Month: June 2022

Oh right, I’m mentally ill.

There’s nothing like a meltdown to remind me I’m not as together and functional as I want to believe when my mood is a bit lighter. It’s a reminder that I need help processing my emotions. It’s a reminder that my perspective is narrow, that I am predisposed to see the world in strict binaries which often leads to my inability to take things in stride or have what I would deem a proportional response.

I am in the middle of getting a new job. There’s a lot of work trauma I don’t really want to unpack right now but suffice it to say I followed a toxic boss to a toxic company back when I was under the impression that both actually held the values they described and when I started to try to look behind the curtain, I was retaliated against, demoted, and replaced while still remaining employed. It’s been demoralizing and I’ve been actively trying to leave for six months now.

I’ve been on edge the last week or so. I had some really good interviews and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and I’ve been trying to visualize myself working there, trying to picture how it will be when I give my notice and quit my current job. But I just feel insecure and stressed out. When people ask me, I talk about being excited because I think that’s what they want to hear. And if I talk about how I’m actually feeling, people usually just tell me all the reasons I shouldn’t be feeling this way. The irony being that I know all of the reasons I shouldn’t feel this way. I don’t want to feel this way. But here we are.

So this morning I received a formal offer letter for this job and it included a stipulation that the offer was contingent on a physical exam and drug test. Instead of being excited about the offer, I immediately thought of my regular cannabis use. I thought about how I’ve literally been using it to self-medicate and how going on a break in order to produce a “clean sample” would also mean going without the support of this medication, regardless of the arbitrary moral value that ends up getting attributed to cannabis use. I also thought about a physical examination and how dystopian it feels for a potential employer to have medical information about my body or for the corporation to behave as though it’s entitled to that information.

It ended up being fine. After spinning out all of these hypothetical worst-case scenarios I ended up asking the recruiter for more information about the physical, he asked why I was concerned, brought my concerns to the company, and they said it was all OK. So, now I feel pretty foolish.

If I could just clean up.

Everything always feels so familiar. Sometimes I wonder about this feeling and question its authenticity. Though maybe I do have memories here… I live within half a mile of the location I was born, a few streets down from where I lived through kindergarten. Maybe a part of me remembers these streets and sights from back then. Or maybe I am stoned and just feel stoned and this familiar triggered feeling that I associate with shame and trauma is all in my head.

But it happens a lot.

I did ECT for 12 weeks almost a year ago. Sometimes I wonder if maybe that knocked some things loose. I don’t know anything about the brain. Maybe I should have looked more deeply into what I was getting myself into before I committed to it but I won’t judge my past self for being desperate to feel better.

But everything feels so familiar. It feels like trauma.

Sometimes I think it’s from the decade I spent getting blackout drunk with my friends all over the city. As I mentioned, I don’t quite know how the brain works but I wonder if the memories are all still up there but just inaccessible. I actually think that the alcohol blocks the ability to even record the memory so I don’t know how valid my theory is that my memories are in some file cabinet that’s hiding in the back somewhere, like if I could just take a day off—or maybe a week or so—to clean up and go through everything, I know I could move things around and find a filing cabinet hiding in the back somewhere. Or like a pile of papers I just didn’t notice before. Maybe it is like that.

I don’t know what is typical.

I have no idea what’s typical. I had a really great job interview today and, while I’m feeling energized by having participated in some invigorating conversations and also hopeful at the prospect of finding myself in a new job that actually values me, I am already dreading the crash I know that’s going to hit tomorrow. Or the next day. Or, most likely, Sunday, when I’m supposed to be spending time with my family. Is foreseeing myself in a low place, resentful of the laughter and general noise around me, resenting my family, is picturing this more likely to make it happen?

I feel like I put on my corporate persona as a costume. There’s definitely some code-switching that happens: I inject the corporate jargon I know their looking for, being careful to repeat the same buzzwords that I heard them mention and also some industry synonyms so they know I understand what they’re talking about when they use the buzzwords and not just parroting the language back to them. But there’s more to it than that, even. I make sure to widen my eyes and make plenty of eye contact so they know I’m not only attentive and engaged but confident. I widen my mouth and make sure to smile a lot. I keep my pitch low while keeping my tone more upbeat and also making sure to avoid up-speak where I can, intentionally ending sentences definitely to convey more confidence and let them know definitely it’s their turn to speak. I lean forward as much as I can but not too much. Careful not to play with my hands but also not remain so still as to be unnatural. I avoid negative-sounding language but still remain honest because I am not conning anyone. These are all conscious choices but it’s not an act as much as it is camouflage. I know that I belong here but I need to do all these ritualistic things to curate my appearance so that you also know I belong here.

Does everyone do this? Is everyone thinking about themselves in this way at all times while still remaining attentive and engaged enough to answer questions intelligently and also remember to ask the questions I need to ask? Is this masking?

It’s not like these behaviors come naturally to me. I’ve been in the corporate world for 16 years now and in that time I’ve had countless conversations with managers about these specific behaviors. I realize now but didn’t know then that I was receiving feedback but I would hear that my tone was too flat. I used to confuse the words effect and affect until I heard so often that I had a “flat affect” that these two words fell into four discrete boxes with axes based on vowel and part of speech, with the vowel “a” intersecting with “noun” to describe my general demeanor of what I was told was disinterested, bored, disengaged, annoyed, serious, and even angry, among a whole host of descriptions that all came as a shock to me, thinking I’d been enthusiastic and cheerful. I was lucky enough to have the privilege of a corporate job and a caring manager who would brainstorm with me on ways I could adjust my presentation so as not to be misinterpreted.

I meant to only reflect for a little while but it feels like I’ve been typing for hours. All I wanted was to record this experience. In a way, I have been thinking about this as recording evidence of my autism so I can later show anyone who says “but you seem so outgoing” or “you seem so social” or “you’re too successful” or I don’t know what they say but I feel invalidated all the time and I sort of want to record these things so I can come back and say See? Is this enough for you? Can you finally see me for who I am? But then that feels disingenuous to me so I feel like I also have to adequately record my doubt. If it turned out that I did not have autism, how would I feel? I’ve only recently come to latch onto this diagnosis because it feels so much like home but it’s not the first time, is it? I was convinced I had Bipolar II at one point because my depression had been so cyclic. Looking back, I think my depression has been heavily influenced by my environment and as my mood has dipped I can simultaneously track where my environment has shifted to be less supportive. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a fraud. And maybe I am a fraud. And maybe that would be ok but I need to figure it out.

What is abundantly clear is that I need to get out of my head and get out of my house and be around other people, neurodiverse or otherwise. But it would be nice to also be cultivating a sort of tribe or community or chosen family, too. That feels too big for me. I guess we’ll see.

I need things just so.

I am having a meltdown.

Can I be having a meltdown if I know I am having a meltdown? I read Catch 22 in high school and now I think self knowledge is inherently inaccurate. Maybe it is.

I am in a bathroom stall in the public restroom of a professional baseball stadium. I have been planning what I would wear for over a week and spent a lot of today anxiously ruminating on what it would be like to be here with this swarm of people and all the noise and activity. I said I wanted to come when a friend said he was putting a group together because I need more friends and I need more social interactions. In theory, it seemed like a great time. Who doesn’t love a ball game?

This day started out poorly to begin with. The sun was too much when I was walking the dog this morning and he kept stopping to obsessively sniff over the same thing when we were right under the sun with nowhere to get shade. Then there was food in the sink when I went to do the dishes. Any kind of situation where food and water are mixing gives me sensory horror and I found myself letting out a little scream of agony and frustration when I took care of it with as minimal contact as possible. Then I got an email from the private religious university that kicked me out for being gay almost twenty years ago letting me know the transcripts I’d requested so I can try (again) to finish my degree at another university were being withheld because I owe hundreds of dollars in fines for missing chapel my last semester.

The ballpark has been crowded and now people are drunk. It’s loud and I was a little stoned and even having a good time but now I think it’s wearing off and my friend accidentally dumped his entire soda on my feet. I’m wearing sandals. I knew I shouldn’t be wearing sandals but I’d made up my mind that they were the only shoe appropriate for this outfit so if I changed to a different shoe I would have to wear a different shirt and I really wanted to wear this shirt. I don’t know why this shirt only goes with these sandals but that’s also the reason I didn’t bring a sweatshirt. I don’t know why things have to be this way but now my feet are sticky and disgusting and I am locked in a bathroom stall, cold and wet, horribly uncomfortable, and nearly hyperventilating thinking about how I’m going to have to commute home on public transportation in these sticky soggy sandals.

But actually I’m feeling better. Taking a few minutes to write about this moment felt right because I felt like I wanted to record what was happening when it was happening but it helped me slow down enough to let my emotions settle. Maybe there are napkins and I can clean myself off. Maybe it’s not so bad.

It’s not just genius boys.

I started reading NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman. In truth, I started it a while ago and have been having trouble picking it back up. I think I am tired of thinking about this. Tired of thinking about myself. But as I was listening to this audiobook whilst walking my dog just now, I started to get angry. The author has interjected several times throughout the narrative that the public view of autism spectrum disorder has leaned heavily toward the white cisgender male but then proceeds to primarily tell the stories of white cisgender men, these quirky geniuses who all made invaluable contributions to science and technology but all seemed to have trouble relating to other people socially and blah blah blah. To be fair, it was published in 2015 by a white cisgender man so I guess it’s not all that surprising. I didn’t know what to expect and, though it had been recommended to me, I actually borrowed it from the library because the library recommended it and it was available now. Okay, reflecting back on it now, I guess this was predictable. I am not even sure if the author is autistic, but I digress. This book is making me angry.

I’m also grateful for TikTok.

I just want to let it sink in that I’m typing that and publishing it to the Internet but I truly am. I am able to read this primarily mainstream and stereotypical view of autism and actually see myself in it and throw away the parts that make me feel excluded, knowing that this is not all there is. It’s because of the women on TikTok sharing their experiences. I just finished reading a part of the book where the author talks about how these genius boys conceived of and invented the Internet, how they were able to create networks of science fiction fans through letters and ham radios who all worked together to inspire the invention of technology as we know it today and it’s through a similar network of 1 minute videos we are building a network now. It’s through membership, however tenuous and possibly temporary, that I can recognize the characteristics in these narrow descriptions and see them out in the real world in a variety of activities and environments. The patterns are the same and TikTok taught me to recognize these patterns and helped me to see them everywhere so that I can accept them in myself.

This sounds a little bit like sci-fi and I’m reminded of Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed series and how she talks about “the pattern”… I also think about how drawn I am to the collection of truths she compiles in The Parable of the Sower and compiles into Earthseed: Book of the Living. Wait, but my point was how “the pattern” I’m talking about is not culty like that… but if it seems that way, now you know way.

In any case, I guess I’m glad the world is changing to accept a more diverse view of autism but the fact that it’s changing right now in this way and people are so resistant to change is exactly why I am so anxious about having this conversation with myself. So here we are.

Maybe I’m stupid.

Feeling a lot of guilt today. I have younger sister with an autism diagnosis and, in a large family, she grew up being bullied a lot, both at school and at home. I never picked on her, except for the few times where I just lost my patience and said something quick and rude that had everyone laughing at her expense. Though I was always quick to make sure that she was eventually laughing too, I remember these times because they stick with me and hurt me. I don’t think it hurts because I hurt her but because I don’t want to be someone who behaves that way.

One thing I never fully grasped was how the things that bother you about other people are actually the things that bother you about yourself. As a depressed person with what I am pretty sure is undiagnosed adhd, my fuse can be a little short in the car. It’s short everywhere but only behind the wheel with no ability to remove myself from the situation do I get so worked up that I resort to shouting and name-calling out of pure vitriolic rage. These other drivers make me so mad I call them idiots and tell them they’re stupid. I tell them they shouldn’t be allowed to leave the house because they are so dumb. It wasn’t until my sister told me how she’d confronted her partner’s fatphobia while they were behind the wheel calling everyone a fat-head or a fat-ass or something that it clicked for me how, at the height of anger where emotions are highest and reasoning is the lowest, the insults we hurl say more about us and our values system than it does about the object of our wrath. Like, in my messed up view of the world from best to worst, I’ve internalized stupidity as the objective worst. But it’s not objective.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my autistic sister and why I couldn’t have been better to her. I’ve been thinking a lot about how her behaviors make complete sense to me and whether that means that we have some lines of thinking in common or if I have just been around her enough and am perceptive enough to have gotten to know her a bit. My own sister. But I don’t honestly know. In truth, the answer is never within these narrow binaries I’m mining but that doesn’t seem to stop me from going down that route.

I used the insults in traffic just as an analogy to illustrate how the qualities in others that bother us are usually qualities we don’t like about ourselves. I was thinking that I have had this aversion to my sister because there are similarities and, while this is true, and while there are also similarities between myself and all of my siblings, one of the reasons my sister was diagnosed and I wasn’t is because she is intellectually disabled. I guess it makes sense that, if I think the worst thing in the world is to be stupid and if I am terrified that I am stupid, I would certainly resent any similarity between myself and my sister, whom I perceive to be stupid. But these aren’t my values. These are the same values that told me I was gifted and I could take care of myself and I didn’t need anything that tell my sister she is insufficient, she’s different, she can’t participate, she can’t take care of herself. I used to hear the way she spoke to people, the things she would say, and just cringe because it always sounded like she was reenacting a bad sitcom, complete with the over-dramatization. But if I think about it, isn’t that also how I learned?

So many of the lessons I learned growing up are flawed. Everything I learned about racism, about capitalism, about religion… even things I learned about science, about language… I don’t know why I thought my understanding of intelligence itself would be left unscathed but I think it’s more malleable than I thought. And I think there are different kinds of intelligence. We all have inherent value. That’s the thing I wish I had been taught and internalized. We all have inherent value.

Finally, someone understands me.

I recently “read” Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD. I feel a little guilty when I say “reading” because I tend to listen to audiobooks on double speed since that’s the only way I can seem to fully pay attention to the information I’m ingesting, but I digress. This book hit so close to home and in so many ways that I am going to give it another listen but go through the accompanying PDF at the same time. I tend to struggle in identifying which of my experiences are unique and which are universal. I’ll have a full-blown epiphany and share my findings with my boyfriend who will report back that it’s common knowledge and then I’ll go to a meeting and see everybody nodding along to what I thought was an objectively bad idea and wonder if I am living in an alternate reality. So, I thought working through this would offer a more objective view.

While I haven’t started yet, the first step is to “find your why” where you uncover your values by remembering five moments in your life when you felt like you were FULLY ALIVE (it appears in all caps like that) and describe moments from all different phases of your life in as much detail as possible, also thinking specifically about why the moment was significant. I will think more in depth about this when I get to it in the book but I have been feeling anxious about this ever since I printed off this PDF. I was really struggling to remember ever feeling fully alive. It feels so long since I’ve even been partially alive, let alone FULLY in ALL CAPS. And then I had a really good job interview this morning.

I was not expecting it to be a good interview. In fact, every stage of this process has been bizarre. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn a while back with a job description and asking for my resume. I emailed my resume that day because it looked like an interesting opportunity. He wrote back “great resume!” and said I would hear from someone the following day. A week went by and I didn’t hear anything when one morning, I received the same message he’d sent me on LinkedIn but via email. So I emailed him back and said I’d already forwarded the resume but if he had any feedback or something I could do to improve my chances of getting a call back next time, I would be open to receiving this information. Then I logged into LinkedIn and saw my email to him in the recently sent messages, which is when I realized that he had only messaged me once. LinkedIn sent me his message again via email and that’s what I was responding to. Like a fool. So I apologized, then he apologized and said he would put me in touch with someone from the company he represents. I’ve had a few interviews and, while the recruiter seems like he might be new, the actual conversations have left me feeling hopeful.

The recruiter called me Monday to say they wanted me to meet with this consultant who has been doing the job they now want to hire a full-time position to do so I said I was available on Tuesday or Thursday. We set a tentative plan for Thursday. He said they would send me a calendar invite but they did not. In fact, the time for the interview arrived and I’d received no way to join the interview (which I assumed would be a web call) nor even a confirmation that was happening. After a few annoying calls with the recruiter, I was finally able to connect directly with the consultant and we found some time to speak this morning. It was incredibly validating, whether or not I end up getting this job.

The part that stood out to me the most was where she talked about how, just from the way I had answered the questions she’d asked me, that I was thinking systemically and that to think this way is rare. RARE. This was news to me but it explains a lot, I guess. I honestly don’t know which of my experiences are universal but maybe I should just assume none are? But maybe this explains why I’ve been bashing my head against the wall for years wondering why no one else is asking the questions I am asking, why people are so willing to go along with work that is inefficient or doesn’t make sense, why no one ever seems to care about why we are doing the things we’re doing.

I read things like “work connects to larger organizational objectives” and “time and effort are valued” and “expectations are clearly communicated” on the employee engagement surveys my employer sends out to all of us to complete every year and wonder how everyone else is answering. And today I spoke with someone who not only asks these same questions but even understands that people do not ask these questions, that it is rare for these questions to be asked.

I continuously find life to be SO CONFUSING because there are so many instances where the qualities or behaviors or ideals that a company or an organization or a family or a church or a society or a nation SAYS IT HAS are, in fact, the opposite of the qualities and behaviors and ideals that are rewarded by said company or organization or family or church or society or nation. It felt refreshing to be able to speak openly about the things that I value to someone that seems to genuinely value those same things. I’ve spoken too often about these things to people who seem to enjoy and even gain energy from the words I am saying while simultaneously misunderstanding, misconstruing, invalidating, or even mocking what the words actually mean.

There was even a point where I, a scatterbrained disaster, lost my train of thought maybe halfway through my sentence and she not only picked up the thread but accurately predicted where I had planned on taking it. To feel so understood is… a gift, truly.

I want to learn more.

I applied yesterday as a transfer student to the local state school to finally finish my Bachelor’s degree after twenty years. It felt foolish to only realize recently that I really enjoy learning. It makes perfect sense. Of course I enjoy learning. But, for me, school was never about learning, and maybe that was the problem. I struggled to get through the social and sensory nightmare that was high school. I struggled with classes and getting assignments done in college while I tried to reinvent myself into all the things I thought I should have been before that and simultaneously coming to terms with sexual identity, which ended up getting me kicked out of the private religious university I’d chosen. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t process it. I just changed directions and went to work. When I attempted to go back almost ten years later, my focus was on finishing the degree so I would have the degree and I based my program of study on what I thought would be helpful with where I was in my career—a career I didn’t actually choose but just sort of landed in.

I think it wasn’t until I started reading about neurodiversity, specifically autism, that I realized just how many decisions I make not based on what I want or what interests me, but how I think I can be successful in the world as it is. Maybe it helps that I’ve been seeing a lot of evidence lately that what I once perceived as “the world” might very well be the capitalist mask of white supremacy and patriarchy and that, to be authentic, I need to separate my goals from the goals of capitalism and really sit with what I want for myself. I still exist under capitalism and so there is always the constant question of how can I turn this into money? but I’m still a long way off from a full-on career change.

When I first met with a student transfer specialist, I shared my story and my transcripts and I was told I was still three years away from graduating, even after close to six years of collective undergraduate schooling and over 150 credits. At first I was discouraged and overwhelmed but I’ve thought a lot about it. I’ve also been reading a lot of books about autism and neurodiversity. I love learning but it’s obvious I have so much to learn. So if it takes three years, it takes three years. Initially, I think I was imagining three more years of dry management courses and case studies in organizational development. But if it’s three years of learning and becoming an expert in something I actually like, well… that’s probably what I was going to be doing with the next three years anyway, just without help.

I’m hoping more states with follow New Mexico’s lead and offer free public education at the undergraduate level. Maybe sometime within the next three years…

I don’t know why.

I have therapy tomorrow. This always stresses me out. I journal and write notes and spend hours just trying to analyze my world, my behavior, my feelings, my motivations—when I have them—just to have an idea of how to express what’s been going on so I can get help that actually helps. I feel like I have had to become so articulate and I still struggle to find the right words to describe exactly how I am feeling.

I also have my second appointment with a new psychiatrist tomorrow. Meeting with my therapist beforehand is helpful so he can coach me on how best to approach the discussion and which things are important to bring up. I don’t know. I wish there a better way to communicate the insides of my brain. I have always felt a little detached from myself and my motivations. When I try to describe what’s been going on, I often feel like I am guessing. Like, this is what happened, this was my reaction, so it makes sense that I was feeling X or Y but I think the truth is I don’t really know. I am not in touch with myself to really understand what is going on so I try to observe and speculate, like an observer of my own experience.

My partner is upset right now because I admitted earlier that I’d been smoking cigarettes. He asked me why and I listed a few reasons but the truth is, I don’t actually know. It’s disgusting. It doesn’t taste good. It doesn’t smell good. But it makes me feel something. How many destructive things in my life have I adopted just to feel something, even if it was a feeling I didn’t particularly enjoy? At least it feels different.

The mask is melting.

Trauma. I picture little baby me trying to get his needs met and retreating inside himself when those needs felt like too much. I picture little toddler me stumbling around the house in jewelry and high heels being told that these are girls things. I picture a cocoon made of wax that I slowly built up around me both to keep rejection out but to keep those parts of me that faced rejection in.

I was a quiet kid. I don’t think I wanted to be a quiet kid but I never felt like I could compete and so I’ve always felt more comfortable stepping back and letting others fight to be fed. But I watched.

I learned.

I learned how to not feel my feelings until I convinced myself I didn’t have any. I learned how to put myself in uncomfortable social situations until I convinced myself I was outgoing. I learned how to use language, and sarcasm, and satire, until I convinced myself I was charming and funny. I learned how to be mean.

Jesus, this is all over the place. The mask is melting. I am feeling like a raw nerve walking around in the world, feeling only pain from everything I touch. I was driving behind a big white SUV with a tinted back window and I couldn’t see the traffic in front of me. This has bothered me ever since I can remember but, today, it was intolerable. I was legitimately considering turning into oncoming traffic to get around the larger vehicle when we came to a yellow traffic signal and I could justify stopping to myself to give the vehicles in front of me some distance. We were driving home after looking for very specific sneakers for three hours. Because they have to be the exact brand and colors that I am picturing in my head, whether or not such a thing exists, and no other shoe will do. I don’t remember being like this before. Although, maybe part of it is the pandemic. I used to work downtown next to a bunch of stores and I remember spending entire weekends by myself strolling from store to store trying to find the perfect this or that, always asking myself if it was something I’d seen in an ad somewhere or just made up in my head and needed to have. Maybe it’s having a partner trailing behind me that increases the anxiety. Maybe it’s some hidden factor I can’t determine. Whatever the cause, I feel like I am becoming more and more sensitive by the day. The things that were always a little uncomfortable have become downright intolerable.

I know this sounds like depression. I have had a diagnosis of major depressive disorder since I can remember. When I was in middle school, I remember telling my parents while on the way to bed that I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. (My mom said that made her sad and kissed me goodnight.) I have two suicide attempts under my belt and have taken time from work on three different occasions to go through Intensive Outpatient. I actually just took twelve weeks of disability leave in the fall to go through ECT but that’s a story for another post. The point is, I am well acquainted with my depression and I know it sometimes shows up as irritability or with anxiety… but I keep coming back to a suggestion that was made to me once that depression might be a symptom of trying to function in a world that wasn’t built for me.

But I have functioned in the past. I think. I guess it depends on the definition of function. To a degree, I am functioning now. I have a full-time job, though I work remotely and there’s some interpersonal conflicts at work that have resulted in me having a pretty small workload. I’ve had a full-time job since I moved away from home. I should be grateful. I want to be grateful. Despite all of the mistakes I’ve made, I’ve been consistently employed since 2006 and I actually have a relatively high income and I hate myself because I am drowning in debt and I can’t seem to figure out how to convert income into paid bills and savings and assets. I was thinking I had this great success in my past that I was drifting away from and in trying to build out the contrast, I am seeing right now as I’m typing it how I am just a repeating pattern, a spiral staircase, not sure if I’m going up or down. I started working late in life but have been employed since. Yet my performance reviews all read similar to my report cards from when I was a kid.

Smart but lazy. Has so much potential if he could just buckle down and do the work.

I picture myself in this wax cocoon I’ve built up through years of coping with trauma and many more years watching traumatic things happen to those around me. I built this thick hard shell to keep myself safe and protected. But I’ve been passed around and jostled and there are gouges and scratches and the shell is wearing thin. There’s a fire somewhere and it feels like the heat is coming from all directions and it’s starting to melt and pull away.

I can’t be calm right now. I can’t be caring and understanding and sage right now. I can’t be productive and innovative right now. I can’t be smart and witty and charming right now. I can’t be friends right now. I can’t be lovers right now. I can’t be family right now. I can’t be professional and courteous right now. I can’t understand your double entendre right now. I can’t figure out why your face is moving like that or why your voice sounds like that right now. I can’t figure out what to eat right now. I don’t even know if I’m hungry right now. I can’t be political right now. I can’t fight for social justice right now. I can’t create right now. I can’t plan ahead right now. I can’t stick to a schedule or enforce a routine right now. The mask is melting.