I have a confession to make, I’m a complete hot mess.

Somehow, I give off the aura of someone who has their life together.

Imposter syndrome is weird. Imposter syndrome mixed in with how we consume media now is even weirder and has helped me create my personal hell. I know I have the ability to be an organized person, people think I am an organized person, but my organization skills are spent working on creating an image of being an organized person, instead of acting like an organized person.

I try to remind myself the 1-2 minutes videos I see of people who are what I call “aesthetically organized” online are pushing out content they probably filmed in one afternoon, and that’s not their lifestyle 90% of the time. Buttt even though I am aware of this, I still struggle to accept it.

I like cute things. I like living in a cozy space. That’s my personality, which to be honest, I like. I’m just having trouble decoupling the idea of the person who lives in that aesthetic space and how they operate vs. being okay with being imperfect while living in that space.

Wanting to be the person whose lifestyle matches this idea of aesthetic organization has led me down a path of constantly creating systems to improve something in my life.  Before I know it, I’ve gone from trying to solve one problem to trying to figure out how to navigate the 20 new ones I created along the way.

My mind pretty much loops through the following stages:  

Phase 1: Sudden desire to fix my life so that I’m no longer anxious or unhappy, and instead will become that girl

Phase 2: Due a bunch of research on tools to make this dream a reality and map out a foolproof plan because this time things will be different  

Phase 3: Abandon plan because it became overwhelming and focus on one of many new things to consider I noted while making said plan

Phase 4: Become anxious and unhappy

I wish I could say these phases are limited to 1-2 things in my life, but here are several examples of the chaotic inner dialogues that leave me overwhelmed and disappointed with myself every day:

wow I would love to revamp my wardrobe, it has been years since I felt like I had a cohesive look between all my clothes, I should sit down and think about what I want my wardrobe to look like, and in order to do that, I need to figure out my personal style, let me scroll TikTok and Pinterest for ideas, and oh wow I like these styles but I’m not sure how I can pull them off, plus I want to be responsible and buy clothes that I will wear and suit my lifestyle, but I also want the clothes to flatter me, I guess figuring out my Kibbe and seasonal color analysis would be a good idea and will create a nice foundation, okay doing all of this is getting overwhelming and I just want to focus on buying or making the clothes, so I think I’m just going to pay someone to do the analysis for me since then I can be sure I am curating clothing that will look good and in turn, make me feel good, and wow once I have these clothes then I will be forced to leave the house and be more social because I can’t just buy all of this stuff and not be seen, so now let me try to work out my schedule to make sure I can balance commuting to work with everything else I’d like to do…

I did see that one TikTok about creating a dopamine menu which seems like a cool way to prevent doom scrolling and watching Twitch all day, so let me make one, okay will now I need to see some examples, and then I need to figure out where I am going to display it because if I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist, well then let me make something on Canva that will be cute, okay well now I don’t like these templates, I need to find one that will look good on my phone, iPad, or printed, okay I just spent 2 hours working on this and I’m not sure this was the best format, well I am already thinking about redoing my lock screen and widgets so maybe I can incorporate something there but then is that too manual? hmm well I should look into how to create shortcuts and automations because what I really need are prompts and it will alleviate so much stress if I’m just reminded about what to do instead of always thinking about what to do in my daily routine, and did I just spend money on a new HomePod thinking it will help with the automations only to learn that there are some major limitations? wow I can’t believe I spent my money so irresponsibly, that is embarrassing and you should be ashamed and this whole thing has been a waste of time, okay, okay well one of the things on the menu is to reach out to friends more, but I’m currently a hot mess and I need to get my life together in order to not be a burden on others because no one wants to be responsible for someone who can’t keep their life together, so I should wait until I’m ready because I want to give them my complete attention and great now it’s been 3 days since I’ve responded and now I’m going to get anxious and think about it all day while finding reasons not to respond and crap has it really been 2 weeks now, I am an awful friend and this is why I’m not dependable and why no one likes me, I should stay in tonight

well I should work at my desk more but that corner is so dark and it makes me sad sitting there all day, I need to make it more inviting and I have money to spare through my stipend from work to make a couple of cheap upgrades so let’s see what I can do well now I can’t just buy anything because it has to match the style of my apartment while being functional, so I should do research to figure out what the best options look like, and wow okay I should really think about what I want my office space to look like overall because I also use it for gaming and I really need to start looking into how to build my own PC because I need the potential dimensions to plan out the rest of the space, and okay this building thing seems overwhelming maybe I should do a pre build no wait that’s too much money okay well maybe I can start buying things little by little over the next year so I don’t buy everything at once but if I do that, I need to think about which parts are the most stable and won’t be outdated by the time I build the PC and get those first so I should do some research, but okay crap I lost the plot and I need to focus on redecorating that area again, now I’m overwhelmed and I want to buy everything but I don’t know what I want

And my favorite:

I really really really want to create content because I have a bunch stuff I want to share and finding people who share my interests sounds like a fun time, but now I’m watching videos on how to be a content creator, and maybe I should buy things to make creating content easier, to prepare myself for this, well no don’t do that because then you’re putting too much effort into something you may not do long term, so instead I’m going to write a blog post and just publish it without much editing because if I force myself to do something without trying to perfect it it will make creating things sooo much easier, well now I just published something I’m not particularly proud of, and instead of writing or working on other content I will sit here and try to force myself to edit it but does it really matter because no one will probably read it, um okay try to be a bit kinder to myself, the whole point is start off scrappy to see an improvement over time so just leave it, I should focus on sewing something and then post that, well I need to think about how I’m to film it, oh did my machine just break??

Okay, I will admit writing all of that was a bit cathartic.  

I feel like I don’t know how to operate as an adult and letting go of this idea of doing things properly is hard. Limiting my screen time and consuming less lifestyle content is probably a good start, though (I’m trying, I swear).

I’m also convinced that if I fix my depression, it will make my ADHD more manageable, but then is it my depression that is preventing me from making a move or is it the ADHD from information overload, I know I’m not alone, I mean social media has confirmed no experience I have is unique, but then if I believe that are my thoughts really my own, and wow that’s kind of an invalidating thought, and—You get the point.  

Maybe if I can identify the stages of this whirlwind of thoughts I can develop tools to figure out how address them…