Guest Blogs

“Boredom”

The daily routine feels like a straitjacket. Am I battling impatience – an ADHD trait – or is it boredom and depression?

Boredom sets in and hits like a boulder. I’ve been at the job for a year and plus. Supposedly there’s still lots that I could learn, and yet I feel caged.

It’s painful getting through the day; routine feels like a straitjacket. Get up, go to the subway, squeeze into a relentless crowd where there are no smiles, arrive at work, turn on the computer and start scanning what and who to write about next. I’m trying to figure out if it’s boredom or if it’s depression. Either way, it feels terrible. I dream of Paris, Rome, I dream of traveling all over the world. I dream of running away most of the time.

I thought that going away would help, that skiing through the beautiful snow-covered mountains would take away the blah, only it’s worsened it, in the worst of ways. I returned on Saturday night feeling like happiness and enthusiasm was fast slipping-not a nice feeling at all.

Everything I once dreamed of at work I’ve gotten, and yet I’m not happy. Today, I felt like a storm was raging inside. A lot of it had to do with the non-boyfriend who basically never emails, never calls, never text messages. I call him the anti-boyfriend. I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t know what I want, and I just want to be left alone. I need time to think and ponder. I need time by myself.

The non-boyfriend is unsatisfactory in that he does what he wants, but I’m not getting what I want. I want a relationship, I want someone who will e-mail me back, I want someone who will respond to my needs and ask how I’m doing. He’s not pleasing me, so why should I continue with this? Why should I be with someone who doesn’t meet my needs? I am told that one of the traits of ADHD is impulsivity and impatience, and right now that’s what I battle. I want to call him and rattle off everything that I dislike about him, while in truth, I should ignore him. I sit alone as it rages inside me, and I want it to end.

I gabbed with a girlfriend today, about the misery at work, about the misery within-why can’t I be happier? I have almost everything I wanted… right? I whined about boredom, feeling like it was so hard to finish something. I whined about the non-existent men in my life, about finding it hard to keep up with conversations, and she said to me, “Maybe you’re not ADHD, maybe you’re a sadist.” I thought about it for a while and wondered if perhaps it was true. Maybe I am a sadist and am simply attracted to misery.