black and white thinking
Jan. 27th, 2026 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whereismikoit's so funny to think about black and white thinking while trying so hard not to assume it doesn't concern me. because surely i have some shades of grey?
well, i kind of. don't. and there's a multitude of reasons i can point to and say: “look, that's why i do that!”. but until i started therapy i didn't really stop and think how it affects me, to always follow extremes.
something that comes to my mind first and is omnipresent in my daily life, is making mistakes. or rather: my attitude towards making them. it's the most practical for my brain to just assume it will not get better, that it's not worth saving, that i should just delete, not finish, run away. i think my first memories, and sort of a memorial of my black and white thinking, is the arsenal of unfinished drawings in my parents' home. and okay, maybe some of these were a result of my undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, but also i remember tearing pages from my notebooks, sketchbooks, and rewriting them whole just for them to be perfect. to not have any trace of a mistake. (well. i actually did the same thing just today while setting up a bullet journal. so i haven't really got better on these grounds.)
i hate making mistakes. i've been creating since i can remember, but mostly hiding my art and writing deep, deep in my drawers, so no one could see. i really didn't want to be called out on any errors, mistakes, to be given any feedback. being perceived is a nightmare, but for a thing you put your whole heart into to be perceived is another, worse story. though sometimes i'm glad people were not subjected to my vladimir putin fanfiction (talk about being an edgelord at 13. sigh.), because i was apparently too scared of making a grammatical error in the bit about him dancing ballet.
another thing is quitting. or sometimes, not taking up stuff for fear of not being immediately good at it. i think a lot of neurodiverse folks have that experience of being above average at Some Things, usually the creative stuff. so you excel, excel, but then there's a plateau. and you don't have the motivation or strength to push through that plateau, because the motivation was coming from the fact that it was easy. it was pleasant to be hitting these milestones faster than expected, to be doing a month-long coursework in two evenings. but then there's nothing. you are not on the professional level; you notice there are people better than you, who have been doing the Thing for years, who are not amateurs with some flair and a more-than-averagely flexible brain.
so you stop.
and with every stop, it gets more and more anxiety-inducing to even make that first step. because you were doing so good then, but now you can't make your brain do that. and it's frustrating, and maddening, and sad.
and well. i refuse to be sad anymore, and i refuse for my hobbies to be something that i do to prove to someone (who? not sure. i'd say capitalism, and that's /hj) that i'm not worthless. because i'm not worthless either way, whatever i decide to do with my life. and i want to do good, and that's something that matters.
this week my therapist told me to look at my behaviour and search for these signs of extremes and black and white thinking. so i will be thinking about it some more this week, and catalog some of these thoughts, and maybe i'll be able to tell you some more soon.
for now, i resist by finishing this imperfect blogpost, drawing my kpop boys without any knowledge of anatomy or color theory and simply living.
well, i kind of. don't. and there's a multitude of reasons i can point to and say: “look, that's why i do that!”. but until i started therapy i didn't really stop and think how it affects me, to always follow extremes.
something that comes to my mind first and is omnipresent in my daily life, is making mistakes. or rather: my attitude towards making them. it's the most practical for my brain to just assume it will not get better, that it's not worth saving, that i should just delete, not finish, run away. i think my first memories, and sort of a memorial of my black and white thinking, is the arsenal of unfinished drawings in my parents' home. and okay, maybe some of these were a result of my undiagnosed and untreated ADHD, but also i remember tearing pages from my notebooks, sketchbooks, and rewriting them whole just for them to be perfect. to not have any trace of a mistake. (well. i actually did the same thing just today while setting up a bullet journal. so i haven't really got better on these grounds.)
i hate making mistakes. i've been creating since i can remember, but mostly hiding my art and writing deep, deep in my drawers, so no one could see. i really didn't want to be called out on any errors, mistakes, to be given any feedback. being perceived is a nightmare, but for a thing you put your whole heart into to be perceived is another, worse story. though sometimes i'm glad people were not subjected to my vladimir putin fanfiction (talk about being an edgelord at 13. sigh.), because i was apparently too scared of making a grammatical error in the bit about him dancing ballet.
another thing is quitting. or sometimes, not taking up stuff for fear of not being immediately good at it. i think a lot of neurodiverse folks have that experience of being above average at Some Things, usually the creative stuff. so you excel, excel, but then there's a plateau. and you don't have the motivation or strength to push through that plateau, because the motivation was coming from the fact that it was easy. it was pleasant to be hitting these milestones faster than expected, to be doing a month-long coursework in two evenings. but then there's nothing. you are not on the professional level; you notice there are people better than you, who have been doing the Thing for years, who are not amateurs with some flair and a more-than-averagely flexible brain.
so you stop.
and with every stop, it gets more and more anxiety-inducing to even make that first step. because you were doing so good then, but now you can't make your brain do that. and it's frustrating, and maddening, and sad.
and well. i refuse to be sad anymore, and i refuse for my hobbies to be something that i do to prove to someone (who? not sure. i'd say capitalism, and that's /hj) that i'm not worthless. because i'm not worthless either way, whatever i decide to do with my life. and i want to do good, and that's something that matters.
this week my therapist told me to look at my behaviour and search for these signs of extremes and black and white thinking. so i will be thinking about it some more this week, and catalog some of these thoughts, and maybe i'll be able to tell you some more soon.
for now, i resist by finishing this imperfect blogpost, drawing my kpop boys without any knowledge of anatomy or color theory and simply living.
