My cousin’s 40th got me thinking.

It was in Anglesea and I am not usually one who is able to travel for stuff like that. I blame it on my lifestyle choices in the arts, but I actually thinks it’s just that I’m a disorganised, lazy, asshole who can’t cope with making decisions.

Anyway, she is fricken rad. I love her to bits. She is one of my mum’s sister’s three kids. We grew up in each other’s pockets and it was the best. I feel like they are always up to something fun and I totally want in. Classic fomo. I have them purched firmly on a pedestal of fun times and adventures.

Kate (the oldest of them) made a comment to me once, ages ago, that stuck with me. She said she was the black sheep of the family that was the black sheep of the (extended) family.

It stayed with me, but hang on … Side note. I would like to acknowledge the the horrible non-PC-ness of that phrase. She would’ve said this to me in the late 90s/early 2000s, so you know, back in a time when we should’ve known better but didn’t. Anyway I can’t apologise for that, but I can apologise for using the phrase now. I just hope that you see the context I am using it in.

Anyway, I think it stuck with me because it felt like we were the green sheep in common. (Does that make it more palatable? No. I don’t think it does. It’s still a colour-based classification of the shit one in the group. This is getting wayward. Moving on.) You see in my family I was the one to get suspended from school, to get body parts pierced, to get tattoos, to take drugs, to smoke. My siblings don’t have tattoos that I know of. They also never got suspended. They were captains of things. (Don’t misread that either – I was also a high achiever (still am) just was not quite as high as them I suppose.)

Anyway they are the sort to get proper jobs. The kind that allowed them to get houses you know? Sensible things. Growing up with my cousins always felt like my siblings were sensible whereas my cousins were the unruly ones. And I liked hanging out in the unruly camp. Admittedly, they have houses and sensible things now too, but for some reason it feels different. I mean one of them has basically been living off-grid for a decade. Another moved to Dubai like 10 years ago before it seemed like everyone was and the other is now in Saudi. So it just always seems like my cousins are on some adventure that I want to be part of. They are always sharing a joke or having fun. On the drive back from Anglesea I had a thought that the difference between them and us is that they are all ‘yes’ people, whereas we are more ‘no’ people. Then I had to rethink that. I felt mean because my brother and his wife are definitely ‘yes’ people and Mum is a ‘yes’ person. Dad is a textbook pessimist. Always has been. My sister I can’t commit to either way. And while I try really hard to be a ‘yes’ person, and I think I present as a ‘yes’ person, I worry that my nature actually leans instinctively towards ‘no’. (My son leans that way too.) And therein lies my whinge.

I am constantly trying to fight it. (My nature as a ‘no-person’, not my sons. Although now that we’re talking about it, I have made many comments to him about that. His instinctive response is no. Always no. I even tried to test it out by suggesting we get out of the house and get some ice cream and what did he say? Nope. ) But back to me…I don’t want to be a ‘no’ person. ‘No’ people are not as much fun as ‘yes’ people. We’re safe and cautious and sensible and serious and while these are all admirable qualities, they are … well … dull qualities. Plus it is exhausting. Presenting as a ‘yes’ person when you’re naturally more of a ‘no’ person? Exhausting. And then I thought, is this all just anxiety?

Do I have a mountain of anxiety and is it triggered by my family? Probably. I mean who doesn’t? In conversations, for example, my family frequently lapses into these awkward pauses. Conversation dead-ends, if you like, and my anxiety peaks. My mind starts racing to find anything to fill the gap. I feel like I am often trying to find a thread of conversation and coming up blank, because thinking about conversation is not the same as being in conversation. It seems weird to me that we run out of conversational steam … and then I get caught up thinking about it, which kills conversation even more. I mean, for a family that ostensibly gets along with each other and spends a big chunk of January together, is that not strange? How polite it all is? My cousins don’t seem to do that. Is that a comfort thing? Or is it just a ‘me’ thing? Are they more at ease with each other and the silences, whereas my family has all this unspoken bullshit sitting underneath everything, so the atmosphere often feels heavier? (Is that something to do with the complexity that is the situation with my Dad? Or is that just an excuse? Albeit one that has been hanging over everything for 20 odd years.) Or maybe I just don’t really have much to say to my family beyond the everyday hi and how are you’s and stuff. But that feels mean and not completely true either. Am I not able to talk openly with my family? Or am I just getting caught up in my own head? Am I overthinking this? Does it all come down to my anxiety? Fuck.

Do I have ADHD? I need to qualify that, because I think there are a shit tonne of people out there suddenly wondering the same thing. (About themselves, obviously, not about me.) I know so many people who have been diagnosed recently. I am married to a highly-functioning human who got their ADHD diagnosis maybe 1 or 2 years ago. It has been enormously helpful. He said it’s like learning that you’ve been playing the video game on hard mode. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I have ADHD to the point of dysfunction, or really at all, I don’t need a diagnosis, but I am starting to think it would be bloody nice to get a diagnosis, because then there might be an explanation for some things that I would very much like an explanation for. Because, if I’m totally honest, I would really like to be able to blame my anxiety on ADHD, ok? It feels like it would be less hard work for me to take ADHD meds, than to deal with the root cause of anxiety. But that’s probably because I have anxiety and not ADHD. (And I apologise to all the offended ADHD-ers out there reading this who think I just said ADHD is easier than anxiety. That is NOT what I just said. I said that it feels like it would be easier to take Adhd meds INSTEAD of deal with the root of anxiety, but that is BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE ADHD.) Sorry for yelling.

Having said that though, I do get rather overwhelmed by stimulus and I can’t think outside of it, so the anxiety has some rather ADHD-like symptoms. Theatre foyers on opening nights for example. (Goddamn nightmare.) Making decisions. (Hate them. Have spent my whole life literally not thinking about the big stuff so I don’t have to make decisions about them. You know, like where do I want to live in 10 years and how am I going to get there.) Obsessive cuticle-skin picking until my fingers bleed. (Where are my fellow fidgeters at?) Conversations where there are more than 2 people present. (How do you follow the thread of conversation?) Jumping in and speaking over the top of people. (Because you can’t follow the thread of the conversation.) Time blindness. (Didn’t even know that was an adhd thing til recently.) Living in a house with a five year old and a 42 year old talking to you at the same time with music on? Can’t hear a goddamn thing but white noise. Brown noise? Have to google that one.

Google said: ‘Brown noise, also called red noise, has a deeper, more intense bass sound than white noise. It’s similar to pink noise, but with an even deeper sound.’ Cool. Thanks AI. What the fuck is pink noise? And why are red noise and brown noise the same thing?

Jeepers – I reckon this whinge could do with an ADHD diagnosis. What the fuck am I whingeing about? I need to rewind. The bit that got me thinking about all of this was the fact that I have either mildly torn or badly strained my calf at soccer recently. (Go figure.) That’s where this thought thread came from. The calf situation itself is a whinge for another time but muggen was telling me about how eccentric calf extensions are the best way to rehab calves. Helpful info? Yes. Did I already know that? Also yes. Did I tell her I knew that? No. I let her teach me. I put myself into an ‘I don’t know anything’ box, even when I did know. Why do I do that? I mean she is a doctor who did physio prior to medicine, so granted she knows a shit tonne more than me regarding the human body. She is also definitely smarter than me. She is more sensible than me and she is older than me, so I often find myself acting the part of the silly, light-hearted, go-with-the-flow, naive, younger sibling who doesn’t know much. Except that I am nearly 40 now. I am not young. I am younger than her, yes, but I am not young and I do know stuff. So how do I change how I have always acted around my family?

When I compare myself to my family, which obviously is a dumb, pointless thing to do, I feel like I am rather more of the artsy type and they are more straight-laced, linear, science types. As an actor, we jump straight to the hard questions of the characters we are portraying and we are forced into very close and personal relationships with our fellow actors merely due to the nature of the work. So I am very used to skipping the surface-level stuff. But then, when I am surrounded by artist friends, I feel like I am way too straight-laced and boring to be an artist. So where do I fit? In neither camp squarely. Which doesn’t matter I suppose. Do I have an inferiority complex? Is that my whinge? Why do I presume to know less than everyone around me? Because I don’t want to be wrong? Because I am scared of failing? Why has this whinge turned into a self-directed therapy session?

Ok so I am now in territory I did not expect it to find myself in and you can be damn sure that I am feeling lost and don’t know what I am talking about. I don’t even know if I want to post this. Feels too … personal. Ha! That’s hilarious. And proof that I am not just writing this for myself, but with a very conscious awareness of it being posted into the ether … where people might read it … like my siblings. Sorry Timothy and Muggen. I’m guessing this is not a comfortable one. Or maybe it’s fine. Maybe I’m over-thinking it and getting stuck in my head. K, cool, byeeeeeeeeee!!!

Entry 23 – ADHD anyone?

My cousin’s 40th got me thinking.