*clasps hands*

...So do I need to actually introduce this AU or can I just launch right into it-?

hello!!

i was just going through your blog and you have mentioned a anxiety disorder a few times, i do not really know anything about it so if you want to please educate me on this concept, if you dont wanna its all good. just know i am here if u wanna talk any time :)))))))))

HI!! I absolutely wanna educate you, thanks for asking :) This is suuuper long though, I'm so sorry :´(

There's a few anxiety disorders out there but the most common ones are social anxiety disorder or panic disorder, and then there's GAD which is short for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and I have GAD.

Stress and anxiety is an evolutional response to danger more commonly known as fight or flight, which is the sympathetic nervous system being activated. GAD is the body being stuck in fight or flight mode, whereas social anxiety, for instance, generally means that the sympathetic nervous system kicks in in social environments (like a phone call or meeting a person).

GAD, usually presents as excessive worry about anything and everything. My grandmother will cough and my brain will think "she has lung cancer and she's dying". When I didn't know I was ill I was basically living in a nightmare. I've had a lot of therapy so nowadays I can identify it as an anxiety thought and ignore it. Some days I can't shake them, and those days are just bad anxiety days. And I can either power through it or I can take anxiety medication, but I can't work on those because they make me really drowsy.

You can develop GAD at any age, really. All it takes is being under extreme stress for a period of time, I think the criteria is like 6 months or something. There are differential diagnoses like chronic fatigue syndrome, ADHD/ADD, bipolar disorder and clinical depression that have to be excluded that early on, though. It's fairly easy to treat if caught early. It's hell, but they'll most likely have you on antidepressants and or something that helps you sleep and give you therapy. Therapy will help you deal with your triggers through cognitive behavioural therapy, exposure therapy (where you're literally exposed to your trigger/fear in a controlled environment) and that will in theory treat the disorder. You're never gonna remove anxiety because it's a survival instinct, but you're basically telling your brain that it's overreacting, and if you get help early you can actually be cured.

I have GAD because I was bullied between ages 10-16, and there's also a probability that my parents' divorce started the whole thing. The problem was that I didn't get proper help until I was 19 and I didn't even meet with a psychiatrist until I was 25 (I'm 29 now). I'm never gonna be cured, we're basically just looking for ways to help me live WITH my anxiety. I just have too many triggers and my body is too used to being in this state that there's currently no way of fixing it.

GAD sometimes comes with executive dysfunction which is where you just physically can't do things. It's a very common ADHD symtom as well. You know you need to do it but you can't, and it essentially becomes a handicap. My most common triggers for executive dysfunction is school work of any kind, opening my mail or important phone calls. In Sweden this is actually recognized as a handicap, which means that I can get help faster. But I have to make the call, which I can't do because of my anxiety so idk how foolproof that safeguard is. I'm on sick leave right now because of extreme stress (it could be chronic fatigue syndrom, but it's too early to tell rn) and now my executive dysfunction is everywhere, so like showering, cleaning my flat or making food is extremely tough and usually doesn't happen, so I have to take shortcuts (like eating at my parents' house, not washing my entire body and only cleaning small parts of my flat a a time).

Apart from being afraid anxiety triggers a lot of physical responses in your body because it is designed to keep us alive. If you have social anxiety you might have issues with your stomach (like stress pooping or nausea) when you have to engage with others or even, like, ride a train. GAD patiens almost always have chronic IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and muscle pains because our bodies are constantly preparing for flight. I have really bad chronic muscle pain in my neck and upper back which leads to tension headaches. So on any given day, I'd rate my pain at a 5, and that's just. A thing I have to live with.

Physical activity generally alleviates the pain and the endorphins from workout are really beneficial but you can't exercise GAD away. It's just something that helps.

I'm on a high dose of antidepressants, antihistamines to make me sleep and quetiapine/seroquel, which is a mood stabiliser that basically reduces my executive dysfunction, and my medication is always gonna change depending on what my life looks like. Realistically I'm always gonna be on some form of antidepressant. I'm on SNRI's, which control the serotonin and noradrenaline in my brain.

Naturally, my serotonin is really low and my noradrenaline is really high, but in a healthy person the serotonin is high and the noradrenaline is low. The body typically restores the serotonin/noradrenaline levels during sleep, but my brain does the exact opposite so I just have extreme anxiety during the night, which is why I'm on medication to sleep bc otherwise I a) don't sleep and b) have terrible nightmares. I still have those nightmares, but the antihistamine I'm on is a muscle relaxant as well as an anxiety medication so it helps calm me down so I don't really remember my nightmares and it reduces my muscle pain by quite a bit. I still have bad nights that lead to bad days when I'm in a lot of pain. I sleep in a fetal position and tense up at night and I have a weighted blanket to help me relax so during those bad days I have trouble walking becausec my hip muscles are locked.

I think i basically covered everything. There's a lot more to it if you have any questions. I'm super open about this, and have been since I started therapy when I was 19 because I literally did not know I was sick until I was 17 and it took another two years to understand just how bad it was so I like to be as vocal as possible so people might find out and get help.

I'm SO SORRY for this long ass post though.

I want to kill myself. I'm 6 days sober and I can't take it. I don't even want to drink, I hate alcohol, but I can't stand what is happening inside my brain. I'm tired of being late to everything and being dirty all of the time. It's so overwhelming and the only way I know how to calm down is to just drink or do drugs or binge and purge. I'm sick of being awake, I'm sick of being conscious, I'm sick of having awareness, I want everything to shut the fuck up and be quiet. I don't want to have thoughts or emotions. I don't want to be able to feel my body. It doesn't belong to me and I hate it. I hate what it does

I feel like I can't handle my sober brain. It's too much. I'm sick of being angry and confused or helpless. I'm sick of not knowing how to get some control or at least understanding what has been happening to me over the years. I'm so tired of feeling confused and out of control all of the time. I just want to feel normal for 5 minutes, or at least be able to pretend to be normal like everyone else does.

I hate being alive. I hate knowing what's happening. I want to be sinking in the void. I can't cope with knowing what's happening

It took me 40 minutes to get dressed this morning and I don't even know why. I wasn't on my phone or pc. I was just confused and trying to figure out what to wear. Everything was dirty. I don't want to go outside being disgusting and smelly. I hate myself so much. I want to die. It would be fitting to die with helium asphyxia because it's huffing.

I feel like I'm in sensory crisis all the time. I don't know how to cope with it. The weighted blanket my mum got me helps but I can't lie in bed all day forever, it defeats the point of being sober. I might as well just drink and go through the motions of moving around outdoors doing things pretending to know what's going on if the alternative is lying in bed.

I feel like the only way to stim I know is tying bands around my wrist and hand but it's not enough. The only other way I can think of is finding a shag and having a few rounds of it but I can't do that without having a drink first. I think I should probably abstain from sex for a while to get a grip on sobriety but I don't know how to calm down or make my body make sense without drinking one way or another. I can't handle being alive. I hate being dirty. I can't stand the state of my and my grandpa's hygiene. It's absolutely revolting. No wonder neither of us have any friends, we both reek all the time. We are filthy. He doesn't care. Now that I'm sober I can see it and its driving me insane. He's always been a dirty and very smelly person but I have become one too by being an alcoholic and living with him.

I don't want to live anymore. I can't live like this anymore. I don't know to live differently. I can't take it. If I take a quetiapine it will make me fat and suicidal. If I have caffeine it will make me angry and suicidal. If I lie here and sleep I will be doing nothing and still be suicidal. If I go outdoors I will stinky and suicidal. No one can help me. This is my reality. There is no running from this pain. I don't know how long I can bear it. It has been my entire life, and it will be forever. There's just no point. My brain doesn't work. If you don't belong, don't be long. I think Sarah was right about me having depression and ADHD . That would explain why a whole day can be taken up by like. Brushing my teeth, doing laundry, and cooking dinner. And getting dressed. When sober.

If I'm depressed, why do antidepressants make me I'll tho. They just make me want to do loads of drugs and drink and get fucked up and have marathon sex with strangers. I'm so sick of feeling this way being helpless I can't take it anymore I just want to be normal

dam my social worker emailed me all the evidence they gathered for me to get approved for ndis bc i have to apply for something else, and i have bipolar??? i didnt know that lol... the classic bipolar/bpd/adhd/cptsd combo??? fun

that said... i dont think i have bipolar haha. i think it’s probably the other 3 making it look like i have bipolar. but it is written there, so.

anyway. i am actually doing a bit better :) my ability to sleep has switched off for the most part, last 4 nights or so i havent slept much, just gave up on sleep for now after trying to sleep for about 3/4 hours. it’s only 1am, surely i will go to sleep soon. asides from that, i am a lot more ok than i have been in months. changed my sheets just now, not having a meltdown over all the mountains of stuff i have to do, still quite anxious a lot of the time but i’m dealing.

seeing my psychiatrist on friday and hoping to get on prozac. i think the pattern for me is going to be just switching antidepressants every few years until i can manage without. that’s how it’s been, anyway. it’s chill. we’ll see how this plays out. might also go on vyvanse? but im not sure, i think he’ll only want to change one med at a time. he will probably want me to go back on mood stabilizers as well, since i weaned myself off all the ones he put me on + the antidepressants lol. i do need to find something to help me sleep though... it’s just a bit shit that sleep meds don’t really work long term :/ i’ve been on a loooot of them and none of them really last, and i can’t keep upping my dosage of various things forever. i have to learn how to sleep, but i just don’t really know how to do it. i’ve never been able to sleep, my whole life! how does one just turn off their brain like that. i have to be knocked out!!

the place i’ve moved into is really nice though. i like it here a lot. i thought i’d sleep easier here, since i usually sleep easier not in my own room, thought i’d have a little grace period before my insomnia got worse again. but... nope, haha. ill just have to get used to sleep deprivation again. pity it’s happening right when i’m the busiest i’ve been in years and seriously need my brain to be online :(

whole lotta new music courtesy of ru 🥹✨

love my friends so much fr. had a really warm and tender night. got home from work, cleaned my whole apartment cuz I was slacking the last half a week or so. listened to music and shared songs back and forth with ru. kinda half assed planned a trip to chile/stay with their aunt for the summer when their semester is up. Gotta get a passport by March so we can go. talked to my sister for a while, that was nice. He came over and we made dinner. he wanted yellow rice, so I got that goin, and he made us tuna steaks and a whole lotta veggies. we snuggled in bed and watched samurai champloo and she’s the man (i was super anxious from the gummy he offered me, but we made it thru LMAO) woke up this morning to a clean space and Tsuki giving us a good morning snuggle. gotta shower, do a couple dishes, and then head into work. todays going to be good. I got this.

as a side note…

this period has been killer on my mental health. I should really look into something for it at this point. with a solid routine and keeping up with my shit consistently for like 8 months now I can actually tell when it’s getting bad again, and it’s always the week before/during my period. the depression is so much worse. the brain fog. the pain. the hopelessness. the mood swings. the flashbacks and anxiety. my ptsd/bpd symptoms are there otherwise throughout the month but for those 1.5-2 weeks it’s hell, and it’s every. single. month. I’m exhausted. I know treating pmdd is learning what works, diet changes, managing a schedule so there’s less going on that triggers the mental health symptoms, and maybe antidepressants, but something’s gotta give. having to deal with this for the rest of my life is unimaginable. it’s not exactly gender dysphoria, but I am extremely dysphoric about my period now. my gender dysphoria is so much worse during these weeks. I hate my body and the way I present around this time of the month. I really do feel hysterical sometimes. like yes whoever said your uterus was in your throat, go take a day by the seaside and bring this vibrator and cocaine with you, WAS RIGHT lol. gotta go back in to see my docs soon and talk about reworking some med options. maybe a Wellbutrin rerun. and a new adhd test. finding out that my mother has it, and that that was my first diagnosis as a child has me like “yeah hello that was the problem the whole time and then y’all traumatized me and I got personality and trauma disorders” :/ I don’t think they’ll give me adhd meds with my history of drug use, but Wellbutrin might help again…idk. one step at a time. starting a course in Jan for this certificate, working two jobs, taking my permit test real soon now that they mailed me a new test date. everything is going to work itself out because I’m taking steps to get there. some days, some weeks are hard, but I haven’t let up in the face of that. I’m proud of myself. It hurts, I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m grief ridden still, but I’m also finding joy and I’m determined. I’ve gotten better. I have to see that. On the days when it’s dark, I have to remember how far I’ve come. How much I’ve done for myself, by myself. It’s been a long road, and it’s only getting longer, but damn it the scenery is beautiful for once, I can see the scenery for once. and isn’t that the point? picking wildflowers on your way? noticing the trees sway as you move past? pointing out the mushrooms on the side of the road, watching the ants crawl over a branch, sharing bread and fruit with your friends and holding hands while you walk? my body aches, my mind aches, but I’m not alone, and the trees are swaying with me. we’ve always been in synch. I’m being held by the earth everywhere I go. I’m holding myself. I’m holding my friends. I’m holding space for the trees around me. Things are okay, even when they’re not, even when they’re unbearable, things are okay. Life goes on. I keep getting older, so does the soil and the birds and the trees.

After two weeks of no adhd meds for the first time since I got on them in 2017, I finally wrangled a way with my pharmacy to get them filled (turns out they’re not backordered on the brand name, just the generic, which I hadn’t thought to check until a client mentioned success with this approach).

They still don’t have enough of my dose in stock so I’m not getting them until Monday, but I’m getting them soon instead of indefinite waiting, and now I have a route to take when the generic is backordered in the future so that I still get my meds on time.

(It’s a little more expensive, but still cheaper than the adhd taxes I’ve been paying with dopamine seeking behaviors for the past two weeks.)

The silver lining has been that I now have a very, very clear understanding of exactly how adhd stimulants help me, and how much they help. (I used to live like this. Only it was worse because I was on an SSRI instead of an NDRI as my antidepressant; my current antidepressant at least takes the edge off some of my adhd symptoms.)

(Did you know serotonin can inhibit dopamine production? That’s possibly why some ADHDers have paradoxical reactions to SSRIs. We don’t have enough dopamine to begin with and then it makes us produce even less? Terrible times.)

Anyway. Might make a separate post about adhd meds on Monday. But for now, here are the things I’ve noticed:

oh right I used to be tired all. the. time. 9 hrs of sleep + a nap = still tired all the time, pre medication. Properly medicated, I’m good on 7.5 hrs. Half medicated (no stimulants, but NDRI), I’ve been doing okay on 8 hours but still pretty fatigued. I have not been getting deep/delta sleep (which stimulants help with in ADHD, adhd brains tend to spend a lot of time in REM sleep and not enough in deep delta sleep, and stimulants increase deep sleep in many adhd cases for some reason). There’s been a couple nights of 0 hours of deep sleep despite 8 hours of sleep. It’s been great. Fabulous. /s (help i’m so so so tired)

Focus/motivation, obviously. Oh right, this is probably why I haven’t written much fiction since college. For the past several months I’ve just been able to choose to write, make myself write and it works. For the past two weeks that has been much, much harder and even impossible. I am able to make myself spend time with my WIP each day to maintain momentum (still using all my adhd coping skills) but writing prose has not really been happening.

Social anxiety. I knew stimulants helped with the rejection sensitivity, social anxiety, overthinking social situations, because I went off of them for 2 days in a row once and had a terrible RSD flare up. But two weeks off of them has been… not great. Also generally just feeling insecure, having self esteem issues flare up, anxiety in general, harder to self-soothe and talk myself through catastrophic thinking, etc etc. (and trust me, I have skills. So many skills. So many well practiced skills. I teach them to others and use them personally. I’m functioning, it’s just extra hard.)

Dopamine seeking. Siiiigh. Back to snacking on sugary things that make my digestive system angry at me, in a desperate subconscious bid for tiny insufficient hits of dopamine. That had mostly stopped.

Task switching has been extra hard, unsurprisingly. Also lots of zoning out.

My driving skill/safety. D: yeeeeah. there are a number of studies out there showing that unmedicated adhd (especially in younger drivers, it improves somewhat with age/experience) shows up as similar levels of impairment as being at/over the blood alcohol limit. I was horrified the first time I drove while medicated. “oh. Oh no. I have not been particularly safe to drive all these years.” Been extra cautious as a result, and haven’t driven the wrong way down one way streets or anything like that the past two weeks, thankfully. (Yes, that was a thing that happened pre-medication.)

In before anyone tries to suggest this is indicative of a dependency or is because I was on meds for a long time: no. This is how I lived 32 years of my life. Until the tiredness got so bad that I got desperate enough for a med change that might work a little better than just “not having intrusive suicidal thoughts,” which is all the SSRI managed to do for me. For the past six years of adhd medication, I haven’t been tired all the time, things haven’t been so mind-numbing hard, it’s been a complete game changer and opened up so much more capacity for living that I didn’t have before.

It sucks to have to go back to my old exhausting norm where I had to drag myself through tasks with sheer force of will and could barely get anything done. I am so relieved the end is in sight and I’ll be back to my modern norm on Monday.

So like, sometimes I reflect on that thing that people do, where they won't take medications and act like that makes them morally superior somehow?

We've all met people like this. People who scoff at the idea of anti anxiety or anti depressants, people who say stuff like "I don't even like taking Tylenol!" , Or things like "Id rather give my body a chance to fight this off."

And while I get the discomfort of putting an unknown into your body, there's something profoundly ableist about how many of those people assume it just makes them better somehow. Even if they won't say it makes them better, there's still a little bit of smugness under the words "I don't believe in medications"

90% of the time it's about medication for mental health too, which is ridiculous. Would you be saying the same thing about antibiotics? My brain is sick, this is how I help it run smoother.

Anyway I've been reflecting on this because I realized recently that I internalized some of those arguments. Ive been on medication for the last 8 years to replace my non-existent thyroid and if I stop taking those then after 4 weeks my metabolism slows to a halt and I just ... Stop. it seems like a weird way to die. 4 weeks is a large buffer though, which is nice for me. But even so, I was so anxious about taking those meds that I decided I would avoid other long term meds. And then slowly that turned into "well, you've functioned without antidepressants for this long, you shouldn't need them now." And a couple of the anti-mwdication "friends" I had would reinforce those thoughts.

We are no longer friends.

This year is the first year that I'm being medicated for all my things. I'm on something for my insulin resistance, I'm on anti depressants and ADHD meds, I'm taking my thyroid meds. And you know what? I've never felt better.

Anyway, I don't know if there's anyone out there who's hesitant to take meds, but here's your sign to try something. It might not be the right medication for you, and that's okay, that just means you get to try something else and see if that works better for you.

The meds might not work out,but you know what? Maybe they will. Denying yourself the help you deserve will only make your life harder.

Things no one else told me they dealt with after catching covid that I'm now dealing with after catching covid:

(And to the woman who coughed on me in Woolworths because I was wearing a mask, now that it's practically been confirmed that's where I caught it, f you.)

More blood pressure issues, if my symptoms weren't close to qualifying me for more POTS testing before this, they probably will be by the time I'm actually over this (it's already been a week, I'm still sick)

Incontinence issues. Ngl this was one of those things that told me it might be covid bc the flu, food poisoning and/or tonsillitis won't cause that.

The brain fog is not like the kind of brain fog any of my other conditions gives me. It's not like an adhd, fnd or depression brain fog. It's like a blank and quiet brain fog, kinda like what I would get right before I pass out, but I don't pass out. It's weird and I hope that makes sense.

The fatigue from covid feels like I've taken a little bit too much valium and am constantly fighting to stay awake, which is probably also a good way to describe the brain fog. Normally I would explain my fatigue like every cell in my body is screaming at me in pain and need to lay down, but covid fatigue feels more like when I took too much valium and slept for almost two days.

Migraines. A few friends with EDS mentioned they got increased joint pain from long covid, and I'm not looking forward to that... but what I'm dealing with while sick and have heard will be a long covid thing, is increased migraines.

Weird fever dreams. Everyone warns you of the fevers, no one mentions the fever dreams, this could also be T withdrawals because I'm really struggling to remember to do it and because I'm physically too fucked to be able to. I'm struggling to open my antidepressants each night, let alone applying and rubbing in 37.5mg of testosterone gel. I will be moving to shots when I recover so that I only have to get them once every three months bc I'm concerned about memory and long covid.

Reading is harder. Typing on my phone is a mix of muscle memory, auto predict and voice to text… but reading new things is harder than normal.

Increased pain in old injury sites. I tore a tendon as a kid, fractured a few toes at 18, have a few random scars in not fun places... all of my old injuries have been randomly painful, especially the toe, I genuinely thought I'd fractured it again but after checking, nope it's fine it's just really sore for no reason other than everything hurts.

Increased sweat, even without the fevers, it's the sticky thick sweat that's gross and tactile hell. I sweat a lot when sick, I know that, but it's not normally the thick tactile hell sweat. I wish someone had warned me about that because I would've asked someone to get me makeup remover wipes, just the cheap ones from kmart. (Makeup remover works better than baby wipes for this purpose because they're formulated to cut through oil and wax based products)

Things I wish I'd had on me and things I thankfully did have on me:

Advil and Panadol. I have been taking both. And vit B complexes.

Constant hot honey lemon drinks. My throat was hell those first 5days and since then it's just prevented mucus buildup and been comforting.

Tissues. So many tissues.

Vicks Vapour Drops. The minty ones. They didn't have the blackberry soothers I actually wanted. Don't bother with buttermenthols they do nothing and any antibacterial one like amcol or Strepsols is useless against covid unless you have the misfortune of having a bacterial infection on top of covid.

Powerade. I didn't get Powerade, I should've. I did get apple juice tho. I oddly preferred water.

Snacks. Soft and easy to eat snacks. Not peanuts, not nut bars... more like fruit bars and yogurt and things. I did eat a lot of Vegemite toast that first week. I've also had a lot of pumpkin pasta and brownies. I've been craving more brownies and I think it's because I just want comfort food.

A comfortable fabric face mask. Because the disposable ones become too annoying when you're already feeling sick.

A mute button for people you don't want to hear from because you will want to sleep all day and night by day 4-5. I have actually avoided putting my phone on charge because it buzzes louder on charge and managed to sleep through phone calls.

A long stick or remote for lights. I use my cane. There's no energy for standing with covid. Just stay in bed.

Weighted blankets.

Pillows, so so many pillows.

Water.

Comfy pjs and clothes. But summery light weight ones. Use blankets for warmth bc layers become annoying fast when it hurts to take them on and off.

Being diagnosed with ADHD/discovering that you have ADHD as an adult absolutely sucks. And I'm gonna tell you why (for me, anyways)

I went through life absolutely struggling. I have Reoccurring major depressive disorder, anxiety, CPTSD, and OSDD, which made life hard enough as it is growing up and in adulthood...and I did everything I could.

I got into therapy at almost 15 after my trauma was brought to light, I went on antidepressants, I worked on those mental health fuckeries, but so much was still not improving for me and I didn't know why.

Of course I wasn't expecting a happy pill to fix all my problems, but therapy and meds were helping me in so many ways, but never touched other issues.

Task paralysis, my brain never stopping moving, not doing things the same as other people, not learning in the same ways, etc etc. I thought I was just doomed to fail over and over again.

I attempted school so many times, never got the proper help I needed because I was "smart" and had good grades, but I kept burning out, I kept breaking down in tears, my anxiety got terrible, I was getting physically sick from going to school and not being accomodated in ways I didn't know I needed accomodated.

I suffered, and still suffer in so many social aspects, too! I wasn't getting the same cues from people others were, I wasn't understanding things people were expecting me to just "know", and people have and still do attack my maturity levels because of it.

And then people started noticing, friends and folks online were like "do you maybe have ADHD", "that's such an ADHD trait", "maybe you should try to get evaluated for ADHD"...so I started trying to do just that.

I brought it up to my therapist, I was terrified. I was absolutely horrified that she might look at me, laugh at the suggestion, then brush me off. But she didn't. She printed out an ADHD eval form just to see how I'd do on it and asked me some questions and said "take this and bring it to your doctor, if they need to, they can contact me and with your permission I can give them my opinions". She believed me. When some years back I had been laughed at by another therapist for asking if I could be neurodiverse in some way because "I have an autistic son and you're nothing like him".

Well...I brought it up to my doctor and it kept being brushed under the rug, time and time again, so I gave up for months. Then..I started college.

I struggled, hard. I started getting overwhelmed, not being able to manage my time right, not focusing as well as I should, reading over important instructions for assignments no matter how many times I read it!

I told my doctor "I really want to be evaluated for ADHD. I want to finish college so badly, I just got my GED and it's opened up this door for me and I really want to succeed and be successful, but Im struggling so hard and no amount of therapy and antidepressants has ever helped me with these issues", and THEN I was FINALLY taken seriously. With the ultimatum that I could fail college looming overhead, I was finally taken seriously.

I got my evaluation not long after, was almost not diagnosed because I have CPTSD, but diagnosed anyways with a recommendation for ADHD meds, and that was that. Doctor prescribed Adderall to me, had to pay for it myself because of course, why would insurance cover a medication for my now documented condition? 🙄. My doctor prescribed Adderall because she knew how important it was for me to start a medication that would hopefully work sooner rather than later due to me doing so badly in college.

.. But it was too late. I was passed the deadline at my college to get accomodations, my doctor would have had to fill out forms and write a specific type of letter for the college for me to even get any amount of accomodations, and at the time my doctor was so busy it was hard to get in to see her.

The meds helped a lot, don't get me wrong, but adjusting to your brain suddenly being clear, calm, and better at doing brain stuff is a lot. It's hard to relearn how to think without so many thoughts, and my brain almost felt so silent that I couldn't think at first. I had to adjust to my brain wanting to focus on specific things that wasn't college, I had to figure out what time of day to take my meds so I wouldn't be up all night OR crashing by evening needing sleep already. I had to deal with blood pressure spikes when I got excited, and it seemed like I was getting MORE excited than usual and it was overwhelming. It was like being overstimulated from being understimulated. All of these things were normal, really. My brain wasn't used to working how someone who's not ADHD works and it was a lot after living your life for 21 years without any sort of inclination on how a NT brain works/feels

These things take time, and it was time I didn't have. I ended up having bad things happen at the same exact time and had to drop out of college, and i felt as if I had failed yet again. Every single time I couldn't handle life, I felt like a failure.. When the reality was, nothing in my life was set up or arranged to help me learn to be successful as a child. I wasn't offered anything because nobody knew I was ND. I wasn't ever taught more individually on things other people just seemed to understand by default and I just couldn't. I bullshat my way through life.

I still struggle so much. I can't tell you how many times I think to myself "I don't feel like an adult, genuinely" I haven't done so much that other people my age have done. I just now have my first job after it was needed because I have a kid on the way. And it's been terrifying. I've never filed taxes, never got my license, never graduated highschool and worked my ass off to get my GED at 21.

And now I get to continue to suffer as I slowly learn the world around me. As I struggle to do basic tasks until I can go back on meds again after this kid is born.

But I don't blame the ADHD alone, I don't hate that I have ADHD. I blame society, I blame the medical professionals, and I heavily blame the school system for ignoring my obvious issues because I wasn't disruptive or annoying.

ADHD is a disability in my eyes, but it's made into worse of one by not being addressed and handled as it should. And that's what's making our lives so much harder in the long run.

shit I fully forgot those adverts. it even says it on the damn package. I'm... yeah. I forget things also :U

I have the worst sweet tooth. gotta keep the dopamine up somehow!

plus I also got that chronic depression + anxiety disorder so I'm just. desperate for the Feel Good chemicals cus my brain just. ain't makin 'em right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

if you have anxiety you might respond badly to stimulant based ADHD medication (congrats! now you are bad but faster) something i know @thesadnessrabbit had an issue with.

but also @xmissmichix is ADHD-anxiety too and has no problem taking adderall so ymmv

there is however a non-stimulant treatment for ADHD called atomoxetine which is an antidepressant. it just also happens to treat ADHD (actually it works for that better than depression a lot of the time) so if you have ADHD + depression that might be the route for you. two birds one stone and all that

vent post bc i need to clear my head

This past year, I’ve been trying to actually face my trauma, and I’m also getting to know myself, both for the first time probably ever? And it’s been a mindfuck. Completely. I’ve spent the past two days trying to put it all into words and I just can’t. There’s so much in my brain and I don’t know how to get it out. I feel like just the act of starting therapy opened something in my head but it doesn’t know how to come out yet. I probably sound crazy, that’s how I feel.

I guess healing and getting to know yourself is a process. But with the way my brain works, it feels like I need to understand everything and I need to understand it now. I feel like I’m constantly having revelations and sometimes it makes me feel good, like I’m growing! Other times it feels scary and overwhelming. I feel like I’m playing catch up. Like the world is a joke that I’m not in on? Everything is so confusing at times. The thing about healing is that your brain needs to come to the conclusions that other people have been telling you, but it needs to do it in its own way and time. Things will click that have never clicked before and you’ll see things in a new light. It’s a scary feeling to suddenly come to new understandings, understandings that might seem apparent to other people. But I’m realizing the way in which my brain works and trying to come to peace with it.

And it’s scary to realize how little you know. To finally get glimpses of just how distorted your thinking has been your entire life and doubt your reality. Everytime I feel happy, I wonder “is THIS how life is supposed to feel? Am I doing this right? Have I figured it out?” And then I think too much and think myself right out of my happiness.

And then there’s the tourettes. I carried my childish understanding of this part of myself through my entire life after being diagnosed. I’ve struggled with the tics and the discomfort and the anxiety related to the tics, I’ve felt like a freak for most of my life. But I did NOT know about the brain stuff. To only learn in my 20s about the sensory problems, rage, and comorbid conditions of ocd, adhd, autism- and to only just now be getting tested for all these things? I’ve felt crazy, like something is wrong with my brain, for such an incredibly long time. I was thrown on prozac at age 10 and anytime I told them it wasn’t helping or I was getting worse, they would just up my dose. I’ve been on antidepressants more than half of my life and I’m scared they just messed me up.

I feel like a broken person starting over. Sometimes I feel very hopeful and sometimes i feel overwhelmed with despair. Idk. I just needed to word vomit. I’m trying to learn to trust myself. I’m trying to maintain a relationship with the person I want to spend the rest of my life with through all this without sabotaging things. Communicating is a confusing minefield. I’m trying to find my passion again. I’m trying to do all of this around a soul sucking job that I feel exhausted coming home from everyday. I’m trying to do this living from paycheck to paycheck in a world I’m disillusioned with. I’m tired. I want a break.

I've been lucky, I know, with my experience in the mental health system. I got all my care through outpatient; none of my team work with me through a hospital based practice. and I think that makes a huge difference, but again, I was lucky. right place right time. and by then I'd worked in a mental health unit as part of the nursing staff long enough to know I never ever want to be admitted.

and I'm saying this as someone who's been both mentally ill and worked in mental health, that although I loved working at that unit, there are so many things on a systemic level that I really really hate about the inpatient system.

I have a friend. who, mentally, started going rapidly downhill at about the same time as me. similar presentation if I'm honest; severe depression, rapid weightloss and self harm. she lost more weight than me (and I mean A Lot), but she'd been maybe 20kg heavier at the start so she got compliments when I started getting concern. I hit her "goal weight" and I could see how bitter she was even as she held me up to stop me fainting. But she was so much louder about her pain than me, and people got worried. and here's the difference between her and me that mattered:

she told people she was purging, she told people she was restricting, she told people she was cutting. But most importantly? she told people not just that she was suicidal, but that she had already attempted more than once (she totalled 6 times that year that I know of. she's still alive, don't worry.)

Straight to emergency, scheduled under the mental health act. She was in that hospital for 3 months, then back in again a week after her first discharge.

Good, I thought. She'll be safe.

But here's the problem with the inpatient system - it relies incredibly heavily on pathologisation, medication and chemical restraint. It took me 2 years to get a formal diagnosis, but I still had my treatment plan, I still got help, and I have coping mechanisms that are both healthier and not dependent on "as needed" medication (take my antidepressants out of my cold dead hands though, don't get me wrong, I love medication. magic stuff. I'll get to my point).

She got not just one, but 4 diagnoses in that first admission. Because you have to have a diagnosis in hospital right? that's how treatment works. you can't have antipsychotics without psychosis. her whole outpatient team is made up of the inpatient treating team, the hospital allied health and nurses and dieticians. Her care plan was and still is, very different to mine.

And now it's 2022, and I'm watching her collecting diagnoses like pokemon cards, and taking heavy meds like they're lollies, and still looking for more, because there's one last symptom that hasn't been managed.

I have a panic attack and I'm told to breathe. she has a panic attack and she gets told to take 20mg of diazepam. this is the fundamental difference between inpatient and outpatient mental health.

And now it's 2022, and she's so overmedicated but she still has depression, and anxiety, and anorexia nervosa, and so do I but shes on uppers and downers and she's still all over the place and on a night out she doubles her ADHD meds (I was so mad when she went on them. dexys might treate adhd but they also treated binge eating disorder. I will never forgive that psychiatrist for giving her eating disorder another tool to hurt her) and skips her benzos (she's fully dependent on them now. panic attacks and insomnia if she skips a dose) so that she can stay awake.

And I'm so angry, at the system, at her, though it's not her fault, that she's got all these drugs and no coping mechanisms. that when she disascociates she blames her "shitty brain" and not the cocktail of antipsychotics and benzodiazapines and antidepressants, which all have sedative effects that can be described as being in a disascociative state. I'm so angry that they failed her.

There are good people working in the system. I have been very, very lucky. But I hate what the inpatient mental health system does to people, not always, but often enough.

And I miss my friend.

Scrambled Time-Travel

Guess who has another time-travel concept in mind? That’s right, it’s this bitch. (With help from @firebirdeternal​)

Time travel body mix-up fic featuring Team Seven, with mental fusions and nobody being happy: - Sakura's body has a mix of Naruto and Sasuke's minds. - Naruto's body has a mix of Sasuke and Sakura's minds. - Sasuke's body has a mix of Sakura and Naruto's minds. - Kakashi ended up mostly in the clear but he's got Kurama playing backseat driver, which is easier to work with but incredibly annoying.

The SasuSaku mix in Naruto’s body are just "Wow oh my god I'm never complaining at Naruto for not paying attention again this is very hard to concentrate," and the NaruSaku mix in Sasuke’s body are very, "Okay I'm pretty sure I remember experiencing happy things at some point but considering how fake that feels rn maybe we need to talk to a doctor about getting you (us?) on some serotonin boosters"

It is a bit like Two Dudes sitting in a Hot Tub Mental Space, five inches apart because bitch I might be?

I feel like at first they're like. Weirdly mixed and have trouble keeping track of which memories and thoughts and feelings come from which person, and it takes a hot second to figure out who they even are because all thoughts feel like they're coming from inside, but not? And just generally seem more like Intrusive Thoughts (re: mine but not) instead of an actual separate person.

And then with some meditation and practice they can either fuse into a new person OR function as a system, “two minds, one body” style (I’m leaning towards the latter).

Except Kakashi, who's just got the Jinchuuriki experience without the extra chakra, because being Kakashi is suffering. Deals with Kurama and still gets chakra exhaustion on the regular.

I'm a fan of this general concept because of the "I must now experience this person's problems From Their POV" (which always makes me go fucking rabid), and just. Yeah.

Sasuke and Sakura now having to experience Naruto's general ADHD, Naruto and Sakura having to work through that MASSIVE serotonin imbalance, and Sasuke and Naruto having to go through 'oh, the reason Sakura gives up early is because working out for too long actually, legitimately hurts more instead of just not being determined enough, her body literally can’t handle an extra pushup right now.'

The Saku splices in Naruto and Sasuke are just like "Hi yes this brain is wired as being touch starved, these bodies need more hugs???" Sakura incidentally bullies everyone into puppy piles, Naruto rolls with it in the NaruSaku splice because Why Not, and Sasuke is so overwhelmed by Weird Positive Emotion in the SasuSaku and SasuNaru splices that he just. Lets it happen.

The Sakura bits in Naruto and Sasuke trying to coordinate Health Plans because Sasuke's brain is too depressed to make decisions about their own health and Naruto's brain is too ADHD to keep track of what decisions have been made without writing things down, while the people with the healthy brain don't know jackshit about antidepressants or neurodivergence microstimulants.

Fun element is that, while the actual Soul of Sasuke isn't in Sasuke's head, a number of the memories and Default Thought Patterns are, just because the brain is literally wired for them? And so on with Naruto and Sakura.

So sometimes, like, the NaruSaku splice goes "huh, where's the rice in the Uchiha House" and there's just. A Sasuke memory. About where the rice is.

On the bad side, Sharingan nightmares.

The SasuSaku splice. in Naruto's body walk down the street, get distracted by something, and autopilot to Ichiraku where they just. Pavlov salivate at Ramen Smells. "Wait, what the fuck, I knew he loved Ramen but this is just ridiculous."

The SasuNaru splice experimenting with gender while in Sakura's body because neither of the boys is... necessarily a cis boy....

Naruto: Sometimes I'm a boy and sometimes I'm a girl but mostly I just like orange. Sasuke: ...oh, menstruation is a thing now. That's inconvenient.

Are you not motivated enough or do you need antidepressants? Are you on your phone too dang much or do you need ADHD medication?

Now that I’m medicated, I cannot stand the narrative around getting medicated that you need to explore every possible avenue of personal responsibility before you can look into other options. Yes, you should give it a real try before just going on pills. Yes, pills can be expensive and unfortunately aren’t accessible to everyone. But seriously. Sometimes you just need pills.

I spent three years dealing with undiagnosed depression. My parents and therapist were convinced I just needed to try harder. I eventually learned to manage things better, but even when I felt like I had managed as much as possible, I still felt awful. Got on pills and suddenly everything felt better. I hadn’t felt the emotion of hope in three years! I could just consistently go to work without hating myself!

Same thing happened with focus. I’ve really never been able to just sit down and work without distractions. I have a very hard time getting up to do basic tasks without the right background content to take up space in my brain. I started pills, and within a week I could just manage! I didn’t realize how much harder the focus issues made things until I had medication to help with it.

A “personal responsibility” view of mental health can help and is probably useful to everyone to some degree, but it’s actively dangerous past a certain point. If it’s been ages and you haven’t muscled through, it might not be the way to go. Your “real try” might not look like someone else’s because you might have a mental disorder keeping you from actually succeeding! And it’s fucking shit that people are expected to prove they’ve tried every other option before trying fixing things at the source

Psychiatrist update!

I saw him this morning. He's really...mediocre lmao. Honestly doesn't inspire any strong emotions in any direction, which I suppose is better than being actively evil, like my other one.

He asked me about general things about my life, which I was all too happy to tell him about. The rest of my life is going fantastically - I am honestly in one of the best places of my life rn. Social interactions, physical activity, income, health. It's all good right now. The only thing I'm struggling with is my ADHD (I can't think for shit).

Eventually after he was done with his dry questions, we could talk about what brought me in - the fact that I can't form a single complete cohesive thought and have not been able to work for like 5 weeks since coming back to work (I was off work for a month so technically it has been 9 weeks since I've worked).

He suggested that I try to do something else whenever I realise my brain is getting fucky and like....yeah lmao. I do that. That's what I've BEEN doing. But every day for like 5 weeks I've been doing this. At a certain point like.. I actually have to work lmao. I have deadlines. I have been coping unproductively for 5 weeks now lmao. I mean it's a GOOD suggestion - and it's one. Actively employing. But it doesn't address my issue.

Then he considered giving me Zoloft. Isn't that an antidepressant? Yes, he responded, but it might also increase attention. I wasn't so convinced cuz honestly I'm in a good good place in my life rn aside from my slightly nonfunctional (or overfunctional) brain and I'm not sure if an antidepressant is really what I need.

So he wrote me a prescription instead of low dose Ritalin and we'll see if that does the trick! Here is to hoping!

Also I'm back in the office again so that should also improve things. I am feeling good!!!

--

Edit: looked into it a bit later and found that often times Zoloft EXACERBATES ADHD symptoms. I don't have depression or anxiety (not chronically at least) or OCD, which are all things that Zoloft would treat.

Other interesting thing is that he said Ritalin might cause a sleep inducing effect. That'll be interesting to see. I'm supposed to take 1 tablet in the morning but if it makes me groggy or sleepy, I can change it to the evening time.

I'll see him again in a month to see how it goes.

Thess vs Control Issues

Once again, I should never read the comments.

See, I was watching this:

It’s worth a watch - it’s about microtransactions as an accessibility issue for the neurodivergent. Gambling addicts for sure, but also people with ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder (particularly during a manic phase), depression ... basically anything involving impulse control issues and/or not enough dopamine to the point where they’re doing whatever they can to get that burst of dopamine just to help them godsdamn well function. Games companies that do microtransactions are basically preying on the vulnerable, with all of their tactics serving to damn near laser-target that kind of behaviour. So yes, it’s an accessibility issue. While they’re building systems to help the physically disabled sometimes, the neurodivergent are prey.

And this one individual is going on about how, “Can you people not just take responsibility for your actions?” and someone else going, “Well, if you just made the right choices instead of letting your brain do things automatically...”

It’s that second one that bugged me enough to actually stir that particular toxic soup. Because seriously, they brought up autonomic functions. Breathing and heartbeat aren’t controlled by the same part of the brain that deals with higher function, and aren’t subject to the same chemical interactions in the same way. I mean, it’s not like we understand a whole lot about why the brain works the way it does, but we do know that if you haven’t got the right balance of chemicals, “just controlling your actions” is a lot harder. Especially when the brain that’s controlling the actions and deciding what actions need controlling is the same brain that thinks it’s a great idea to blow $60 on a bunch of Overwatch loot boxes.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I almost certainly have ADHD. I have not sought diagnosis or treatment for this, mostly because I’ve reached something of a detente with it thanks to a few years of cognitive behavioural therapy and some self-awareness. My impulsivity issues tend to ram up against my executive function issues; if I want to make an impulsive purchase, my executive dysfunction tends to kick in and they cancel out enough to let me think out what I’m doing. Side note: when I was on antidepressants, my impulsivity issues were reduced but there was nothing to balance out my executive dysfunction and I was a lot less likely to actually do much of anything. My methodology for when I’m understimulated and bored is to turn to my impulsivity enough to pick something to do, and let my executive dysfunction handle any fallout that might financially inconvenience me. Let me tell you, I’d never have started running D&D for people if not for my tendency to do impulsive shit. But if I want to impulsively, say, order takeout instead of cooking, my impulsivity and executive dysfunction battle it out until something more concrete takes over and makes the decision (which is either, “I hurt too badly to cook and this is an investment” or “I’m hungry now and am not in a place where I can even decide what I want to eat, let alone wait for it to be delivered, so I’ll cook what I have and eat quicker”).

Not everyone can do that. I acknowledge this. The problem is the people who don’t acknowledge this; the ones who think everyone must be able to do the things they can do with their own brains and anyone who doesn’t is just lazy. It’s not lazy; it’s chemical imbalance and lack of adequate coping mechanisms in concert. The human body is a badly-run chemistry set wrapped in skin, and if yours is working as intended, you’re one of the luckiest people on the planet, because all things taken into account - physical disabilities, neurodivergence, all that kind of thing - I figure that 100% healthy people are in the minority. Not that they’d admit it because again, they can’t fathom that a disability exists if they can’t see it.

My body lacks the chemicals to adequately process lactose. Something in my system has decided that gluten is the enemy. And my nervous system decided to go haywire earlier this year with no apparent reason. That’s not even taking into account the brain chemicals issues that I mostly get around by pitting the symptoms against each other until some kind of balance ensues. The chemistry set that is my body is an absolute mess, and I know I’m not alone. But people like those shitheads sure do make me feel that way, and I bet they do for others, too. Well, you’re not alone. Those shitheads are ... well, shitheads who have even less understanding of how the brain works than most and really need to understand that if the brain controlling the thoughts and actions prioritises the dopamine from certain actions highly enough because it’s so starved for the dopamine, “just thinking about what you’re doing” isn’t going to happen because the dopamine-starved brain will not allow it.

Right. Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I’m going to go indulge my understimulation issue by picking up a video game and playing that for awhile.