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Coming Out: Part 3

The road to recovery

By Cat BartoliPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Part 3:

Seriously though, to be neurotypical is to have coping mechanisms to manage emotions that don’t involve sweaty palms, flushing, lightheadedness, and outright dread? I didn’t realize until I took that pill that the anxiety my mind produced had been weighing so heavily in my body. Where I would fidget and pivot from my task at hand towards “organizing my workspace”, I felt focused. Where I would cringe at the thought of an upcoming meeting, I felt ready. Where I would get a lump in my throat and prepare for a crying session, I was able to stretch, breathe and work it out.

I didn’t learn the term “neurotypical” until rather recently. I have always told myself that I am different than the average human. In part as a bump to my self-esteem and in part as an understanding that I stood out in ways I wished I didn’t. I recall several situations from grade school through college where I felt out of place within my groups of friends. I often felt like I was standing outside of glass box that housed the world in front of me. Alice in Chains illustrates it well through their Man in the Box music video. This feeling followed me well into adulthood when I was overwhelmed with anxiety. It manifested primarily at work where I told myself that my co-workers had a mutual understanding and connections to one another that I did not. I didn’t actually believe it when anyone told me I was doing well, that I was a valued member of our team, or that my work was really aiding in the progression of our overall goals and mission.

The medication I took put me in a really great place for several months and I got to a point where I felt confident enough to consider that I could move ahead on my own. I had felt what it was like to be “neurotypical”, or so I thought, and I started the journey tapering off of my medication. This went on for a few months before I got to the point where I wasn’t taking a daily pill. I moved along for a few months feeling semi-ok, read: no worse than usual, and really thought that I could hang with it. Little by little, dreadful thoughts returned, restless nights ensued, and anxiety reared its ugly head to the point where I decided to go back to taking the pills.

But this time was different. While I felt a bit leveled out, I didn’t receive the same relief using the dosage I’d taken before. When I had decided to explore medication initially, my psychiatrist assessed that it would likely be a short-term fix and that I wouldn’t need to rely on it over time. However, what I found was that coming off the medication sent me into a spiral that I desperately needed to reverse. The second time going on, I needed a higher dosage to receive the same benefit. This made me angry and sent me on a path to try something entirely different. The process was a multi-pronged approach to alleviating my symptoms and identifying all the inputs.

Step one: take a leave of absence from work. My team was truly generous and allowed me to do so with a large question mark as to if I would return. I knew I needed to take a step back and regain my focus which this allowed me to begin. Step two: wean myself from the pill I was taking and shifting to a new regimen, medical marijuana. This has been and continues to be an exploration in balance and I am now at a point where I believe I have found it. Step three: give myself a host of projects and work that notably different than what I was doing as my job. This has allowed me to really understand all that I need mentally, physically, and emotionally from the work in which I’m involved. Until now, I didn’t fully appreciate how much I have been missing and what truly gets me up in the morning.

I have since quit my job and forged a new path that pulls together a patchwork of physically active, mentally stimulating, and emotionally rewarding projects and jobs. Some of these are paid, most of them are unpaid, and all of them bring me joy in different ways. It’s not perfect, and surely never will be. But for now, it’s the best way I can serve myself and manage the anxiety that has ruled my existence throughout my lifetime.

humanity
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About the Creator

Cat Bartoli

Community-minded, food-obsessed, Philly-based dietitian

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