Roadrunner Twice

As I think I might have mentioned a whole bunch of times, I've got An Amount of ADHD and can go long periods without that being a major problem — well, I mean, it's an underlying fabric to everything that happens, but that's not a problem per se, that's just the field you play the game on. But if conditions line up in the right way, I can definitely kick off a cascade of maladaptive chaos that leads to what looks and feels like a fairly serious mood disorder.

In Hallowell and Ratey's Delivered From Distraction, they devote two memorable chapters to some notable processes that can reliably cause that exact kind of mood cascade. Because of how important those are, they unfortunately were completely justified in deploying some deeply annoying mnemonics for them:

• "SLIDE:" Self-attack -> Life-attack -> Imagining the worst -> Dread -> Evasion
• "SPIN:" Shame / Pessimism / Isolation / No-creative-outlet (yes, I feel the same way about that acronym abuse as you do)

The first one is a linear, causal process, and your response should be to aggressively interrupt it in stages one or two without any care given for looking silly; if it reaches stage three, you've got a serious problem on your hands.

The second one is subtler and more interesting — it's four seemingly independent but actually mutually-reinforcing negative forces. If any one of them gets out of control, it'll feed and empower the others, and any two together have their strength amplified... but conversely, taking steps to reduce one of them will slightly disempower all the rest, so if you're in the middle of a nasty cascade, you can go after the weakest link and it'll clear some more psychic space for you much faster than seemed possible.

Anyway, I first read that book back in like 2018 when I was dealing with the fairly major mood cascade that led to me getting diagnosed with ADHD, and when I hit that SPIN chapter I was like "oh: that sounds like a checklist but in reverse."

So then I started this practice of walking the anti-spin checklist in my notebook every morning. I haven't always kept it up; I've dropped it for long periods, and then picked it back up again when I've noticed my mood wobbling on a larger scale than I prefer it to. Unfortunately, it absolutely helps a lot.

Here's how you do it: one bullet point per anti-item.

• Nice: You have to say one something nice about yourself. Nope, no back-handed self-deprecating bullshit! You have to actually compliment yourself in the same way you would complement literally any other person you allow in your life!
• Grateful: List three things you're grateful for. They do not have to be profound.
• Social: Write the last time you hung out with friends or family that you do not live with, and your next scheduled hangout w/ someone. (Phone counts.) If there's nothing in the surrounding three day period, you must text someone to start scheduling something before continuing.
• Creative: Write the last Messing With Some Project time you had, and also the next time you're planning to mess with some project. Interpret "creative" generously, not according to received hierarchies of art worth.
• Exercise: Yeah, it's not in the acronym, but it should be. When's the last/next time you're getting out to breathe hard and move around like a jackass to no good effect? Don't take more than a day or two off. (And again, reject received hierarchies of worth re: what counts as exercise -- this isn't about "working out," it's about not going out of your mind.)

I warned you this practice was annoying, and this sort of thing shouldn't be necessary at all, but alas, being a fundamentally nonrational animal who nevertheless experiences consciousness and intellect is some complicated shit and a whole bunch of things that shouldn't work... very much do. I hate this and also love it, and hopefully hearing about it is of some use to you.