what's going on and I am doing something about it.

If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I struggle with staying in touch. I will disappear, sometimes mid-conversation, and stay gone for, like, a month, six months, whatever. Sometimes the act of asking me a simple question will cause me to just.. never reply to you again, or not without you prompting me again. It’s like getting blood from a stone, and I’ve spent a bunch of my adult life apologising for it, and warning new people to expect it.

In my mid-twenties I managed to figure out that I have ADHD, and I was able to get diagnosed and medicated. It was different then to how it is now - no online communities sharing tips and solidarity, very poor understanding of the nuances of ADHD across both those suffering with it, those living with people with ADHD, and even medical professionals. On the other hand, the waiting lists for diagnosis weren’t quite as criminally long as they are today.

Basically, when I received a diagnosis, the psych tried me on some meds, got me to come back in a month and report on how it went, after which they adjusted the dosage, and I was done. No ongoing coaching, or counselling, or even a “So you have ADHD” pamphlet. Partly as a result of this, it has taken me a long time to figure my shit out.

All this to say, I am used to having to notice that I’m having a problem, and then going and doing the initial research to figure out what I should do about it. And so, as I hit a major brick wall at work (as one often does with ADHD when the novelty or curiosity runs out), and I started displaying pathological avoidant behavior, I decided that I need to fucking solve this.

Turns out there’s this concept called “experiential avoidance” that underlies a whole bunch of issues. The core idea is: we avoid bad feelings because they feel bad (like in Yoga and Buddhism’s concept of ‘Dvesha’), but our repeated acts of avoidance have their own consequences, and over time we wear a kind of rut in our patterns of thinking (c.f. samskara) and we become inflexible, unable to change our response, even under different circumstances.

The three poisons, Moha, Raga, and Dvesha, that cause us suffering, or Dukkha

Which, horrible as it implies, means that I have to feel my damn feelings. I tried it all day on Monday and I can confidently report that it sucked, and I hated it, and my anxiety physically hurt me, and I am probably on the right track.

Specifically, I moved slowly and deliberately, pausing to breath and pay attention to my body and what it was experiencing. I noted the sweaty palms, the rising heart rate, the stiff neck, the chest pains, and the nausea. Like I learned back in Vipassana all those years ago, I observed what was going on in my body, without trying to change anything. It was awful and exhausting, but once one has gotten to the point of pathological paralysis in the service of avoiding pain, one has few choices left but to come to terms with it.

Anyway, I am seeking professional help, reading up on Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, etc. This is probably gonna be a long-term unearthing of bad habits, as it has been a long time digging them in, and probably my ADHD will make the whole thing a lot more complicated, but fingers crossed I find a way out!