Reflection

Today is January 1st of 2021.

This past year has been difficult on everyone. If it hasn't been hard on you, then I'm going to need you to share your secret.

I don't normally look at the turn of a new year as a place for a new start. I think it's silly. I also thinks it leaves too much room to say, "Well, not this year, but next." Especially if you're only a few months away from the end of a year. It's just another form of procrastination.

However, this year is unique in the timing of it.

January of 2020 started with me needing to attend 5 weeks of intensive outpatient therapy. I was ashamed. I would panic at the slightest upset. I would get overwhelmed with frustration and was unable to handle the smallest things.

IOP was a lifesaver. We focused on dialectical behavioral therapy, which was a massive step away from the cognitive behavioral therapy I had been trying and failing at. It explained why, no matter how hard I tried to remind myself I was safe and where I wanted to be, I had no control over my body's reactions after a certain level of heightened emotion. And, it taught me how to use my brain's functions and chemistry to redirect my mind out of panic instead. Like learning how to move a sail to change the direction of a ship.

Learning to navigate showed me that something I thought were my overreactions were things in my environment that were actually doing harm and needed to change. I quit my stable (but exhausting and demanding) job with a large company in the middle of a pandemic and took a quieter job with a smaller company.

And yet, there were still things that were too difficult and frustrating for me to handle. I had the hardest time when we met for worship. Staying engaged was difficult. Studying was impossible. I wanted to do all of that, but for some reason I couldn't do it and felt incredibly guilty and ashamed.

I had the first big meltdown I had had in several months. The first moment since January where I felt like nonexistence would be better than existence. It would just be easier to not have to wake up and live in my body and my mind anymore. I immediately sent a message to my psychiatrist and he set up an appointment with me for the following Monday to test for ADHD.

That was a month ago. I thought, "No way. There's just no way I have ADHD."

To my surprise, I tested positive for it. My results were smack dab in the middle of the spectrum of severity. Not in the black end where it severely impairs every part of one's life, and not on the light gray where it's a bit of an annoyance, but right in this ocean of dark gray that exists between the two.

At first, I dove straight into building new systems to form an executive function crutch for myself. I read every article there was about how to organize your life with ADHD. And, I quickly burned out. I started think that my existence was too difficult and that I'd never be capable of the daily things others do so easily.

Then, I found a book called Women with Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life.

I'm not even done with the book and already I feel like I have a completely new outlook on my life and my brain. All of the guilt and shame I carried for having difficulty physically being at my religious meetings has faded because I realize I was experiencing sensory overload and couldn't focus. The noise of everyone talking in the same room was something I was experiencing as a physical kind of pain. I couldn't study because I was trying to study in the traditional way. Sit down. Read a book. Think about it. I have a hard time keeping a neat and orderly house because it's literally skills that I lack.

It's not a personal failing. I'm not an awful person. I'm not trying to force myself to do something I subconsciously don't want to do. I'm not lazy and I'm not so selfish.

I want to do all of those things.

Now, starting on January 1st, 2021, I feel like I'm finally ready to figure out how I can do all of this in a way that works for me. And, no, it's not because it's the first day of a new year. It's just how the timing worked out.

I had my first coaching session this morning using a service provided by my husband's benefits called Ginger. The first session went well. We don't have an exact plan for my coaching, but I do have some specific things I'll need to speak to my therapist about on Monday and I have another session scheduled for 1/10.

So, let's see how this goes.

And, if you need a visual representation of how I was feeling in January 2020 vs how I've been feeling lately, here's a side-by-side.

Grumpy and sad and trying to make myself feel better with a cool haircut and color vs happy and calm and feeling pretty darn good with my self-done COVID haircut, grown out roots and all.