Tag: mental health

Bleep Bloop (Am I ADHD or just a piece of shit?)

Contains: mental health topics, including seeking emergency help.

I’m back to work tomorrow, and I’m terrified. I was hoping that a full 4 weeks of vacation would bring me back that vigor, that ambition, that I-can-do-all-the-things-and-be-calm-about-it feeling that I felt two years ago, after hiking the West Coast Trail.

I felt alive. I wanted to wake up in the morning and take on the day. I used my bullet journal extensively, even starting each morning by writing in it on the porch with my coffee. I wanted – expected – to have that feeling back by now. Not that productivity is the goal of vacation, but… it would have felt nice.

Then I read this comic by ADHD Alien (original post)

and hoo-boy that sounds familiar. I’ve been in the “quitting” stage for a good half-year now, in one way or another. Burnout is what brought me to the hospital, about a month before my vacation.

But of course, an inner voice tells me that relating to self-reported ADHD symptoms does not a diagnosis make. Since it’s gotten worse in the last few years (and I don’t remember it being this bad in childhood), it probably isn’t “legitimate” according to the DSM-5 and I am deficient – intellectually, morally – if I don’t pull my own shit together. And even if I do deserve to claim a disability, if i don’t internalize that comic right now and fix my ways, then I’m just being willfully useless.

Out loud, now, Rosie: “That is bullshit.” Another thing I struggle with is calling out the inner narrative when it criticizes me. I’d rather appease “them” by going along with the bullshit, to my own self-detriment, until I can’t anymore and I can point to myself and say “look at what you did to me” than push back. So even writing that down was a small act of injury, which I took in order to practice calling bullshit (and  believing myself when I do). I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do. Some inner voices don’t deserve to see the light of day.

So I really, really hope that that PEI takes action on the 1000-patient psychiatric waiting list that I’m on. But if the 5 years I’ve been on the 4-year-long family doctor waiting list is any indication, it’ll be a little while.

I’ll get back into the swing, but I might have to take it slow. Assistance, as described in the comic above, would be appreciated.

How to talk more?

As Peter Rukavina experienced with Sobey’s Sensory-Friendly shopping hours, you often don’t realize an inconvenience until it’s gone.

So this new anti-anxiety medication that I’m on seems to be having quite an effect already (it’s been a week). The other day I spoke, in public, and while speaking was able to adapt what I was saying and how I was saying it (tone, inflection pattens,…). I did this with an intuition of how I wanted to be in that interaction, and a newfound realization that I had multiple ways of presenting (myself, my thoughts). I was even able to hold space and expand on something that I realized required an explanation after I’d said it. I didn’t realize I’ve had an inner voice saying “shut up! nobody wants to hear you! nobody will get it! Stop talking!” until it was gone. 

So in the spirit of Ton’s article on How To Blog More?, I’m listing some strategies for being comfortable talking/blogging/generally, expressing. This is notes-to-self, audience me, expressed out loud. Not prescriptive.

  • Find some templates for contributing to conversations. “Yes, and…” is a good start. “I was thinking about…” is another. 
  • Keep it concise. I’m gonna struggle with this one because I really like the giant web of connections that my brain makes around any topic. 
  • When contributing to the conversation, consider that the ideas that you bring up are ideas you are directing the audience’s attention to. Make sure that they are where you want to direct attention. 
  • Respect everyone involved, including myself. (inner voice, take note)
  • It’s okay if it’s not complete, if it points in the direction you want to go. Value the dialogue. 

Elmine wrote a beautiful post about the value of communication, and making people feel heard. Ton and Peter are discussing the possibility of creating QSL cards (letterpressed, of course) to celebrate successfully sent webmentions. (I love it, I’m in, I just have to choose a non-doxxable address and figure out how where to put the h-card)

Speaking of, webmentions should be working now, thanks Ton for being my blogfather, checking your site’s logs while at the airport, and explaining to me that I had to link to a specific article, not the blog in general, for the webmention to go somewhere. Ton, is it bad form to webmention multiple of your blog posts in this one? Is that like spamming?