Taming my brain part 23438
How was everyone's valentine's day?
Mine was...well, maybe not bad, but nothing crazy. I usually am a little burnt out of going out another weekend the second time in a row (since my birthday is usually celebrated the weekend before) so I'm more inclined to want to do thinks like order food, get some fresh bud from the store and just chill out all day watching shows, movies, and maybe playing a video game or building a lego set. Since I've been pushing myself pretty hard to get my shit together for the new job I've really been in need of a lot of personal rest time to sort of process everything and feel more mentally ready for the coming week. I feel like I really got that this weekend, so that's pretty nice! I do look forward to grabbing some of the chocolate on sale later though lol. I had a nice valentines themed strawberry candle and we got ourselves some steak dinners from the restaurant we went to friday night to heat up. Oh, and a quarter of a new strain we just got from the store to smoke! So to me, it was all was perfect. We watched a lot of firefly and antiques roadshow because we're millennial nerds lmfao. It was raining all day which was a nice cozy vibe for the day.
I had actually planned to enjoy breaking in a new sheet of gel tabs (okay, I'm not that wild...I would take one at a time), but unfortunately that plan was on shaky ground and fell through, but I had a hunch it would so we had this backup day ready. All it means is we've got a future, ideally warmer day to connect with ourselves and each other in a unique and potent way, which is always good! If I'm being honest, I like stuff like this a lot more when I'm closer to ovulation. For legal reasons, I must assure you that I am joking and roleplaying and by no means speaking of handling or ingesting substances of an unsavory or dubious nature. Of course! I'm only a dirty hippie burnout in theory, so please don't come after me! This applies to the entirety of everything online that I write. I am always writing a work of fiction and falsehood if what I am speaking of is not completely legal. Trust!
But what isn't a silly little joke is how lame my sleep quality has been. I thought it was some luteal phase nonsense or maybe a little bit of nerves and adjustment to the new sleep schedule, but I think the time for that excuse to make sense is over. I spent a lot of my first week yawning and fighting sleep the entire day, only to struggle to sleep the moment I needed to be. I was getting worried about just how incredibly exhausted I was feeling because it was making it hard to take in all the information I needed to while training. It was literally the one time I needed to not be sleepy! I had feeling sleepy so much! I was trying to go with what was recommended, which was to avoid caffeine and try to eat healthier, or more specifically getting in more iron, protein, magnesium, and calcium. To the credit for eating better, that actually really helped. Specifically I'm kind of shocked at how much just eating a bunch of almonds the night before and getting a fair amount of spinach and eggs can do for me. I really wonder if I'm failing to get enough magnesium, because often the foods rich in it seem to wake my brain up enough to where I'm literally checking up nutrition facts post-wake to see what lock-in potion I just took. I don't think normal people are actually like this, I think I'm a weird case that has always been really sensitive. I don't like it at all, because over time I'm getting even more sensitive, which means I'm going to be stuck eating certain things for so long and so often I will probably get sick of them (thanks ADHD...why can't I just like the same thing over and over?).
Past the food thing, I can't say the lowering caffeine intake advice helped much at all. In fact, I think it caused a lot more issues. I've always struggled to just stay awake during school or whatever "sit down all day" activities exist where I'm just supposed to listen to people and take in everything they're saying. It's a drag to anyone, I assume, but for me I'm not even sure how to stay conscious past the 10 minute mark. When I read books or listen to podcasts (or audiobooks) I've got something else going on usually or I'm doing one of my favorite things, which is walking and listening. Millions of bonus points if it's a nice day and I'm on a nature trail taking in the beautiful world. I wish I could say my fidget cube kept me awake enough but unfortunately just barely. I need pen and paper and the freedom to doodle or something else just to keep myself up. So it's no surprise, now that I get a chance to think about it, that I struggled so much with my little sips of a white tea (which flavor wise I love, make no mistake!) in a small mug that I didn't even finish in 8 hours, while I'm having to carefully listen to what someone is teaching me. I'm so lucky to have such a kind, welcoming, and patient teacher, who really went in-depth about the details I often trip up on, but I felt so terrible yawning as much as I did and all the fidgeting I'm sure I also did. My whole life I have always been fighting fatigue and honestly losing. I really do hate that my natural state can be seen as disrespectful when it's the last thing I mean to be. I think it's probably a common ADHD woe that myself and women like me have the empathy and perspective to know we're hurting someone's feelings or making them uncomfortable, but we also don't have the power to change how we are enough to really do anything but watch the people we care about or even just people we like get hurt from us. It sucks man.
I also am much too nervous at this point to even allude I might have ADHD in an environment that could have a completely wrong idea of what that means and fear I'll ask for some sort of unreasonable accommodation or just be difficult to approach. I know at it's core, this job is actually quite tailored to what I exactly need to get the work done and done well, so I'm not planning on really saying anything unless I feel comfortable educating who I'm telling about what being and ADHD woman legitimately means. It's kind of funny, because I can tell when someone likely has ADHD after I've been around them a while, especially when I see how they approach work and other tasks. So I could tell the lady teaching me likely has it herself but has spent years working with it and getting a lot of it under control without her probably really knowing what a lot of these traits mean, just that they're things that define how she wants to organize things and get them done. Despite the reputation, ADHD women of my age and older I've noticed are actually really strict about their organization systems, because they know the stress and chaos of leaving things to chance and doing them later. There's kind of this thing we often are known for, which is how we're either late or very early to everything we go to. In hers and my cases, we've found peace of mind coming in and beating things to the jump, having work done weeks ahead to have enough space to handle the unexpected, and even when it seems like we're overdoing something and putting extra work on ourselves, we stick with the systems and processes we've known to always be safe and work right. I'm so glad she has put in the work to make a solid system for me to follow what is basically a large set of "if this-then this" statements that leave me with little to no guessing as I follow through them. There's clear documentation I can always refer to and the documentation is easy to find. Over time I may tweak small things but I see little changing. I love how I can finally get more into turning my planners into a second brain, I have the time and energy available to do this without being rushed, so I can make sure everything is done right. I love this, because I'm prone to missing on details when I'm tired, or whatever might be keeping me distracted, so I have enough time to look over things I've done before I move on to the next thing.
There's also something to be said about just getting to do things without an audience, even when observers are dead silent I can't help but manifest my fears of their thoughts into my head, stopping myself from really paying attention to what I'm doing, and instead putting my focus into making myself look as normal as possible. I know much of that latching onto negativity comes from my brain seeking dopamine and therefore amplifying the stimulation, though negative, that comes from my initial discomfort. It's really a beast to tame, because it all amplifies the worst feelings and naturally you ruminate on the things that stick out in your brain, often bad. It's something I feel more confident saying now than ever; that I've been able to really get a lot of this particular ADHD feature under control. I sometimes can't help what my body does, such as shake or cry, but I can control what I say and how I say it almost perfectly. I can keep a straight face while tears come down it, saying "I'm actually fine, my ADHD makes this feel more intense than it actually is, I know it isn't this serious, please just change the subject and move past it or leave me alone for a while so I can recover and get over it". The biggest thing is people need to actually listen to me when I say that and not freak out. It doesn't happen often or anything, but if it does I really just need to let my body release to cortisol through tears or push through the moment so my brain can latch onto another type of stimulant that isn't rooted in negative emotions.
With all of this stuff in mind, I'm getting to the "completely sure" part of considering going on a stimulant medication again. It's been almost 10 years since I quit my very high-dose adderall xr cold turkey, and I think much of any after-effects I've had from that are gone, and I'm well into baseline again. I am still pretty fucking nervous to even approach the process to get it, because it's more than just the research, administrative, and logistical effort; it's going to cost way too much fucking money, too. The thing is, this would be a cost that just keeps going. I hate how everywhere I can go that's in an under an hour drive is going to cost me around $200 just to see a professional who might allow me to get medication. Because of how long it's been since I've been diagnosed, even though I've had it happen twice, I'm worried somehow that the validity of those will dissipate and I'll have to go through that again, which will cost a lot of money too. Then, there's the chance I could be told I'm not qualified to get anything at all for this, or I'm told I have something else entirely, even when I can't imagine what I'm going through to be something else other than ADHD and possibly some other comorbidity. And, after all that, if it all goes well, or whatever, I'm going to be paying whatever I'm told to every 30 or so days for the rest of my life for a refill on my prescription that I cannot safely stop taking unless I (possibly pay to) talk to a professional.
I'm not really looking forward to much of that. I don't think executive dysfunction is holding this off at this point, I think it's just plain normal fear. I have always struggled to make huge choices for myself like this when I could just shove my head in the sand and let my life become slowly worse. It's not wrong to think maybe I can just do without, but I know I'm hitting a point where I don't think that will be done with any bit of ease or the ability to fully rest. I could live on edge and espresso shots for years, I guess, and let my nervous system go haywire with the constant stress of making sure I remember every little thing, cranking the anxiety levels to 11 to ensure my brain remembers stuff that normally wouldn't give it enough stimulation to be memorable. I could live by alerts on my phone going off every 10 minutes to ensure I talk to my family on a regular basis, cook and eat my meals and get every possible thing done that comes naturally to other people. I really could, I suppose, turn my phone into a second brain to an extreme degree, where I just spend 3 hours a week setting up every little thing I'm going to do down to the minute and just do exactly what it tells me all the time, but in the real world I'm not going to have the luxury to always stick with those plans no matter how amazing they are. I won't be able to factor in days where things run late, start early, get moved or cancelled. Living like this might even be more possible if I can get a substance for my brain that can help me handle these ebbs and flows with ease. I'm not lazy, and I'm actually really organized, but I can't just do all this on my own. I miss out on a lot of things that other people get to enjoy because I'm stuck recovering from my fried nervous system or I spent a week hyperfocusing on doing my job correctly and basic self care tasks such as hygiene, meaning I didn't engage with any of my hobbies, interests, or anything that could be considered relaxing and increase my sanity. I'm lucky to live in a time when a lot of technology can help keep me from forgetting a lot of things, but it's simply not enough. I think about how there's so many things I dream for the ability to put into my schedule that I have never been able to squeeze in when I'm employed; workouts, movies, art projects, writing projects, a stronger social life, web projects, and so much more. Big, in-depth projects that could take a lot of time and energy are often things I avoid just because I fear I'll never keep at them past a day, or that I'll forget everything else I need to do that day and get much too into it. I'm tired of only half living my live because I can't push myself further. I have a huge creative spark that often I never do much besides short writing sessions that lead nowhere or mindless doodling because I know there's no such thing as me having the capacity to commit. That can't keep going on.
I used to think much of my issues with fatigue were a matter of ill health on my part. Like, I'm not going for a run every morning at 5 am and I'm not eating salads for every meal, so it's really my fault I'm too tired to do anything and my fault I'm not doing everything at once. I would also blame myself for not getting to bed early enough and not being consistent with my bedtime. Right now, though, I'm doing the bedtime and sleep thing and I'm waking up like an hour or more before I need to be awake and I struggle to get back to sleep despite being incredibly tired. I may not have a perfect diet, I'm american after all, but I have been making it a point to get the nutrition I need from nutrient-dense foods for a while now, and people who eat much worse and much more than I do still seem to handle things I can barely deal with. I'm doing my best to be more active, but I've been decently active, with the tracked numbers to prove it from my watch, for years now, and I actually love walking around mindlessly, so I don't think that's a good argument either. I think it's time to stop pretending there's a special health status I can achieve that will take out my ADHD and make me Normal, whatever that is. If the people who had ever thought of me as this lazy or not trying hard enough could even read a tiny bit of what I say on this blog about my personal maintenance, I would like to fantasize that they'd shut the fuck up immediately and apologize. I'd be getting a college degree in the main and a letter from my old high school saying they changed my records and have an honors certificate enclosed to reflect them. I know life doesn't work like that, but it's nice to dream a bit. Either way, I've been working incredibly hard these past few years to get something a lot of my peers secured easily in their early 20's. I'm not going to feel shame for that because I'm doing this shit on hard mode and with all due respect, they absolutely are not. Working through my personal curse to the extent I have in these past few years will always be a point of personal pride to me, even if it's only to myself since most people really aren't going to understand. They aren't even built to understand it. sometimes. That's okay. I've got myself a sit-down job and my lovely rented home with my little family (my cat and husband) and it's all getting a little nicer and more put together each day.
The inner peace I have is more than I ever thought I would have, and the things I see myself doing are things I could not have dreamed I would be able to do without it taking away my whole day or sanity. I don't mind being childfree right now, and it's what I actually need at the moment, but I am starting to see that in a few years or so of getting my ADHD under control and just enjoying what my life could become when it is, I wouldn't mind that changing. The main thing is always money, but I can see the plans being made and being able to follow through with them in regards to saving up and actually affording to birth a kid of my own or putting in the work to apply to be a foster parent, which has been a dream of mine well before I thought of enduring pregnancy for a biological legacy. I'm actually really great with kids, and I have a pretty clear idea of how I personally want to approach raising one, but I know better than to let the fear of being "too late" in having a kid force me to have one before I'm actually ready. Often I'm told I'll never be ready but uh, sorry I disagree so hard with that. My mom had me at 32, and I just hit 33. A lot of women are just fine having kids in their late 30s. I'm not afraid of not having biological children but I am afraid of raising a kid in a household that is financially insecure and has the chance of not meeting the childs needs. I am afraid of being an immature role model that my child has to become the support to the parent with no support of their own. I think there's a lot of things worse than not having a kid I raised that's related to me, but I know this is kind of a test subject around a lot of mothers because they're all going to be different in their approach to raising their kids. If there was an exact science to this I suppose we would have everyone following that to the letter by now, but much of it depends on so many factors. It's going to be a well-into-the-future goal I consider in a while. I like being the age I am, and telling younger women that I don't have kids and I'm not scrambling to have them. I think in the ecosystem of types of 30-something women that can exist, I'm filling a niche that has to certainly be worth something in the long run. I know for some people, women like me is all they seem to know! But where I'm at, it's mixed but leans into the other way for sure. Much of the parents in 20-39 age range that I know skew a bit younger. That's the midwest for you, it really hits in a weird spot or left-wing and right-wing values, I can say for sure talking about anything political with people is almost never done outside of like...a protest, your house, or if it's about something extremely unpolarizing, like cannabis legalization or such. I don't know if this is good at all.
But as usual, I've gone on rambling too long. I needed the long writing sesh though to get my brain right so I really don't mind. You know that's what this blog is for me, right? I'm still wanting to write about more interesting things and work on some sort of piece I can be (imposter syndrome please shut up) proud of. I just don't really have anything that's hitting for me like that right now. I kinda wanted to talk in-depth about my shroom trip at one point because it really was this beautiful moment in time, because I think people who haven't done these things are curious about the specifics of what goes on in one, but I just don't know if it's going to be possible. I would hate to turn something very meaningful and dear to me into something less than that because I failed to describe just how intense it was accurately. Also, I don't even know if it's much to even describe in the first place, since it's just a lot of serotonin making me feel amazing and take everything in like it's the first time I've seen it and I'm just very happy to receive it. That's the gist of it and yet it's much more engaging in the moment. There's a reason most people just go "you gotta try it, man!" instead of giving you enough detail to ensure you know beat for beat what happens to them.
Anyway, like I say almost every time I think, I hope whatever ramblings I've made that are cathartic to me are also cathartic to you. I always leave with more to say, but I always leave feeling more peaceful than before. You've likely seen me in the past week try a few little things out with code and such because I've been itching to add some new stuff to here and my main website and I'm struggling to figure out what. I'm getting slightly more confident in my coding ability but not much. I'm really wanting to make more pixel art to the "for you" page. But we'll see!
as always, feel free to email me and I'll respond when I can!
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