Staying in this doom loop is untenable: Rethinking how we gift our attention

ADHD-informed musings on the focus required to make the world a better place, no matter how much doom and distraction we face.

When your attention feels like this, there are concrete things you can do. (Image: B.G. Merkle)

I have a lot of friends, colleagues, and family members who are immobilized by the volume and nature of change happening in the U.S. right now. I won’t pretend I’m not impacted by it, either. Beyond the actual, direct effects [1], I’ve spotted a pattern that’s compromised my moods and how I spend my time. [2] Every time I indulge in a doomscrolling session, I wind up with an attention/motivation hang-over that lasts at least a week.

This hang-over guts my focus and motivation. I struggle to complete basic professional and personal tasks (let alone the extra things that make life more meaningful and pleasant). It becomes deeply tempting to cancel meetings, avoid social events, and hunker down. After a few cycles of this, it’s easy to get caught in a rut of despair, frustration, and rage. These feelings manifest as an inability to do anything but keep doomscrolling and then rant about it to anyone who comes near.

This cycle is debilitating.

Continuing to participate in this doom loop is also capitulating.

I’m not writing to admonish those of us who may be stuck in this cycle. Instead, I’m writing to remember. I’m trying to remember that feeling helpless is one of the most demotivating, life-sucking states of mind a person can fall into. [3] And that we, ultimately, control whether we succumb to a feeling of learned helplessness.

Put another way, our attention is one of our most valuable assets. A lot of smart voices (recently, again, and for decades or more) have told us, again and again, that the struggle for our own attention (and thereby, the struggle for our sense of purpose, motivation, and action), is perhaps the ultimate one. As the chaos continues, it’s been vital for me to think, consciously and even out loud, about the answer to one question: to whom and what I am gifting my attention?

We have to reclaim our attention if we want to step beyond the sense of learned helplessness that modern politics can drive us to. We have to refocus if we want to reconnect with any sense of meaning in our lives. We have to stop doomscrolling to re-embrace our self-efficacy and resume our efforts to make our society just. Staring at what immobilizes us cannot reconnect us with what feels meaningful in our lives. Our attention must be on living towards what matters, regardless of how uncertain the future feels. (In truth, the future has been and always will be uncertain, regardless of what regime is in control of what corner of the planet.)

I realize that telling you to refocus right now can seem naïve, absurd even. Again, I’m still, also, talking to myself here. And, I’m not passing on these wise folks’ advice lightly. Maintaining a grip on my focus is no simple matter.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 38 (just two years ago!). In some ways, this diagnosis was a major surprise. Still, the lengthy diagnostic process and end results told me things I long knew about myself but had lacked a conceptual framework for.

I make piles. Time is not real to my brain. To do lists are a ritual but futile tool in my life. I am a very quick study on most new things. I run into doorways (houses, buildings, cars). I have significantly changed career foci numerous times. I may have dyscalculia. I spend a lot of time trying to exceed expectations of me. Instinctively, I make lively, far-reaching connections between seemingly disparate areas of thought, culture, etc. By accident, I cut or burn myself frequently while cooking. I write, read, and talk fast (and often loud).

None of these patterns suggest focus. After all, the popular conception of ADHD assumes I can’t focus. And that list above seems to confirm it.

But, in my experience (and according to many ADHD experts [4]), I actually have an overabundance of focus, not a lack of it.

Picture this: you’re driving down a multi-lane freeway (think L.A.), and you occasionally change lanes. That might be your brain while navigating stimuli, interruptions, new ideas, notifications, etc. Now, imagine driving down 3 or even 5 of those lanes all at the same time, at top speeds, with the attendant traffic and billboards, music blaring, a call coming in, and someone trying to talk to you in the passenger seat. That’s what my brain feels like. [5] Excessive stimuli (external and internal) characterize my waking hours (and when I wake during the night).

Right now, our nation is experiencing a similar avalanche of stimuli: overwhelming, chaotic, and unrelenting updates about major changes in governance, the firings of thousands of federal career employees just for doing their job of keeping our country running, constantly triggered fears about an unknown future in a world where peace feels increasingly fragile and “what we expected” now seems inconceivable. All of these stimuli are exactly what can grab and monopolize the attention of someone who (like most ADHD-havers) is powerfully attracted to “shiny new objects.” Most folks with ADHD also deeply care about other people, and here we all are watching the deliberate creation of multiple humanitarian crises. These factors make pulling away from it all especially hard for me. So, I’m not judging anyone else having a hard time stepping away.

Instead, I’m thinking aloud about all this because I’ve recognized (thanks to resources I’ll post below), that staying in this doom loop is an untenable psychological situation for me. While the current chaos in D.C. is a new load of stimuli, we have a lot to learn about coping with it from (a) people who already process an excess of stimuli (or rather, daily must work to manage their responses to stimuli). We also have (b) a lot to learn from people whose lives have long been similarly overwhelming and daunting (and sadly, the world is full of such examples).

Now, I’m looking for resources to claw my way back out. I’m writing about it here because these resources might be helpful to others who do work like mine in and beyond academia. If we’re going to keep working towards ethically sharing science (and helping people learn to do it) — and if we’re going to keep working to make academia a place where all people can thrive [6] — we have to be able to get out of the doom loop and redirect our focus back to meaningful work.

What I’m doing to stay out of the doom loop

I’m trying to deliberately reallocate my attention.

Here are some concrete actions I’m taking to protect my focus and capacity to keep doing things that matter:

1. I’m not reading the news (not even the comedy takes [7]). Same for the vague, non-directives about federal chaos arriving in my work inbox. Enough of the updates leak in —through my social circles, from family, through colleagues, and via some blogs/newsletters I trust — to keep me sufficiently aware, unsettled, and distracted.

2. I’ve installed apps to block my access to social media, apart from sharing these types of posts and relevant resources.

3. I’m using this browser plug-in to buffer inadvertent encounters.

4. I am firmly asking people in my circles to not rage-dump or update-dump at me.

5. I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind right now. No debating. I’m focusing instead on collective action with people who are already in agreement about what needs doing and why.

6. I’m actively seeking out advice from psychologists, philosophers, and community organizers whose concrete, actionable advice has helped me dig out of the doom hole. I’ll list them below.

Many thanks to Chris La Tray for connecting me to this elder’s wisdom.

In other words, I’m doing my very best to not cede any more of my attention to the actions in D.C. that aim to to swamp our emotions, freak out our amygdalas, and stall out our connections and agency. I will do what I can to keep working for just, ethical community and work environments. But, I refuse to give up my precious energy and time to the parade of efforts to make people suffer.

And, if ever we needed to acknowledge that we can’t do this alone—that the myth of individuality our society clings to is dysfunctional—this moment in history is another reminder. I’m hoping the resources that have helped me can help you reclaim your attention and keep at the good work you do, too. Perhaps most importantly, I’m hoping these resources can help you find your way back to (or into) relationships and community ties that are vital to us maintaining our humanity, staying generous, and keeping up the good work we still can do within our own spheres of influence.

Perspectives, advice & tools that are working for me right now

• Immediate relief:

  • Make America Kittens Again browser plug-in; replaces orange and melon pics, along with images with metadata tags like ‘aUthORItarIAN’ with photos of kittens.

  • Schedule a soup potluck with people you know and trust, especiallyif they are people you always meant to know better/spend more time with. Keep it low-key. Make it reoccurring at a frequency you can sustain.

  • 10 Actions You Can Take Now guide & graphic (scroll down a ways in that second link for the graphic); pair these with Social Change Now, linked below. See also footnote 6 below for links to change-making tools I’ve published with collaborators.

• Why we have to stop doom scrolling and start acting:

  • You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism, Janus Rose. Key excerpts:

    • “Perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism—an individualist solution to problems that can only be solved by collective action.”

    • “For most people, social media gives you this sense that unless you care about everything, you care about nothing. You must try to swallow the world while it’s on fire,” said Cross. “But we didn’t evolve to be able to absorb this much info. It makes you devalue the work you can do in your community.”

  • Do Not Believe Him, Ezra Klein (heads up that it’s a video version with Bannon and others speaking/depicted; if you’re not ready for that today, skip it.)

• Forward-looking takes that inspire me to hope and action:

  • It’s a Relay Race, Maurice Mitchell (National Director of the Working Families Party)

  • This is the World I want to Live In, Chris La Tray (see especially the stunning poem at the end)

  • “There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good,” Rebecca Solnit

• Academic perspectives that have been helpful:

  • Rebel Scholar Dispatch newsletter from Dr. Jorden Cummings

  • Academia Made Easier newsletter from Dr. Loleen Berdahl

  • My completely untestable claim is that it’s the people doing small things quietly that really matter. We can all be among those people. You almost certainly are., Stephen Heard

  • “Fighting for science will mean different things for all of us. But it means we need to be externally engaged.”, Terry McGlynn

  • Advice from a PhD student during the Bolsanaro regime

• Getting a grip on your emotions & finding your way forward:

  • Dr. Pooja Lakshimn’s Real Self-Care book and newsletter; both take a systems critque approach to keeping a grip on your focus and motivation. Here’s an NPR interview with her, talking about coping with the stress of politics.

  • Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection, Deepa Iyer

  • Do The Work: A Guide to Understanding Power and Creating Change, Megan Pillow & Roxane Gay

  • Poems of protest, resistance, and empowerment: Why poetry is necessary and sought after during crises, Poetry Foundation online collection of poems from around the globe

  • The Greats: Free illustrations from great artists to change the world

• Re-reading about abundance/sharing (vs. scarcity mindsets). There are both peer-reviewed, experimental studies about this and plenty of pop psychology takes. There is also all of human history demonstrating how reciprocity and coreliance win even in situations of deep depravation. Read any of it, then work on doing it.

• See also many of my previous articles on boundaries, articulating your guiding values, and using these tools to focus on how you can make a difference.

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[1] Like not knowing if the research grant I have from the National Science Foundation will be rescinded, and what that means for the future of my career. Or the very real circumstance that my job is non-tenure-track, and if universities like mine soon see a budget shortfall that leads to extensive firings to stay solvent, I may lose my job. There are also major implications for the welfare of people I work with love.

[2] As Annie Dillard reminds us, how we spend our hours and our days is how we spend our lives. That can feel like a judgement or we can embrace this statement as a reminder and an opportunity to make conscious choices about how we live the moments that add up to our lives.

[3] See Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning (a reflection on surviving the Holocaust and so much more) and any book, ever, on the concept of dharma (the Hindu principle of us each living our life’s purpose) or Buddhist wisdom noting self-inflicted suffering can come from denying that all sentient beings experience suffering.

[4] If you need a starting point, ADHD 2.0 (Hallowell and Ratey 2022) is the most helpful book I’ve read on ADHD to date.

[5] The only times I don’t have a multi-lane-freeway-stream-of-consciousness are when I’m engaged in an activity that requires all of my focus (like throwing pottery, writing, gardening, reading an engrossing book, or working in deep, synchronous collaboration on making the world better). In these cases, I drop into hyperfocus. This is an underestimated (and complicated) ADHD “superpower” akin to the fleeting, lauded “flow state” other folks may chase their whole lives. Hyperfocus can last hours, though, and has a compulsive side that gets complicated by time blindness (another common ADHD characteristic). I’m doing my very best right now to tap this hyperfocus for the things that matter to me, rather than ceding that attention to the what-ifs and chaos-mongering I can’t control anyway.

[6] Here are a few of my most recent publications on that front. All are action-focused and provide tools you can implement immediately.

• Broder et al. 2024. Use Your Power for Good: Collective action to overcome

  institutional injustices impeding ethical science communication in the academy. (Get the PDF, some background and a poster version of that paper here.)

• Leveraging grad student training to transform institutional attitudes on scicomm.

• Barrile et al. 2023. Equity, community, and accountability: Leveraging a department-level climate survey as a tool for action.

• Merkle et al. 2022. Sharing Science Through Shared Values, Goals, and Stories: An Evidence-Based Approach to Making Science Matter.

[7] Why the f*ck are they (and we!) giving so much attention to this!?!? That attention greed is definitely part of what started this whole mess.