Re: Television Addiction

[ashockley55]

Yes, absolutely, the self-speak, the thoughts in my head are….maddening. Sometimes I just have to escape them. So I turn on the television. I turn to television because I don’t have the energy – mental or otherwise, to engage in any other activity. I work part time as a waitress. I come home, I’m exhausted, but I have chore-type things to do. Once those are done, I’m really, well, done. The idea of going off and doing a hobby or project or something otherwise brain or body involved is just…too much. That sounds awful, but it’s the truth. Also, if I haven’t gotten all my chores done, or I have something hanging over my head like paperwork I need to fill out, or phone calls I need to make, I won’t give myself permission to say for example, go off into the wooded area behind my apartment, lay back on the playground spin thing and snap photos of the trees (I like to do that sometimes). Also, today it was 105 degrees here.

I also use the television for white noise and a sense of company to go to sleep at night. Back in college, I once went to sleep in a florescent-lit dorm room with all my friends awake and talking and laughing. I remember it as one of the times I got to sleep the quickest and easiest. I felt safe because everyone was awake and it felt like they were watching over me. I didn’t have to worry. In order to get to sleep, I need something for a corner of my brain to grab and hold on to so the rest of me can relax.

I think the compulsion to watch tv comes from, primarily the ADD, but sub-issues include mental exhaustion (actually, that’s also kinda ADD), physical exhaustion, not giving myself permission to do something fun and engaging because I have other, more important things to do, sheer habit, and frustration and impatience with the time that engaging in something more fun and interesting can involve when I get into the hyperfocus mode and thoroughly exhaust myself.

Fatigue is a big thing for me. I have an issue with chronic fatigue; I have a heart condition that contributes, and getting engaged with some of my hobbies and interests can often lead to a crazy-intense hyperfocus scenario that is feverish and hectic and speedy and anxious and excited and…did I say exhausting?

For me, I’ve noticed that ADD has manifested itself, for me, as always choosing the easy (read: less physically and or mentally engaged) thing.

Starting a poem? Starting a story? Starting a photo project? Starting a blog? All over the place, my friends, all over the place.

Consistently working on those things, dedicating time to them, and finishing them? Being productive on a consistent basis?

Not so long as King of the Hill is on for the hundredth time.

As a writer, it often feels like I’m slave to the muse. I get these bursts, these sparks of an idea, a line, a few lines, even an entire skeleton for a poem, but then that inspiration, that mood evaporates, and I can’t get back to it. It’s like I take a commercial break and never get back to the original programming.

But that doesn’t work for writers who want to….work.

You have to be disciplined, you have to work at it, write at it everyday.

Ack.

Thank goodness I’m in a writing program; the deadlines are keeping me in line, making me write. Also, I have a friend that I set up an accountability agreement with to keep me submitting.

Thing is, writing is so quiet. And quiet….quiet is just….it’s just awful.

Unless I’m camping. When I’m camping it’s beautiful.

REPORT ABUSE