Disorganization, Procrastination, and Mental Inertia.

From the day I entered the public school system one warm, August day in 1996, I knew that I was going to have a problem. I lost most of my crayons that day. How, I do not know. I suppose I procrastinated a bit too long about returning them to their box. Perhaps I spent too much time arranging and re arranging them by colours...

I am a huge procrastinator by nature. Pretty much everything I do is put off until the absolute LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT. People, I think I may be crazy. I must be crazy to constantly subject myself to such torturous panic and seemingly never learn from it. If and when I manage to start on my homework it is usually somewhere around 4AM and I am usually quite nuts by that point. You see, up until that point in the hours preceding the sun, I am worry, worry, worrying. Frantically. I need to do this....I want to do this....so why can't I do this?! And then, mercifully, around that time my brain magically unlocks itself as if prompted by some powerful spoken incantation and the words flow, flow, flow onto the paper. It is quite amazing that I can even think a coherent thought after I've stayed up all night fretting, let alone write it down!

But that is merely one side of the coin. I also have an issue with obsessively pursuing perfection. A feeling of "Yay, I have started an assignment...now where do I stop? Oh my GOD I can't stop....this is not good. This is not right. But I have to end it SOMEwhere but I can't...I can't...I can't." And then maybe I write and rewrite the same sentence about 40 times with different wording. Or maybe I am writing a narrative for English and I simply cannot bring myself to come to a conclusion. Nerve racking As Hell.

Inertia seems to hold me hostage most days. That is the only word that I can use to describe it. "An object at rest (or in motion) will remain at rest (or in motion)unless acted upon by an equal and opposite force" That is how my brain is. That seems to be the one rule that my brain is willing to follow. I have a hard time switching between tasks in school. If I am not finished with what I was doing it is nearly impossible. Just today I refused to go back to band class during "tutoring" because I could not figure out how to stop studying. I just begged and begged until the tutor caved and let me sit there. I need to be done with one thing, once I have become immersed in it, before I jump to another. As a result, I fall behind in class or simply give up. I toss my pencil down in anger multiple times during the hour and a half I have in English because I cannot listen and take notes at the same time. I write and she just keeps talking without giving my brain enough time to translate what she is saying, send the message to my hand, and allow it to transfer to the paper. What does that have to do with mental inertia? A part of my brain stops when my hand starts writing. The part that stops seems to be which ever area is in charge of speech recognition. And this inertia does not play favorites. Everything is equally difficult at one time or another. There are days that I stand in the bathroom and cannot make my brain go through the motions of telling me how to turn on the shower. More commonly is my inability to start writing a paper. To start writing at thesis. To start....anything. My brain shuts down and...breaks or something. Error, error, Task:(Start)does not compute.

I don't understand it. How can I forget how to to start, stop, pr change activities? It is maddening. It usually takes someone else snapping me out of it. That frozen place that my brain often retreats to. Occasionally I will break free of my own accord. Suddenly. It is odd. I just have this, like, eureka moment and suddenly I can begin my report(or whatever), stop in the middle of it, come back and finish. All before 4AM.

So, I am a huge procrastinator and mental inertia reigns supreme in my life. I am also hopelessly disorganized. I don't know where my brain goes after I finish assignments or no longer require the pencil that I have been willing to write for me, but I lose everything. I finish my homework...five minutes later it is gone. I sit my pencil down for TWO seconds and Poof! It is gone. I don't know what to make of that. It is infuriating. "Did you do your homework?" "Yes." "Do you have it?" "NO!" "That's a zero." (Fuckfuckityfuckfuckfuck) Have you ever lost at test...that the entire class was taking...at that very moment? I have. I lost it on the way up there...to turn it in. One moment it was in my hand and the next instant it was nowhere to be found. Things like that happen to me all the time. It is annoying. Very annoying.

Part Two coming soon...or not. I can never be sure.