12/16/25 - A whole new nervous system, creative pressure
I was soooo tired that I fell asleep at 7:30pm last night, then woke up at 10:00pm and started having a little anxiety. I started pondering on why I was drained after visiting my best friend, which ChatGPT gave me some good answers that make sense.
My performativism is completely shedding away, and I just can’t do it anymore. But every time I see her, apparently, I perform. I went to her room, performing like I always do, but my nervous system just can’t anymore, so it went into overdrive and shut down.
The fact that I perform every time I see her is so new to me but makes sense. I thought I was excited, but after looking at it deeper… her and I are childhood friends. She was always quiet, so I would be extra loud or funny to make her feel comfortable and to get her to open up. As we got older, I started feeling the need to perform and “entertain” her to feel worthy of her time since I never felt her full presence because again she was mourning our friend group dying everytime she was with me. And then that just became our dynamic. I would be loud to get her to talk, and every time we were silent we were mad at each other or weren’t saying what we needed to say to each other. Now, I feel that if I’m silent/calm it’s losing our connection because my best friend doesn’t just start talking/yapping. She’s pretty calm, so nervous, I start performing. Which is why I start getting “excited” and overfunctioning from anxiety, but my body just can’t take it anymore. Again, which is why it gets drained and shuts down.
When I was in the moment realizing this, I was always freaking out and so confused. It took me a while to process it.
Then, I started getting anxiety over the fact that I told my influencer marketing teammate that I was going to send her the contract 3 days ago. She’s been waiting for a week, and I just knew she was going to message me. So had anxiety to either get up and finish the contract or wake up super early.
Kept telling myself, survival me did that type of stuff. It’s not THAT important. It can wait till the morning. I no longer need to live in urgency.
Convinced myself to relax, put some sleep hypnosis podcast episode and went back to sleep.
Woke up and realized my nervous system is actually completely rewiring.
Changed in friendships - no longer need to perform. Lmao I always thought I was myself with quiet people but I was performing the whole time. Apparently, I’m more myself with louder people because I’m emotionally regulated, which is also why I’m more quiet and calm.
The things I’m learning about myself is so mind blowing because I literally didn’t see any of this coming from a mile away. I always thought I knew myself but I didn’t. I thought the loud, unfiltered energy was me. But the more I’m learning about my performativeism, the more I learn that it was actually my anxiety. Survival me.
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Didn’t join the marketing meeting again but had a meeting with my social media manager and influencer marketing manager. They told me the other girl who I’m letting manage, was screaming at this other guy she’s managing. Part of me wants to tell her she needs to be kinder; people can’t be scared of her. That’s not how you manage. That’s not a leader - but I’ll give her a couple more days and just talk about it on our 1-on-1 if she asks for advice. Need her to come to me for help.
My mom’s friend came over, so mom was chilling with her in the living room. Spent the next hour helping the social media guy with some content.
I also realized creativity is like breathing for me now. It comes from embodiment. I think until now I was devastated that I wasn’t feeling creative and was just so confused because I don’t get the electric feeling anymore, it’s like part of me. Something about just feels incomplete, but I still get good ideas.
Chat said, it’s because now when I get ideas from my calmness, it’s emotionally regulated, so I feel the urgency to get them done too. They’re good, they make sense so much that’s they’re legacy ideas.
Before I would create from adereline, so my ideas had momentum, and then I would get straight to working on them with urgency because I would be too scared to let the passion die. When I would explain them, I would also be so excited that people would feed off of my energy.
Now people process my ideas that’s why their faces are blank. Which also means I don’t get validation for my ideas anymore.
These ideas are long-lasting and legacy ideas, apparently. People talk about them for years.
My landing has also changed, where I don’t overexplain. The idea is short and simple and confident. So people also think it’s a no-brainer. Before I would basically sell my vision and ideas like a salesperson.
I’m like insanely chill now, but I think part of me is still looking for validation because everyone’s blank looks are confusing me.
Overwhelmed with all this and just feeling like I don’t know myself. I drank another cup of coffee and started feeling anxiety. I needed to feel like I was getting iconic ideas, and I just wasn’t.
It felt so confusing, foggy, and hard. I was losing it. And was just so sad.
With all the pressure, somehow I ended up getting productive. Finding vendors on etsy, emailing, and then getting ideas for a couple of events/clarity on my merch box, eid gift.
I was starting to get back into the creative flow because I was having anxiety about presenting tomorrow. I didn’t want it to feel like I wasn’t getting any progress made. Everyone already knew I had the deck done a month ago. And this whole time, I’ve just been waiting for inspiration to come to me, but now I hit a deadline. I found an attar vendor that did custom labels, so now that’s what I’m doing for Eid.
On the side note, some other photographer found me and followed me on IG. I have no mutuals with this person too, so I wonder how and why they follow. Are they starting to see my depth/storytelling skills as model? Am I being delusional?
Intuition - Insanely confused on how my creative brain is working
5/10 - Feel so lost and foggy
100% - working + trying to get creative
