It's the End of the World as We Know It

Oh hey there, welcome to my post. My general vibe is like Daria meets April Ludgate meets a care bear. I'm a depressed optimist and from time to time I have thoughts on things. Todays thoughts are on mental health and navigating our world these days; self-care when everything is terrible.

My personal little blend of mental illness is primarily post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD)/ complex post-traumatic stress disorder)CPTSD, generalized anxiety, and mild depression. My early care of these was focused on symptom management so I have strong skills in mindfulness, boundary setting, self-care and self-acceptance, shame resilience, good old resilience, defense mechanisms, coping strategies (both adaptive and maladaptive), co-dependency, al-anon, and a smattering of other topics. Never officially diagnosed but suggested to me by others and meeting 61/75 symptom checker I am including ADHD inattentive -- this is a new revelation to me. It has been pointed out to me that many of those symptoms can be a result of trauma or anxiety and because those run deep in my threads of existence and sifting it out isn't all that important to me at the moment; I'm finding adaptive ways to address the challenges I have in organization, cleanliness, dependability, consistency, and impulse control.

My mind, lately, has been wrapped up with the ADHD - inattentive. There are things that I have believed, wholeheartedly, were character flaws I had, and oh, well, that's me. The idea that my brain may just work differently creates a paradigm shift in my perception of myself and my capabilities. I've carried the feeling that I've let down people because I don't, or won't, reach my full potential. ( The issue with society or social ties dictating the definition of MY full potential is a whole other rant). After learning to love myself in my complete imperfection I stopped caring about status things, they didn't make me happy and pursuit of them, largely, made me miserable. I kept taking jobs that undervalue my strengths, assets, and demanded most of my time and all of my energy. Having had a turbulent launch into the working world after graduate school I was forced, out of survival necessity, to separate my worth from what I did, which previously I'd tied together to survive circumstances before that. It's a cycle I've been through countless times over; what had served me to survive had a nasty habit of stifling me when it came to thriving. For a while I suppose that meant I sought crisis because my skills best work in that setting. I suppose, given my work, I still do that.

It is hard to live knowing you could do more than you are, but that you can't, for reasons you don't fully understand. It is a particular type of torment to be doing your best, in fact, adapting to do better than your best, and still being described as 'needing to get your act together' and worse, feeling that it may be true. Not so long ago I worked for a supervisor who was a productivity MACHINE. Since they could overachieve consistently, they felt it reasonable to expect that from everyone they oversaw. I admired this person, seeking advice, trying all their tips, and continuing to fail because our brains are different, our strengths are different, and our perspectives and priorities were different. It is no surprise that job became one of my shortest in my working history, but it also wounded me. She sat with me, often, exasperated, baffled, and barely hiding her disdain at my inability to maintain my potential. I'm still healing from it but most of the resentment and desire for petty retaliation have subsided. In reflection, nearly a year later, I understand her being someone I admired, with a vision I saw and wanted to be a part of but being unable to mask my neurodivergence sufficiently enough triggered deep wounds of all the times in life where that same thing kept happening. I couldn't live the life I wanted because I couldn't 'get it together' yet again. It was a character flaw, a pathological need to self-sabotage, I just wasn't good at [insert task]. Learning more about adult women with ADHD I'm understanding the reality isn't that I can't do those things or have the life I want but my path is not the one she was using because my brain is, literally, wired differently.

So that is the long intro to bring me here: week 1. This year I'm trying to build the life I've always wanted but finding it through the path that works for me. After graduating to college and then from college later on I felt liberated at the removal of structure and routine from my life. Turns out, for ADHD folks, routine can be, like super important. So I've drafted myself a schedule that I'm trying out this week. On day 4 and although I'm experiencing depression and dead-inside-ness after yesterday's attempted coup at the capital, I am finding both comfort and greater well being so far. Today, being Thursday, means following self-care free activity from 8am-9 am I do reading from 9-10:40 am and I'm looking forward to it. The structure feels like a more tangible boundary, or even a building, something to be housed in, especially during a time where my disappointment in America feels insurmountable.

And, as has been my one guidepost my whole life, if you do nothing else today, take a shower -- you'll feel better. (Credit to my mom Pat who taught me that one and has continued to be true well past my childhood).