I feel like my world is beginning to
fracture. All day, I was vaguely aware of stimuli that normally would
have been neigh unbearable to me: the whirring of my cat's toy mouse,
a honking car horn, bright colors in windows that I pass on the
street. All distractions, all set aside without any real difficulty.
For the first time in my life, I could focus on one task and one task
only. It was surreal and almost terrifying. The world felt flat and
boring. The world has never seemed boring to me before.
But the medication is starting to wear
off now. I catch myself tilting my head more, the temptations to open
a new tab, start a new conversation, try out a new project, are
getting stronger. My impulses are starting to flare up in protest at
being dampened down all day. Even writing this is a compulsion I have
patiently ignored and now have finally given in to. I should
be working on my final essay. But this seems important. My first time
coming off the meds. My first day of being on medication.
The amount of focus I have had for most of the day has been
incredible. I have never felt like that before.
I'm becoming more aware of sounds now.
The hum of my refrigerator, the clicking of my laptop's keys, the
shifting and settling of ice in the freezer. The scrape of my
toenails against the hardwood as I curl them up in thought. All
things I had not really paid any mind to today, when yesterday they
would have driven me to distraction. My awareness to them is slowly
returning.
And the colors. They are so much more
interesting now than they've been all day. More and more, I find
myself distracted by the burnt-out bulb in the ceiling light above
me; I've been meaning to replace it for months and every time I think
of it, another thought pops up and the concept of lighting is
dismissed. But now it's becoming bigger in my mind. It wasn't even an
issue today beyond a gentle dismissal earlier. I think I'll have to
run to Target to buy more bulbs before this night is over.
See? They're coming back. It was so
nice to sit for hours and work on my paper without a million extra
tabs open, without music playing, without my brain jumping from task
to task like a little wild thing. It has been at peace all day,
sleepy. But it's waking now, and demanding to know why it has not
been stuffed full of the stimulation that it normally gorges itself
on. I do not have an answer to please it.
I can see why people think the world is
boring. If I thought like this, if my perspective was like it was
today all the time, I would probably be the same way: hardworking,
careful, determined to succeed. But I'm not. My mind loves beauty,
and it finds beauty everywhere. Adventures are easy to find, easy to
conquer. Magic seems a reasonable possibility and the amount of
wonder in my day-to-day life, something I take so much for granted,
is faded today. Oh, I can still enjoy the pleasantness of a warm
breeze, but I cannot hear its whispers. I can still smile at a
cloudless sky, but the wonder of its sheer vastness
does not overwhelm me today. The world is flat. Flat and boring.
I'm glad I'm not
normal.
I am very, very
glad my parents did not put me on Adderall as a child.
I am glad these
small blue pills only last so long, and soon I will be able to take
part in wonder again.
But hopefully I can
finish my paper first.