“sorry i haven’t replied… i forgot i was a person”

Hey friends. Wow, this is going to be a vulnerable piece for me. I am writing this intro bit first and have yet to draft anything else up, and I can already tell it is going to be A LOT. I hope this is relatable to some people because I know it is really going to MISS with a lot of who my audience is right now.

I would say the people who read my blog posts now are mainly friends and family, and that is GREAT, like I genuinely appreciate any and all support, especially in these early stages. It is not my desired target audience for a multitude of reasons though. Knowing this is my audience can make it difficult for me to fully show up in online spaces authentically. I often feel embarrassed to promote my creative endeavors on Instagram because I am wondering if the content they are consuming is aligned with their "real life" perception of me. Most likely they won't align because everything I create for the internet tends to be my fullest expression of self and extremely vulnerable; very few people get that version of me.

I DIGRESS!

With that disclaimer in mind, I write for the mentally ill person, who has this desire and passion to live life authentically and fully. I love connecting with people who are just trying their best in life, whatever that may look like for them. Sometimes life doesn't give us the best brain to cope with this human experience, but we are here to make the most of it. The goal is to fill our lives with things that charge our soul. I am not a toxic positive, mental illness denier. Yes, I believe everything is a spiritual experience and am thankful for every moment I am alive, but I am also mentally ill, a lot of days are tough and sometimes I lose sight of that. I wish there were more spaces that acknowledged both these sides co existing in one person.

This blog post will be detailing how crippling life can feel under the weight of being an unmedicated ADHD Autistic. I mean, not every part because that would be as long as the DSM...

I want to talk about responding to texts. It has been something heavily on my mind as I have really been struggling this past week. My New Year's resolution when I was 16 was to improve my texting, and almost a decade and a couple diagnoses later, I am in the exact same position. I still suck at responding to texts.

If my phone didn't exist, I would feel less like shit all the time. There is a normal level of pressure to socialize and have community outside of your phone, which is important, but still can be overwhelming for someone with a brain wired like mine. Not only do we have this pressure, but now we have phones, where we know most people are addicted or, at the very least, are in reach of their phones at all times. It creates this new type of pressure to also entertain everyone through a screen. People feel more entitled to someone else's time. There is no real excuse not to respond to a text within 5 minutes right? It will only take 30 seconds to respond and it is just not a big deal.

Oh, how I WISH that is the way my brain worked. Those last couple of sentences could not be further from reality for me.

For me, responding to a text has the same degree of importance and difficulty as anything else on my to do list. All I see are things that I need to do. I have no awareness of how long tasks can take or how much energy, I truly only see a list. Each item on that list has an entire subsection of tasks that need to get done before that item can be checked off the list. Then, I get overwhelmed and don't do any of it! and THAT is executive dysfunction, super fun (sarcasm)!

It is hard for people that don't relate to fully understand why it is hard for someone with ADHD ,or other mental illnesses, to respond to a text. I am not making dumb excuses and even though it doesn't seem like it, I feel deeply shameful that something so easy can be so ridiculously difficult for me. It feels really embarrassing a lot of the times. It is important to try and have compassion for myself because it is a result of mental disability, but it still is very frustrating.

It is typical for me to play devils advocate with myself because I have a Libra stellium, it comes with the territory.

"If I actually cared about my friendships, why wouldn't I respond in a timely fashion?" is a common sentiment I repeat in my head. I do love and care about the people that are reaching out to me. Often, I will read the text when I am doing something. I will mentally respond and then forget to respond until I check my phone again. At this stage, I start to draft what I could say back to them. I don't actually type anything, I just think about it, and then my brain gets tired from doing that. No response is ever perfect apparently, which sounds ridiculous as I type it, but completely logical for that nagging voice that pounds away subconsciously.

Here's the thing though, while I recognize my desire to improve my texting ability, I also fundamentally believe that we need to collectively stop demanding immediate access from people. At my core, I believe it has become a legitimate issue that plagues every generation.

I am someone who has spent a decent chunk of life with a phone addiction. Recently, it has improved a bit since the constant scroll of Tik Tok has ceased, but it is still a prevalent vice I use. Since almost everyone my age seems to have a phone addiction, when people don't immediately hear back, they can become offended or confused.

"What could they possibly be doing on their phone to not be able to simply text me back?" Listen, girl, if you are thinking this about your mediocre boyfriend, so VALID. He should be texting you back instantly because that is what you deserve! DUMP HIM!

I am mostly kidding, but I get it. If someone has time to check Instagram, they should have time to respond to your text. IN THEORY. For me though, scrolling Insta and responding to a text use different parts of my brain. Scrolling social media is a brain OFF activity; it is what I am doing to help disassociate through my day. When I need to respond to a text, I really try and put effort into it. I don't particularly like half ass'ing a response. I find older people tend to not understand this as much. They think if you have a phone, use it!! That is what it is there for, there is not reason to take hours to respond, and especially not days or weeks...

I hate this idea that I owe someone my immediate attention just because they text me. If it is a true emergency, SURE, I will work something out and get back to them immediately. Most things are not of that urgency.

Sometimes I am doing something for ME. I might be journaling, working out, taking a nap, or unplugging from the phone world entirely. It really does not matter what you are doing, it doesn't need to be an important task, but you don't owe someone an immediate response. Even if you are someone who is reading this and does not relate at all to being mentally ill, I think there are a lot of positives of being more intentional about when you respond to people. Instead of responding in the middle of your task, you can wait an hour and respond when you are fully done with what you were doing.

This is a healthier attachment to our phones in my opinion. To be like "Hey I see you messaged me, I will get back to you once I am done with what I am doing in the present moment."

As a member of gen Z, it can really start to feel like we have two lives; an online one and an in person one. Your online life likely includes people from your "real" one; friends texting you asking when you are next available to hang out, your boss asking if you can work a double this weekend, or your brother nagging you to Venmo him.

I like to act like my late responses are the result of a boundary I have set, rooted in compassion for myself and my time. The reality is I am just mentally ill and I have a lot of effort that needs to be given to the basics of living. As I have grown older, I have realized that I cannot ignore my needs and pretend I don't have them. I am an autistic adult, which means I am disabled and often times, that disability means I cannot be as present with those interactions through my phone. I cannot be the type of friend that you have constant contact with. I do my best to set aside time to reach out to my friends because those connections are still important to me, despite these difficulties.

I have been dogsitting/housesitting a lot lately and that requires communication from people that are typically older than me. They respond so quickly, and it will take me hours to respond to them. I genuinely need that time to digest what has been said and formulate a response. This demographic I think expects a quick response from someone like me.

When I get a text from my boss on a day off, I don't think he is owed a quick response. I am more than my job. When I am not on the clock, I am fully off the clock. I take my time in responding to someone who employees me because I don't want them to think I am available whenever they need. I am open to picking up more shifts, but I will respond in a time frame that respects my identity outside of work. I am talking about taking a business day to respond, at most, not weeks.

I can just imagine that last paragraph being pulled from this blog post and blasted all over FOX news as those dense idiots cry about "no one wanting to work these days" or something about sensitive gen Z liberals therapizing everything into a "boundary." I can see how it might be perceived as such, but you either get it or you don't!

Maybe this blog post is a call for help and a public apology to all the people in my life that feel neglected by my inability to respond to texts like a normal person. Thankfully, most of the people in my close circle fully understand this and are the exact same way. I am trying to unpack that shame and give myself the compassion I need, and I hope all my friends in the same boat give themselves that same courtesy.

I think moving forward maybe I should properly draft out these blog posts instead of just writing beginning to end with no clear direction. Unless the 3 people that are consistently reading this enjoy the ramble type posts. I am pretty much just typing whatever poops into my head, similar to the way I journal. Since this is a Sunday Spiral, I think it is a perfect depiction of my brain. I, personally, really enjoy the nature of these so far.

Writing is healing for me and so is being able to connect with others that can relate to what goes on in my brain. Finding these connections is often difficult for me, but I have always loved social media for that reason. Social media platforms allow for that gap to be bridged and for people on similar wavelengths to find each other. My hope as I continue to write and share is that I will also be connected with those that truly resonate with my words.

If you read this week's Sunday Spiral, thank you! Thank you for holding space for me to air out some feelings and continue to be vulnerable through this outlet. It probably doesn't feel like a huge deal for you to be reading this, but it is a great feat for me to be on the other end, actually writing and publishing this. thank you. I hope to keep sharing with you. Talk next week, friends! Remember to live a life that charges your soul.

with love,

Jordan