Computer open in front of me and I'm on my phone looking at a time waster (albeit a slightly more intellectual time waster than most other social media). I am definitely addicted to many things, including my phone, and I don't know how to stop long-term.
Right now I feel like I'm teetering in an in-between moment where I haven't used social media that heavily in the last several months, but I'm also not doing anything else beyond it. I'm playing games on my phone, reading on my phone (which is fine), scrolling other sites on my phone - Neocities, Reddit (logged out), are.na, Feedly, whatever I can get my hands on. The other night I caught myself opening/closing several apps while thinking "I don't want to be doing this," and yet I still did it.
I think at some point I have to admit to myself that I am at the 'take action' point. The 'choose to do something else' point. It's not enough just to "stop using social media." It's "stop using social media and start BLANK," where you fill in that blank with the next thing. Stop using social media and start cleaning your house more often. Stop using social media and start reading more. Stop using social media and start engaging with creative hobbies. Stop using social media and start taking more walks. Whatever. And the "and start" can be followed by any number of things, because while social media can suck 8 hours of your day like it's nothing, walking can't (well, it can, but probably not daily). You can clean for 20 minutes and get a lot done. Then what? Then you do the rest of the "and start" things.
There's a motivation piece in there that I'm still trying to figure out, and also remembering the things I need or what to do. Memory and motivation have always been pain points for me and I have many systems in place to catch me like a net when I forget but there's nothing that can truly substitute motivation. Except, I guess, forcing it and "doing it anyway," which was a big thing I had going on for a few years. DO IT ANYWAY.
The weird thing about me and systems and processes is that they never last more than 3-4 years, and then I have to get a new one. It's become stale, this thing that's been pushing me forward for so long. I need novelty to drive me. When I was younger, I'd simply change up my entire world (move, get a new job, make a bunch of new friends who do different things). No need to find new motivation to keep going -- I'll just force novelty into my life, and now I have to change up everything to support it. It was exhausting and I definitely started feeling that in my late 30s. (In my 20s I moved 8 times and downgraded my library from 2500 books to ~350, if you want to talk about how exhausting it is to move a lot.)
March 2020 came and interrupted a new flow that I had only just generated in 2018. It's weird, but I feel like it took me a long time to get over that interruption, especially being forced into a new flow environmentally. I embraced being alone and staying home all the time (it's what I've always wanted the freedom to do), and aside from the massive losses and depression stemming from "the way of the world and how people lead our country" (etc), I was doing fine.
Well, true to form, I started getting itchy for a new system and a new way of living around 2024, and I still haven't found it because I didn't quit my job, move, or find a new friend group to add to my existing community. That's how I've been doing it forever: major impulsive changes; now I'm, what, trying to figure out my natural flow and pace of things? Building a healthy system slowly over time so I can adapt and continue long-term? Is this going to work?
So when I notice myself addicted to things (like using my phone way too much when I'm not actually doing anything on it) it's a sign of something bigger, and I think this time the cause is that my life is not moving in any direction and I feel like I am running in place. I know that "high support needs autism" diagnosis plays in here somewhere because I feel like I can't take the next step (to whatever) until I get the basics down. Basics of self care, home care, and just being a well-defined human all around. But I think part of what makes it a disability is that perhaps I will never get those things solidly "down" by myself, and maybe I will always need a little help.
It's a strange moment, and I'm not sure where this thought is going. I'm not against asking for help for isolated reasons, but I'm having a very hard time paying for help for support reasons. I should probably hire a cleaner, for example. I might join a support group for autistic adults, if I had the motivation to look for one. Instead, I sit here frustrated that no matter how much effort I take nothing happens, it's all the same cycles and same routines and it feels like nothing moves forward unless something HUGE changes.
I know that feeling probably comes from how I used to deal with things. I am used to making big changes as a way to move forward. Surely there are ways to change your life without making a dramatic upheaval of everything?