Please Remember to Eat

My initial intention for this week’s essay was to deep dive into Christofascism. You know, something light and easy to write about. As I’ve been taking on a lot more work lately to attempt to outrun inflation, formulating thoughts for deep dives—specifically thoughts that connect together and make sense—is really difficult.

So in the interest of not wanting to skip this week because I’ve come to appreciate the practice of writing, I’m going to address what I’m dealing with currently: being neurodivergent while navigating capitalism.

For most of my life I got by without having needs. It worked out well for everyone around me so I thought it was working out alright for me. Not having needs is particularly convenient when working. Saying yes to everything that comes your way (like “quick” projects and rush deadlines) and being very efficient usually gets you more work. More work gets you more money, and more money is always good.

In hindsight I’m well aware that’s all a fallacy and leads to almost incapacitating burnout. However I’ve come to understand that awareness about this doesn’t magically make the pattern of behavior go away because it’s so deeply engrained. We don’t talk a whole lot about the double edged sword of awareness and understanding. On the one hand the lightbulb moments of understanding yourself better can be amazing, on the other you begin to become aware of how some of your problems are rooted in systemic issues and there’s not much you can do to change that. You’re both grateful for the knowledge and bogged down by frustration and helplessness.

As I’m entering my third year of doing freelance work, I’ve learned the following:

1. I have absolute garbage for brains after 3 or 4 hours of working on one task or after just a couple of hours of having to task switch multiple times.

2. As far as meal breaks I work one of two ways: I either get so focused that I forget that I need to eat, or I sit in front of the computer while eating because I recognize that I need to eat but don’t want to lose my train of thought. Taking an actual meal break, a break that consists of walking away from the computer all together, doesn’t work for me. It’s really difficult to get back into working when the break is over, so in my perfect world I structure my work so eating a meal away from my computer means I’m done for the day. Depending on my tasks, sometimes that’s lunch, sometimes that’s dinner.

3. For my overall workflow, I need to set deadlines for myself even if the task itself may not have a firm deadline. This way I can batch work together based on like tasks, such as a day of working on various small (15 minute or less) tasks or a day of all similar tasks, like video edits. This way I’m both honoring my energy and getting things done in a timely manner.

Learning these things has been crucial to working in a way that doesn’t lead to burnout at the end of each day. It’s structure, but I don’t see it as particularly rigid structure. Our work culture, however, doesn’t like structure. It values “flexibility.”

Being flexible in multitasking means taking on everything that you come across in a day, whether it be projects, conversations, emails, etc., with the same amount of energy. If you can’t get into an hour long conversation and then immediately get back to work doing whatever it is that you need to get done, you should work on being more flexible.

Flexibility in regards to deadlines means you will be told that there is no specific due date, yet there is a vague unspoken deadline that you don’t know about. Even if you ask what that unspoken deadline is, its existence will be denied and you’ll be told not to worry and you can get to it whenever you’re able. You should know that this actually means you’re expected to get everything done as soon as possible, not when it works best for your workflow.

I’ve repeatedly tried to work in this “flexible” way and I can’t. I end up either procrastinating endlessly because I can’t organize myself properly or shaming myself into working way more than I’m energetically capable of. I’ve tried to express what works best for me in as many different ways that I can think of and continue to be met with resistance disguised as a solution. “Totally get that you need that. This is how we work, though, so how about instead you do this thing that actually doesn’t meet your specific need but gets you to stop asking us to change how we do things?”

I wish I could wrap this up into a neat bow with an answer for how to navigate this, but I don’t have one. I can honor my needs and state my boundaries until the cows come home, but all of the therapy-speak in the world doesn’t prepare you for what to do when your needs and boundaries are repeatedly disregarded because they don’t align with how most of our work environments are structured to operate. Capitalism is predicated on us being interchangeable cogs. Too many times we are left having to choose between honoring ourselves and affording to survive, which is bullshit of the highest order. None of us should be living this way, whether we’re neurodivergent or not.

Friendly PSA: It can be difficult, however attempt to drop the word “just” when talking about any task. This goes for when you’re addressing yourself as well as others. For work it would be something like it’s “just” responding to an email or making a phone call or it’s “just” editing a photo or making that spreadsheet. For personal needs it would be saying things like you “just” need to do the laundry or you “just” need to go grocery shopping. Energy is energy is energy. This ranks right up there with saying we “should” be doing certain things.

The world is pushing us to approach each day as the same: same energy level, same productivity level, same attitude. When we buy into that as being the way we need to operate, we aren’t giving ourselves space to be human. Resist shaming yourself for the perceived ease of a task that may be hard for you at the present moment and if possible, resist others trying to push their perception of what’s easy onto you. We’re not in a competition with each other for the most productive human award, even if capitalism makes it seem like we are.