It makes me happy when they listen

If I don't let myself stim or I'm in an environment where stimming is more difficult (like work meetings!) I can get overwhelmed very quickly. For me it often manifests in the inability to focus and involuntary twitching…

Sometimes I do not like how I feel. And that makes me not like who I am. But I am not how I feel. I am not even what I can do. That's a resume, not an identity. My life and relationships are not a business. I am what I choose to do and say. Even if I do not feel good, it does not mean that I am bad. I am not my feelings, I am what I choose to do and say.

The Sadness of Learning

There is a mourning process that comes with being diagnosed.  And it can be really confusing.  You can spend years and years--sometimes your whole life—suspicious of yourself, knowing something about you is different, and not having the words to describe it.  You can feel so left behind, so disconnected, so misunderstood, so frustrated, and so silenced.  Then the words do come, things like mature for your age, shy, sensitive, lazy, ungrateful, difficult.

So when you put together the pieces as an adult and finally realize that you might need to seek out a professional’s opinion for all these thoughts and behaviors that you hadn’t grown out of yet, it can be so exciting.  You sit for four hours of tests, doing random activities with a stranger who calls you back after a week of thinking on it to tell you that you have autism and ADHD.

That’s it!  I’m not weird, I’m not stupid, I’m not any of those things.  It’s not me, it’s just the way my brain is wired!  It can be so validating, such an important cornerstone to understanding yourself and finding your identity and your community.

But there is also something strangely final about it as well.

I remember after getting my diagnoses, the sadness I felt was unexpected.  I had suspected myself of being autistic for a long time, and though the ADHD speculations were newer, they were firm as well.  It just made sense, this would explain so much of what was going on with me, what had characterized my internally turbulent childhood.  But when my doctor said, “Definitely autistic,” it struck me.

I think I’m still figuring out how to put it down into words.  This is permanent, this is my situation, something I will need to handle and monitor and be responsible for for the rest of my life.  There is something wrong with me.  It’s not going to go away.

I have to manage my neurodivergent self in a neurotypical world.  Even on days I’m just home by myself, even on days I’m working to get to the end of the day, even on days I wish I could strangle the pieces of me that don’t fit in the way the world demands they do.

It’s a lot of work, a lot of research, a lot of relearning how to both find mercy with myself but also take responsibility for my shortcomings, whether or not they really feel like faults.  It’s something that I have to keep in mind all the time, something I have to keep secret from certain people, something I have to hold even when it’s weighing me down.  And it so often weighs me down. 

There is something wrong with me.  I don’t want to have to be positive about it all the time, sometimes it’s really hard and I wish I was different.  There was a period of adjusting to this news, of learning how to swallow it down and accept myself as I was.  I’ve mostly settled in with it now, made a bed for it beside my own so we can properly get to know each other and rest without spite for the following morning.  After over a year of compiling the right resources, I’ve been able to use the diagnosis as a springboard to understand myself and massively improve my life.  This has 100% been a change for the better, I need anyone hesitating to get a diagnosis to understand that.  But there was a period of sadness that came with learning all of this about myself, and sometimes its still here, still lingering as I practice harder than anyone else I know to keep my shit together and fail anyway.

I don't want to drive to work, I want to lay in the mud and listen to the frogs sing and know the names of mushrooms and wait for it to rain so we can all share a feeling.

My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Drive Home

It was a long, frustrating road to getting my ADHD diagnoses.  The phycologist I saw was ready to label me with autism, but decided that my issues with memory, organization, and motivation were the result of anxiety, and diagnosed me instead with generalized anxiety disorder.    I didn’t quite buy it, but accepted the diagnoses and the medication prescribed for it.

It didn’t help.

I could feel it wasn’t helping, and in some ways it was making things worse.  Surprise! taking medication your brain doesn’t need can have adverse side effects.  But I still had the rest of my day to day life to tend to as I tried to figure it out.

I had just left my position as an administrative assistant at an office that I generally was very fond of, for one that I liked much less but that paid me a living wage.  As I got into my car that morning, dressed up in business casual clothes that I despised, the fuel gauge stared at me, reminding me I forgot to leave early enough to fill up before work, after also neglecting to fill up on my way home last night.  I had enough to get me to the office, I would just have to fill up after my shift so that I could get home.  No problem.

I watched the clock through my shift, forgetting to fuel up during my lunch break as that would have made things too convenient.  I locked up and got back to my car, and sighed my annoyance at actually having to stop at the gas station this time.  I navigated there, parked at the pump, and went for my wallet—

My wallet.

It wasn’t there.

I dig through my bag.  Nope.  I dig through my glove compartment.  Nada.  I dig underneath the seats of my car.  Uh uh.  I turn my bag upside-down this time, dumping everything out to see where it must be hiding.  No cigar.  I don’t have my wallet.  I don’t have any way to pay for gas.  And I don’t have enough gas to get home.

I sit in the parking lot for a few minutes.  This wasn’t the first time I had done this.  I once missed my turn and got lost downtown, eventually having to call my boyfriend to come rescue me as I waited at a sketchy gas station parking lot with my shih-tzu on my lap, growling at passersby.  Bitter but fitting, this was the night before I was to travel upstate to meet with the doctor for diagnoses.  I bought I big, rainbow-colored wallet to try and make it something I couldn’t miss  Then, weeks later as we were going to TSA for a trip to attend his friend’s wedding, I didn’t have it.  it’s mortifying to be ready to board an airplane, realize you don’t have arguable the 1 thing you really need to make that happen, especially when your partner is really expecting you to have it, because it’s the airport, how the hell could you not have your wallet?

    I was embarrassed then, and was even more embarrassed about it now.  I didn’t want him to see me like that again, to have to come and rescue me again.  Besides, he was at work anyway, and wouldn’t get off for several hours.  I did the only thing that seemed reasonable in the moment, and started driving home.  Whatever night I had ahead of me, I wanted at least to be closer to home for it.  So I drove, praying, anxiously watching the gas gauge tick down, down, down as my GPS lets me know the several mile difference between what I have and what it will take to get home.  I keep going until the dashboard read only 1 anticipated mile’s worth of gas left.  I didn’t know what would happen if I let the car run out completely, so I pulled into the corner of a stranger’s wide driveway.  I had five miles to get home.  I liked walking, went on walks for pleasure when I had the time.  Maybe I could just walk home.  I still had at least 2 hours of daylight left, besides.  No big deal.  I hadn’t told anyone about my predicament just yet, too embarrassed to admit that I was this much of a mess.  So I write an apologetic and explanatory note and leave it on the dashboard of my car for the driveway’s owner, and begin my journey.  In the little ditch in between a backroad and someone’s crop field, I began to walk home in four year old, $20 Walmart faux leather boots that definitely didn’t make me stumble every third step.

After about a half mile, I texted my boyfriend, just so someone knew where I was and what I was doing, hating that I had to show him this side of myself yet again.  He wasn’t happy, but just asked that I be as safe as possible.  I tried texting other people, vaguely things like “Hey, what are you up to tonight?” gauging who might be able to help me without revealing predicament before it was necessary.  No one was available.  So I kept walking.

The shoes and subpar walking ground meant I was moving much slower than my usual gait.  The sun began to set.  I tried to stay optimistic.

Finally it’s dark.  I try to reframe the night so I wouldn’t be so awful.  It’s like an adventure, I’ll have a new perspective I can use in my writing, this will be a story I can laugh at once I’m home and figure out what I’m doing.  But truthfully I’m scared of the dark, I’m scared of the car’s flying past that might not see me and come too close, and I’m afraid of where I’m stepping.  My parent’s dog got out one night, and wasn’t found until the following morning…her paw caught in a coyote trap.  My phone flashlight wasn’t much of a comfort.  I listen to Critical Role on my phone, trying to borrow this fantasy of adventurous travel that might see me home.  Then I listen to episodes of Adventure Time, thinking the comedy and absurdity will distract me until I can get off the road and out of the dark.  It worked for a little bit.

But I was still far from home.  I couldn’t really gauge how many miles I had in front of me, all the houses looked the same in the dark, too many farm fields for me to differentiate them in my current state.  Then, a woman driving by slowed her car to a stop beside me.  I thought she was going to offer me a ride, and was bummed knowing I would be turning her down.  But instead, she held up her phone, her camera flashed as she took a picture, and then she sped off.

What?  What was that?

I keep walking, thinking, and getting more nervous.  Why did she take my picture, and say nothing like that?  Was she sending it to someone?  Someone who would drive down the road soon after, some man who now knew there was a woman walking alone in the dark?

Now I was really scared.  Realistic or not, this scenario was playing out in my head, and I decided I couldn’t afford to take the risk.  I swallowed my little remaining shield of embarrassment, hoping I could just fix this myself, and I called the sheriff’s department.  I apologized, told them I knew they weren’t a taxi service, but I felt unsafe.  The woman on the phone was very nice, staying on the phone with me until the unit she alerted arrived.  I stood in front of a house with a decorative, white well in the front yard, and I waited in the dark, flinching at every car that passed by.  Two cop cars arrived, the officers standing in front of me in that way that only cops do, hands on their belts, and questioned me about what had happened.  It made me feel like I had done something wrong, that I was being investigated and this story about forgetting my wallet was a fishy cover.  But one of them gave me a ride home over the last 2 miles.  I was home at last.

My boyfriend, now that I was safe, could let me know how frustrated he was with my forgetfulness, and that we needed to discuss how it was affecting our relationship.

I was low.  I was exhausted, I was scared, I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, I hated myself.  I cried myself to sleep that night, and walked 7 miles the next morning, carrying a gas can to my abandoned car.

It was such a low point in my journey of self-understanding, such a marker on the map of “why can’t I seem to do anything right?”  I forgot my wallet all the time, and this was the worst instance, a potentially dangerous time.  Shortly thereafter I scheduled another appointment with my psychiatrist, and explained what had recently happened along with all the other instances that seemed so much like issues with cognitive processing rather than an anxiety problem.  This trip of misdiagnoses is another conversation, and this post is already too long, but she agreed to give me a test run of Ritalin to see if maybe treating the issue like ADHD would have a positive affect.

And what do you know.

It did.

So much.

But more on that later.  This night sucked, and I can hardly look back on it and laugh.  For the rest of the year that I lived in that area, I would drive that road and mentally clock that driveway I borrowed and watch the rugged miles fly me by from my car, all the way to that little white well.  If nothing else, it made me angry enough to put my foot down and demand that my problems be acknowledged.  I’m medicated now. 

If you’ve had a similar happening, if you’ve had your issues ignored until you hit a point of shame, danger, and or lost threatened relationships, I see you. I’m sorry. It can get better. I’m medicated now, I’m properly diagnosed now, I’ve got appropriate resources to support me. And now I keep my keys inside my wallet, so I literally cannot leave the house without it.

ENTRY LEVEL MEANS NO EXPERIENCE. IT MEANS NO PORTFOLIO OF RELEVANT SAMPLES. ENTRY LEVEL IS ENTRY LEVEL

"adhd isn't a disability"

breaks down over trying to start tasks until he deadline is stupidly close

unable to do basic chores unless it's like 4am and then the whole damn house gets cleaned

speaks too fast

tangent and tangent and tangent. makes social situations hard

literally unable to stop themselves from interrupting people mid sentence (and the constant "*interrupts*- sorry, please continue")

knows what they want to say, cannot find the words, even if it's something basic

auditory processing disorder (pretty common with adhd), like how do you explain that you can hear but your brain has minecraft server lag and the chat will appear soon

hyperfixations, and people thinking they are special interests when they are not (they are short term, literally stops you from basic care like eating and drinking when in)

impulse purchases making bank accounts cry

all or nothing. not hungry to pain. don't need to pee until pain. you get the picture

cannot sit still, like actually can't, constant moving and shuffling which people think would be cute but actually just pisses people off

doesn't have a fidget toy, not bc they are popular but bc they would have to put it away bc dylan over there got a fidget spinner and has been loudly playing with it (dylan is neurotypical)

cannot do anything if there is something else to do that day, must wait

just stfu it is a disability

Doctor: Yes you can have medication :)

Insurance: Yes you can have medication :)

Me: Amazing, Pharmacy? Can I have medication?

Pharmacy:

What's fun about executive dysfunction is when you finally break out of it and Complete the Task, your reward is an immediate shame spiral.

"This took 15 minutes. Why did I put it off for six months. I created so many new problems by not doing it six months ago, and it wasn't even hard. I am literally a waste of carbon molecules."

And I know my brain works differently. I understand that executive dysfunction isn't a choice or a thing I can even remotely control. But once the task is done, there's no relief. Only shame. Because wow. Look how easy it was, and I turned it into a burden for six months.

i feel like no one really wants to hear that sleep/exercise/nutrition/hydration are major factors in treating mental health issues bc we’ve all talked to that person who thinks your depression would be cured by one good session of goat yoga or whatever but unfortunately they do help and i’m chronically annoyed about it

Original

My internal monologue when I try to wing my eyeliner.

The Washington Post, June 23, 1912

Dungeons and Doing My Best

    So, motivation isn’t strictly necessary for doing something, but it is really, really¸ helpful.  I don’t want to take the trash to the curb.  Even though it will take less then three minutes for me to put my shoes on and drag the bin down to the end of the driveway, I don’t want to do it.  So sometimes it goes ignored, until I’ve missed the Monday morning deadline and have to deal with an overstuffed bin for a week.  That motivates me to put it out, even pull it down early the night before.  But without the motivation, its just too easy to let the trash pile up beside my porch, where I also don’t want it to be.  So I just have to pull myself by the ear and take the three minutes to put my shoes on and take out the trash, or just do it when I already have the shoes on, such as when I’m going for a run or taking the dog out.  It always makes the bin feel a little heavier somehow, but it gets done.

     Lacking motivation makes things harder than they need to be, plain and simple.  There always feels like there’s more dishes, more people in line, more things to be said in a phone call when you just don’t have that kick of motivation to make them happen, making even mundane tasks feel like something you have to muscle through.  On the opposite hand, when you do have motivation—oh shit—that’s where it’s at.  When I properly feel motivated to do something, It’s like I’ve got those springs in my shoes you always used to see in cartoons, a literal spring in my step boosting me through the tasks that can become very easy, or even pleasant.

     Finding motivation isn’t always easy, especially for someone prone to procrastination as they try to focus on what they’re actually motivated to do that day (it’s not usually focused on taking out the trash).  So I’ve come up with a way to satisfy my desire for self-improvement with a hyperfixation as well as a work around for making my problems not feel like mine so they are advertently easier to handle.

     Those of you who are familiar with DnD already know about stats and character building, so feel free to skip this next part.  Those of you who don’t, please follow me into a brief, oversimplified explanation of how a character functions in this tabletop role playing game.

     You are given six stats: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. 

Strength: Hit, swing a sword, wrestle a fellow.

Dexterity: Sneaky your way past the guards, jump to safety when the rope bridge snaps, steal.

Constitution: stick it out, shake it off, hold your liquor. 

Wisdom: read the situation, understand people, make good decisions.

Intelligence: Book learning, nerd stuff.

Charisma: make friends and influence people.

     So these six basic abilities are the building blocks of what your character can and cannot do.  While we can’t simplify our life skills into numbers so easily, I have been thinking on a way to make daily tasks easier with the motivation of measurable progress and change.  So I present to you, the “DnD real person who’s trying their best stat chart”

     You have six stat blocks, just as your character would, and every week you start with a vase of 10 for each slot.  The goal, of course, is to grind and get those numbers up so you can slay the kobolts, mind flayers, feelings of paralysis, bees in your brain—whatever you’re tackling that week.    How do we build each stat?  Looky right down here.

Strength: You add plus one to this stat block every time you do a strength based exercise.  This can mean weight training, body weight exercises, or walking up and down the stairs until your thighs are aching with all the muscle their growing for you.  Everyone is going to be at a different place regarding what exercise and how much of it is appropriate for them, as always, take your time and listen to your body to find the method most appropriate for you.

Dexterity: You add plus one to this stat block every time you do a mobility exercise.  This can be stretching, yoga, tai chi, etc, whatever gets your body moving so you can bend, sneak, and do the splits past those fortress guards.

Constitution: You add plus one every time you, for lack of a better term, stick it out.  We’re doing cardio, high interval intermittent training, shadow kickboxing, or running.  But it also means walking the three miles around your neighborhood at a gentle pace, finally conquering the mountain that is your overdue laundry hamper, or setting a timer and sitting down for that thing you don’t want to do but have to anyway.

Wisdom: You add plus one to this stat block every time you do something to care for your mental and emotional wellbeing.  Disconnect from all technology for an hour or two, taking a nature walk, meditation and breathing exercises, journaling, or something calming and cathartic like knitting or drawing, whatever does it for you.

Intelligence: You add plus one to this stat block every time you do something that powers up your brain.  Reading, learning a new language, crossword puzzles, listening to an educational podcast, watching a documentary, anything that takes the little gray cells for a jog and leaves you more learned.

Charisma: Add plus one to your stat block any time you connect with someone.  Call your mom, talk to a friend, go for an outing to a book club or a DnD session, whatever means of socializing best suits you.

     These aren’t rigid categories, either.  Did reading that book exercise your brain but also let you rest and replenish?  That’s a point for both wisdom and charisma!  Did that long walk require some resolve to get through, give you a break and some fresh air, and leave you feeling sore?  That’s a point for constitution, wisdom, and strength!  A lot of these categories are based on physical output and exercise because most days my sanity depends on my ability to move my body and wear out the tv snow in my head, but it’s just a vibe, and you can adjust it anyway you need to.

     At the end of the week, tally up your scores and see what kind of character you might best play with your stat scores.  Did you do a lot of reading and have a great day out with friends?  What a sociable wizard!  You’re party will be so lucky to have you!  Did you do lots of push ups and finally set up an account to pay your car insurance?  Your party couldn’t ask for a mightier tank.

     For me, my monster is usually feeling bad about myself, feeling unaccomplished or incapable of functioning as well as everyone else does.  So having documentable evidence that I’m accomplishing things is a powerful axe for that beast.  Especially when I get to feel like my own half-orc fighter or gnome wizard while doing it.  for me, it’s a helpful state of mind if nothing else, so I hope you can get something out of it too.

One day I'll have a little flock of sheep to care for, and I dream and ache until that day comes.

Hello world! I'm 17 minutes old❤️

The Dandelion

I’m obsessed with dandelions.  And I can’t wrap my head around why everyone else isn’t.

Every spring, summer, even fall, and even winter, the grass is full of bold yellow wildflowers.  They scatter the yard in my favorite color, they’re a staple in the bees’ diet, they’re historically littered through fascinating medical uses, and they’re just adorable.

I’m aware that some part of my love for the flower is rooted in my semi self-righteous desire to love the un-loveable, but dandelions are so worthy of praise and appreciation that the general public’s hatred of them actually makes me angry.  People can actually look out on their yard, see little yellow wildflowers blooming for from no effort of their own, and think Ug.  Weeds.

I’d like to borrow your attention in this space.  I invite you, my captive audience, intangible enough so as to not tell me to stop talking, to sit with me, and I will convince you that dandelions are a gift to all of us, and do not deserve their ungrateful reputation.

Alongisde dandelions, I am obsessed with bees.  Primarily honey bees as they co star in my dreams of homesteading, but pollinators in general hold a very special place in my heart, even the scary ones like yellow jackets.  And these fantastic, hard working women need, as all living things do, to eat.  And if they don’t eat, then we don’t eat.  It’s a longer conversation that I’m sure most of you are already familiar with, but bees are critical, and so are their food sources.  Dandelions are a primary food source for bees, especially in the early spring when the ladies are emerging from their quiet, sleepy winter.  They need a pollen feast, and the steadfast, abundant dandelions is here to provide.

Secondly, every part of the dandelion is edible.  All of it, from root to petal, this plant can be consumed in tasty and useful ways.  That’s actually really rare for plants.  You can usually use some aspect of a plant, while other sections are toxic.  Even potatoes, wonderful staple of my kitchen that they are, have leaves and garlands that would make you incredibly sick if consumed.  The Dandelion would never.  Every part of the plant is safely edible.  Full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and while, as is the case with most homeopathy, other claims of its medicinal powers are disputable, it has an interesting place in historical herbal medicines.  It’s tea also tastes better than Chamomile.

And thirdly, what I struggle most to understand is other’s struggle to understand the beauty of the dandelion.  Its beautiful.  A bee’s golden dusted pillow, a tiny sun sprouted in your grass, a little, yellow wildflower that has so much to offer your neighborhood’s ecosystem.  It’s such a thing of fairytale and folk lore, a blossom of sunlight here to feed and heal, and then molting into its own ghost, white and floating on the wind to land somewhere else and grow their own family.  It’s magic growing here in our own dirt, and I’m in love with it.  They’ve become analogous with wishes and dreams, and are collectively seen as just weeds?  I don’t get it.  A weed isn’t even a real thing.  Like, it’s not a true classification of plant.  It’s entirely subjective, only referring to a plant in a place where you don’t want it.   A rosebush can be a weed if it crops up and throws off the color palette of your hydrangeas.  Yet people treat dandelions like that’s all they ever could be, the dirty, inferior, subtype of plant here to ruin the carefully curated boredom of your ecologically useless monocultured lawn.  Plain green lawns are a relic of a people keeping up with the Joneses and its time to let them die.  Why—and I cannot stress the why enough—did golf courses become more preferable over wild, colorful, nurturing yards, full of bugs and flowers and vegetable gardens?  Is it just desire for an iron grip on the world, bending even nature to your will until everything feels tamed and manmade?  Or just the effect of growing up in a culture that praises that kind of maintenance and aesthetic, so that your front yard can be considered the first room of your clean, beige house?  Either way, it’s terrible.  Monoculture serves no one.

And despite it all, Dandelions thrive.  It doesn’t matter what’s done to their land, and it doesn’t even seem to matter where.  This is the core of why I love the Dandelion.  They thrive anywhere they are.  Our earlier referenced weed, the rosebush, is one of the most complicated and needy plants to be found in a garden.  Very specific requirements for sun, water, ph balance in the soil, and ready to throw themselves down like a crying Disney princess as soon as any one of these things isn’t right a goldilocks-just-right.  Dandelions find any patch of soil, weedkiller be damned, and decide to make their home there.  If there is even a sliver of dirt and sun, any crack in the sidewalk is enough of a space for the Dandelion to live.

I want to be the dandelion.

I want to thrive, no matter where I am.  To be sure enough of myself, strong enough as I am, to grow through concrete and live yellow.  To come back again and again, no matter how many times I am poisoned or cut down, because I have as much right to live joyfully as anyone.  Sometimes the wildflower isn’t just décor, delicate and decapitated as your centerpiece, sometimes she is exhausted, spitting the blood from her teeth and pushing to her feet again because to grow is the only thing she knows.  There are things about me that feel so strongly, and protest so loudly that things must be a certain way, and I can feel so starved when they are not, so misplaced and small.  I want to be be the dandelion.  Defiant, nurturing, indiscriminate, resilient, beautiful, helpful, unkillable, present, thriving.

I love dandelions, and I hope this helped you see them like I do.  Let the dandelions grow, learn how to make a cottage core tea, and allow them to disrupt useless monocultured grass lawns and feed the bees.  It would be very Punk of you.