This is one of my attempts to replace my favorite hibiscus tea (that is now owned by a company owned by Jeff Bezos) with something else. In an ideal world, I would find something nice, easy, and not too expensive. In this world… it's a bit of a struggle.

 

This tea isn't bad. It's tart, the way a hibiscus tea should be, and a little sweet, also the way a hibiscus tea should be. It's just not…exactly right, not yet. The flavor isn't sufficiently full, and the taste is just a little bit too bland. It's not bad. It would probably be fine, if I hadn't had the other tea first.

 

Unfortunately, here we are.

 

But it's nice enough that I can bring it outside in a cup while I sit on a bench and work, with my cat on a leash exploring new spring growth.

The Hawthorn & Hibiscus tea is manufactured by Traditional Medicinals, which you can buy on Amazon or at iHerb or directly from the manufacturer.

I have been struggling with getting work done. Part of this is, you know. (Imagine me giving a shifty side-eye to the entire outside world.) The whole “world falling apart” thing?

 

But I can't totally blame the world. This happens to me occasionally, and has for basically all my life. In some ways, I can now sigh and say “ADHD, am I right?” but the truth is that if I pull the reasoning out of my brain and lay it out on the table, calling it “ADHD” doesn't really capture the issue. There's a very specific deepening hype → increasing daunt → inevitable failure → shame → worsening failure cycle that my brain gets stuck on and eventually, I have to grab it, give it a shake and figure my shit out.

 

It usually goes like this. First, the hype.

 

I get excited about a project. Things are going well. Things are going swimmingly. I make projections about what I have to do and how I will finish. The projections are…maybe slightly optimistic? Ah well, I'm sure since I'm so excited about it I will pull it off.

 

Then, the daunt sets in. My projections were not just slightly off; they were very off. They were so off and now I think it will take forever. Recrimination sets in internally. 

 

Recrimination is the death of productivity. Every time I open the project, I feel more foolish and more ashamed. I start skipping around, working on different things, or getting really wrapped up on insignificant details. Progress grinds to a halt.

 

Now the recrimination deepens: yes, it was harder than the hype cycle realized, but now I feel ashamed that I let the recrimination stop me. Why did I do that? What's going on? I start feeling deep shame about my total inability to accomplish a thing I thought would be so easy.

 

At some point, I realize that it's been way too long and every time I've opened the project I've stared at the same stupid chapter that isn't any good and messed around with it and what am I doing? How can I not accomplish this?

 

This starts spreading. I stop answering emails. I forget to pay the one bill that I cannot put on autopay (which is paying the ditch assessment for our water rights, a thing that costs me $35 once a year and the only thing I have to pay by putting a check in the mail like it's 1992). I gradually stop taking my ADHD medication, or even basic things like Vitamin D.

 

Even the thought of doing any of these things fills me with shame for the times I've neglected them so intense that I shrink from doing them.

 

In an ideal world, I would learn to be reasonable and not try to engage in the hype/daunt/recrimination/shame/failure cycle so that none of this ever happens. The fact that this is the ideal world adds to the recrimination. I do in fact try to not be as hard on myself as I once was, but, you know.

 

So how do I get out of of this? It turns out that there is an exit:  a point where I look at all my accumulated interior shame and decide that it's enough. I've hit the maximum amount of shame I'm allowed to accumulate, and I declare a shame jubilee.

 

A shame jubilee is like a debt jubilee: a widespread clearing of shame from the books, so that no more shame is allowed in the land.

 

Have I needed to email someone for three months? Well, time to just write an email saying “I know I needed to send this three months ago, but here I am!” Am I stuck on that one stupid chapter I have been stuck on since January? Time to say “great, I have four hours to do what needs to be done , and then we're moving on for now” (which by the way is the usual way to fix this: often if I get stuck trying to fix one chapter, it's because the fault is at a different point in the book, and I can't fix the chapter without moving on and getting to the part that is really at fault). I pay that one stupid bill and don't even say “sorry I forgot” on the attached paperwork because ha ha ha SHAME JUBILEE I can just do it! There is no shame anymore, just accomplishment!

 

I toss the shame away and spend a week telling myself “normally I would feel ashamed here and slink away, but I'm in a shame jubilee, so I don't have to” and that's the way it works itself out. (Sometimes, as part of a shame jubilee, I also declare email bankruptcy and just archive every single message in my inbox without replying or needing to reply, on the theory that if I really need to reply I will do so. I highly recommend declaring email bankruptcy on occasion.)

 

Does this make sense? Absolutely not. Does it work? Yes.

 

Oh, and as part of the shame jubilee I went to print out the email that tells me how to pay my danged $35 to the danged ditch association and it's not due until April 30th???? I'm on time?????? I have been stressing about it for weeks and I'm not even late??????????

 

Happy Shame Jubilee, everyone!

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