Good/Bad Days and Self-Care with ADHD

As a person with a couple mental illnesses, one of the things I have to be aware of is that I will have good days and bad days.

The depression-mania spectrum of bipolar disorder interacts with the function scale of my ADHD and executive dysfunction in interesting ways. I can control for some of these factors by managing my routine and medication, but sometimes it's just going to be a bad day. Or a good day that means the next few days are rough. With all that in mind, I have to prepare myself for either kind of day. Or week. Or month.

Today, I'm focusing that preparation on cleaning. I've got a guest coming this weekend, and my apartment is in mid-level disaster mode at the moment. It could certainly be worse, but I'm aiming to impress this particular visitor, so I'm hoping to get it up to untidy, at least. I've started making lists.

On the left is my deep cleaning list. This is the goal, on any good week. When I'm at the point where my apartment needs to be really clean, I'm going to turn to this page and see what's lacking. On the top of the right page is a breakdown of the Laundry item from deep clean. Bottom right is my list for when everything's gone to shit, I haven't seen a good day in a week or two, and I just need to be able to function in my space. 

Today's ADHD self-care is not judging myself for any of these lists. 

The deep clean list is broken down by room (my apartment is very small), and then by task, and then by the steps and pieces of that task. There are a few I probably could have broken down a little further, which is exactly what I did with laundry, but this is a good start. I've made a list that I won't look at and get overwhelmed, though it might seem like a lot to another person. I don't have to remember all of the steps to the process. I don't have to guess whether or not I've got something done. I get to check off extra boxes for every step! (This kind of instant reward helps give my brain that dopamine hit it's looking for.) It's a good list.

The laundry list is also broken down pretty far. Keeping my clothes clean is a constant struggle, and often it's a pretty low priority for me. Most people have the "I don't have clean underwear" line, and I have a similar one, but it's in a different place. I have a washer/dryer in my apartment, and I still don't do laundry near as often as I ought. So this list is, once again, my deep clean list. If I'm trying to get everything done, it all gets gathered, and then sorted, and then washed. And if I get really lucky with the energy and spoons and motivation, it might get put away. These are my sorting categories, and then the priority by which the loads are washed. Then I have where everything goes when I put it away.

The bottom list is for the really bad days. When I'm coming home from work and falling onto my couch and hopefully getting dinner before I'm done with the day. When I just need to be able to function. I need clean bowls because I eat all of my food out of bowls. I need to be able to sit in my spot on the couch. I need my side of the bed to have enough room for me. I need there to not be any food growing things or smelling bad. It doesn't make for a fun space, and sometimes it gets kind of gross, but it gets me through the day. And when I start noticing how gross it is, I know I'm doing better. When I can get up and run the dishwasher, I'm definitely getting better.

But I'm prepared for both kinds of days. And I'm doing that preparation without hating myself. Part of my self-care is also sharing this process. I hope it reaches someone who needs to know they aren't alone. I hope it shows people that sometimes, even the "simplest" task has too many steps to remember properly without help. And you can still be okay, even on the bad days.

Do the Work

Y’all, I have a friend whose preferred pronouns are none. Use no pronouns.

If anybody thought that being queer and genderfluid and aware made any of this easier, please take note. Our language wasn’t built to take care of people, our social conventions about repeating someone’s name a lot (ie- don’t) don’t leave a lot of room to take care of people. It isn’t *easy* to rewrite the way you speak in your head, I know that. (I’ve heard it from so many of my friends and family, too.)

It’s still worth it tho. It still matters to me to take care of this person and to treat my friend with respect. My mental gymnastics are my problem, not my friend’s.

Don’t get complacent because you think you know everything already. Be ready to let your paradigm shift again and again because we are changing the world to take care of each other. Do the work.

We're Dating?

I have a tendency to let relationships build kind of... as they’re going to, and this largely stems from a fear of being more invested than the other person and showing weakness by asking the “so what are we?” question.

It leads to some moments like

“we’ve been talking regularly for 10 months, I flew down to Texas to spend a week with you at the first opportunity that presented itself, we’ve kissed and shared a lot of important life info and moments........” 

“oh, we’re dating?? We’re partners? Yeah, obviously! I knew that! For sure!”


And then the question is “but when did we start dating? When did this go from being good friends who flirt a lot to being partners who are... idk, whatever partners are?” And this question has multiple sources/desired answers-
“what’s the difference between partners and not-yet-partners?”
“how long have we thought of each other as people we want to keep around for awhile and form this connection with?”
“when is our anniversary???” (This one is mostly for me, my partners don’t tend to track these things as much as I do)
“How did I miss this as a definition of our relationship for however long?”

I’m just saying, poly has really not made my dating life any less confusing, words are fake (even if I really like them), and damn do I need to work on believing people also like me.

The future is fake

Remembering that time is a thing and the future is a thing is sometimes difficult for me.

Not everything has to happen right now. Some things can be depended upon to last. The people that I love aren't going to disappear. Relationships can move at their own pace.

Introductions and Explanations

Hey friends!

I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now, and a few of my favorite people have encouraged the notion, so here we are. Right now, my tendency is to share a lot of my thoughts and feelings on Facebook, which is a great outlet but isn't quite suited to my goals. I want to be able to save my posts and find them again later. I want to reach the audience that wants and needs to see those posts. I want to write longer format posts without getting lost in the noise of a Facebook newsfeed.

So here we are! This blog is still in its early stages, and I know it's a little messy. I'm hoping to clean it up and increase its functionality as I understand Blogger a little better and figure out what my dreams and goals for the blog really are. I hope you'll stick around through that.

What you'll find so far is about a year and a half's worth of the things I posted on Facebook that I considered worthy of archiving. All of my posts are tagged according to content, and they can be separated by those tags over in the labels tab on the sidebar. There are a lot of topics and overlap, so it should be a fun and messy experience. Moving forward I'll be writing things here and then probably sharing excerpts over on Facebook to get the interested people in the right place. I've also got everything set up so you can subscribe directly to the blog by email. That way you'll get all of my rants and ramblings directly in your inbox.

This blog will cover a wide range of things because I care about a wide range of things. A lot of the posts so far are about mental health awareness, advocacy, treatment, and struggles. It seems appropriate to get this kicked off in the middle of Mental Health Awareness Month. I'll no doubt continue that trend, but there are several other topics that are likely to come up. The recipe, subject to changing at any moment, will be this: a healthy dose of polyamory and non-monogamy, sexuality, and gender; a dash of politics; a smattering of important personal events; and definitely more than you bargained for feelings about my partners and polyweb.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this little project will go, and I hope you are too.

Romantic Love

Romantic love is difficult to qualify or quantify or make any sense of. People talk about it all the time, there are songs and books and poems that all try to make sense of it. Defining it is tricky, however, and it gets more so when you start to look outside of heteronormativity, monogamy, and the relationship escalator.

I can tell you that romantic love, for me, is different from friend love, family love, puppy love... It feels like warm honey in the sun, golden and liquid. It feels like tiny fireworks going off in my brain. It is tied to a few people in my life, and it usually starts with a heavy dose of apprehension because it's something I feel all the way, every single time.

My concept of romantic love is complicated by my friend Spencer. Spencer is someone I have been friends with since April of 2012, and when we first started talking I fell head over heels for them within weeks. I expressed my interest and affection, I was gently rebuffed, and I was a broken little heap for a couple days. I revived. I recovered. I didn't lose that spark. Spencer and I lived in the same dorm freshman year of college, and I went to see them whenever I could. I listened to stories about their life and classes, I sat on their floor while they did homework, I adjusted every time they changed their name or pronouns, and listened every time they expressed their identity and orientation differently.

I expected nothing. After I asked the first time, I never again told them I wanted to date. I didn't want to date. I wanted them to be happy, to be part of my life, to thrive in their environment and relationships. I wanted to support that in any way that I could. I've spent a few years now watching Spencer from afar as they do all of these things, and as they become the person they've always wanted to become. And I still feel that spark, that liquid gold, that certainty of affection. This person will always be my person.

My love for my friend Whitney is a different kind of love. It's bright and happy and sometimes exasperated and protective. It's standing up for her when she can't stand up for herself, and it's her reminding me that my feelings are important even when I want to prioritize other people. We have steel cables connecting us across the miles and time. This person will always be my person.

Ben and Jakal are my people, too. My partners. Honey in the sun, fireworks in the brain, butterflies in the stomach affection and joy and anticipation. The building of something new and beautiful. Still learning each other, still reaching out at random times just to feel the warmth and reality of each other. Reassurance and emotional support and jokes and sharing. Building lives that entwine and entangle and converge. These are different, and they do not come with the certainty of forever, but they come with the certainty of "right now, forever." One of my favorite lines of poetry that I've ever encountered is from "How It Ends" by Andrea Gibson.

"But whatever

Whenever
However this ends,
I want you to know, that right now,
I love you forever."

Weird Cat

Once I have firmly established that I do actually know what I’m talking about, I take immense joy in using wrong/imprecise words in especially jargon-laden or technical contexts.

• Ex: talking about sails and rigging and the Golden Age of Sail and absolutely refusing to use the word “ship” the whole time
• Ex: “why is that guy wearing a weird hat?” instead of “why is that one guy wearing a helm/armor that is totally inconsistent in period and region with the guys around him?”
• Ex: “ooh, what a weird sword thing” “it’s a spear” “yeah, that’s a really weird sword thing”
• Ex: calling a character in a tv show Weird Zeus the whole time, despite knowing his name

24 Years Old

March 21, 2018

24 years old. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve grown a lot, I’ve lost a lot. I’ve been gifted with love and patience and fantastic people. I’ve taken risks, I’ve handled crises, I’ve proven to myself that I am so, so capable. I’m finally making big efforts to take care of myself the way I deserve and to recognize the kind of care I deserve from others. I have been given ample opportunity to care for others, to learn to do that better.

I can hardly name all the love that has come into my life in the past year. You know who you are. Thank you.

Here’s to another one with just as many adventures and discoveries, and maybe not so many catastrophes.

Butterfly Magic

March 2018

One of the best moments of this past weekend for me, in which I celebrated my upcoming birthday (Wednesday 21st!) with my boyfriend was this:

Standing in the gem vault at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, surrounded by literal shining decadence, wearing my princess outfit that looked just as good in reality as it did in my head, listening as Bach’s Solo Cello Suite No. 5 played just loud enough. I closed my eyes and swayed to the music and felt just as good as I believed I should feel when celebrating myself and my accomplishments and survival over the past year. We’d been at the museum for 6 and a half hours, and I still liked it, myself, and Benjamin.

Sometimes magic is in little pieces, all handed to you at one time. Thank you, love, for standing in the magic with me.

Who do I know?

I talk to a lot of people. I make new friends easily and share pieces of my life. I hang out with people whose lives are complex and existed long before we were friends.

One of my favorite things about this is stories and names. When you are telling a story to someone you don’t know well, there’s a toss up between identifying them in relation to you (my best friend), offering the relationship and the name (my best friend, Whitney) or just offering the name (Whitney said...). And sometimes you have to make a fuller distinction with people you’re sure know about each other (you know, my friend, Danny. He went to Wooster and we met that one time because of music and we started talking again for reasons x y z) until you get the “ohhhh, right, that person.”

I have a tendency to talk about the same people frequently, and I switch off between the names and the relationships, only occasionally offering them at the same time. Basically my method is that I’ll try to make it obvious the first few times, then I’ll just use what’s easiest in the moment and you’ll figure it out.

I love watching how other people approach this as well. The times that they expect me to know who the name belongs to, and the times they think they need to explain, and the times they use the relationship only even when I probably know the name. The times when they’re going to use the name, and it doesn’t really matter if you know the relationship or not.

It’s just interesting to think about the level of familiarity we expect people to have with the cast of characters in our lives. I love putting the puzzle pieces together, and I love feeling like the other person thinks I’m close enough to know who they’re talking about or that I’ll figure it out. I love when they’re right. I love getting people up to speed on my MVP list quickly.

What's "enough"?

I am the kind of person who, when I want to be on the phone with you, will be sad when I have to get off the phone, no matter how long we talked. 1 hour? Sad. 2 hours? Sad. I’ve had a couple conversations go 4 hours and I’m still a little whiny about getting off the phone. One of the first conversations I had with a guy I dated lasted 6 hours.


If talking is the only way I get to connect with you on a regular basis, the concept of “enough” doesn’t exist.

Andrea Gibson

Jan 2018

“...you often find it easier to explain your gender by saying you are happiest on the road, when you’re not here or there, but in between. That yellow line running down the center of it all like a goddamn sunbeam.” Your Life by Andrea Gibson

On Friday I saw Andrea Gibson and I got to share the experience with Benjamin who had never heard them before, Robyn who has seen them at least twice before like me, and James whose exposure I know nothing about.

I loved hearing Andrea and seeing them, and watching the people I love enjoy them too. Thank you for giving me the exact emotional weight and emotional release I needed.

Time-keeping

ADHD time-keeping: Everything happens in either 20 minutes or 45 minutes. Everything.

How long does it take to drive to that place? 45 minutes. How long will it take me to get ready for the day? 20 minutes. How long will I be in the shower? 20 minutes. (Usually not true, but that’s what my brain says.)

The truth could be 15 or 10 or 30 or 55, but no. 20 or 45 minutes. Everything.

Leveling Out

Feb 2018

So some of you know this and some don’t- my med combination has been screwy for about a month now because of a well-known but (on my part) poorly understood reaction between my stuff and something I started taking.

It’s been a hard month, the same kind of hard that things used to get before meds. I’ve learned that I have better coping mechanisms than I used to, and a really good support system, but still... better living through chemistry, my friends.

Saw my doctor yesterday, and we’re getting things fixed. Hopefully it will be a quick fix, but if not that, then hopefully a thorough one.

Personality Disorder

People in the mental health community, both people with mental health issues and people who advocate for them, have been working pretty hard over the past few years to change the narrative around mental health and dating. To change the language around dating so that it doesn't just blame the mentally ill person for everything in the relationship. So that the weight of carrying the relationship is on all people involved. That the burden of understanding and self-correction is on all people involved.

The exception seems to be personality disorders. The "advice" around dating people with personality disorders is all about managing their symptoms, controlling their ability to hurt you, I even saw one talking about using compliments as rewards for good behavior and I want to scream. People want to say that personality disorders make you manipulative, but that's the most manipulative bullshit I've ever heard. Your partner is an adult and doesn't need to be treated like a child or an unruly puppy.

So this is my reminder to you, gentle reader: a mental illness makes someone hurt.

It makes them tired. It makes them feel big things. Try to remember that the troubling symptoms you are seeing are not just symptoms of mental illness, they are symptoms of pain. They are coping mechanisms for pain and fear. No, those coping mechanisms shouldn't be allowed to hurt you, but if all you're doing is managing symptoms and expecting your partner to change or control themselves, you're setting both of you up for failure.

You Should Have Seen The Day When...

Sometimes mental health recovery is scary because there are people now that have only really known me as this more stable, more together version of myself. And I worry sometimes that the bad days will come back and those people won’t know that this is still good and that’s still nothing and really you should have seen the day when...

When you maintain at what feels like a 3, and they’ve only seen up to about a 4, and you hit a day where you’re maybe at a 6, how do you say “but at least this isn’t an 8”? How do you say “I used to live at a 5, I promise this is better”?

Changing The World

Fostering radical self-love, self-care, acceptance and mutual support in my immediate social and familial circles is how I’m changing the world.

We have to take care of each other, especially right now. There’s a lot of darkness in the world, and there are a lot of people that want you to feel sad and downtrodden and helpless. Maybe I can’t stop those people, but I can uplift my own one day at a time.

Language

My newest self project involves being aware of and careful with my language. I want to try to avoid using language that I know hurts people, including myself. My goal are thus:

1. I will not call myself lazy. 
2. I will not use ableist language, even casually. 
3. I will not use racist language. 
4. I will not apologize just because it is socially expected or easier. 
5. I will strive to make my language as inclusive as possible.

I will listen if someone tells me a way to improve, and I will do my best to point out harmful language used by others.

I will mess up. I will struggle. This will be hard. But the options are "try, fail, try again" or "don’t try, hurt people." I’m going to do my best.

American Land Magic

Fantasy novels that imply that European countries would have older or stronger land magic than the Americas make me so mad.

It’s an erasure of centuries of history of the land and the people who lived here. It’s an assumption that white people’s magic is better for some reason.

Look, I’ve hung out a little in the English countryside but I’ve also driven through and over The Appalachian mountains at sunset, and I’ve walked through the Badlands and the Black Forest and let me fucking tell you. America has some places with some pretty damn strong land magic.
The white cliffs of Dover are neat and all, but stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and talk to me again.

The magic of North America is wild and raw and big. It pools in the valleys and flows in the rivers. It tastes like spiritual cultures I won’t even pretend I know enough about to name. It’s been shaped by native hands and native beliefs. It flowers on the Great Plains and it lives in the ghosts of the great New England forests. It climbs up the redwoods and twines around their roots. It’s been ground down by glaciers and has settled and been worn away in the oldest mountain ranges.

Excuse me while I go write a couple hundred books about this.

It's Just Hard

Learning about your own avoidant coping mechanisms is hard. It means a lot of self-correction, a lot of turning against your first inclination. It means leaning into your feelings and letting them happen and sometimes telling other people you wouldn’t normally tell. It means not making a joke or running away. It means breaking habits that feel like they’re protecting you. It means making yourself vulnerable and saying the right thing even when it scares you and you don’t believe it because that is actual therapeutic practice.

It’s hard. It’s so hard, and it’s so much work. I don’t have the uplifting part right now. It’s just hard.

2017 Recap

2017, you were a lot to handle.

I lost 2 jobs, was diagnosed with 1 mood disorder and 1 developmental disorder, had my apartment broken into and flooded, lost about 90% of everything I've owned since the beginning of high school, and cried a literally uncountable number of times.

I gained new friends, added love to my life, discovered medication and therapy that works for me, was reminded just how much my fantastic friends care about me and want to support me, got into my second apartment ever, rediscovered art and crochet, have spent a lot of time learning how to be alone (and how much I don't really like it), gave back to my community, and have spent time discovering myself and being respected for who I am. I was given the chance to celebrate birthdays and milestones. I have worked so hard to learn honesty and how to prioritize myself, and how those things are related. I proved to myself that I am a good man in a storm (literally and figuratively) and that I can handle most crises with grace even when it hurts.

I got to see Whitney for the first time since May of last year. I got to watch Robyn graduate from college. I travelled to Chicago, New Jersey, Denver and South Carolina. I got to see pictures of Charlie playing in the snow, and I got to watch as Benjamin opened the blanket I got him for Christmas and immediately buried his face in it. I turned 23 with a week-long celebration. I dyed my hair blue. I watched my sister grow. I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning talking to Veronica and Wes. I saw Welcome to Night Vale Live. I petted so many dogs. I heard my mom call me Derek for the first time. I put real money in savings for the first time ever. I got tattoo number 5. I woke up every single day, no matter how impossible that seemed the night before.

A year is too long to characterize as good or bad. It is made up of thousands of moments that sting and glow and temper and corrode. I look back with recognition of trauma, and I look back with celebration of joy. I look forward with hope, trepidation, and overwhelming determination.

(dis)Order

One reason my life will always look a little cluttered, even when it’s organized:

I have to have open face shelving and storage solutions. If I can’t see the things I own, I forget they exist. Things that go in closets or cabinets disappear. I’ll rediscover them over and over, and forget them again.

So my closet stays open, my shelves are covered in books and CDs all disorganized, my art supplies all just went in a basket shelf. It looks a little messy maybe, but it means I’ll actually use these things.

"Try Harder"

This country’s stupid, self-congratulatory bootstraps ideology is damaging to literally everyone, but especially people in historically disadvantaged minority populations and the mentally and/or physically disabled.

“Just try harder” isn’t always an option, and it isn’t often a solution, and it keeps people from the rest, accommodations, and medical care that they deserve. You can’t just try hard enough to ignore your mental illness or chronic pain or the long term effects of systemic racism, and if by some miracle you do, it might come at great personal cost.

Instead of saying “just try harder,” maybe ask “what would help?” or “what are you capable of?” or “what unique skills and perspective does this person bring to this situation because of who they are?” or “why do I think this person’s value is based in their physical, mental, or financially ability?”

Sing to the Oysters

These are two of my favorite quotes... I won’t say of all time, or out of all the books I’ve read. I’ve read a lot of books, and have a lot of favorites. But these are high on the list. These don’t make the most sense without context, but they feel sunshine-y bright, and they feel like the person I want to be in the world.

——

“He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken.

Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway.

It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life.”

-Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

——

“God in heaven’s been raising you for this valley from the day you were born."

I was furious. He didn’t know anything about me or the day I was born or he’d never say such a foolish thing, sitting there so piously at his kitchen table, sounding for all the world like a Methodist preacher.

But then, oh, my blessed, he smiled. I guess from that moment I knew I was going to marry Joseph Wojtkiewicz—God, pope, three motherless children, unspellable surname and all. For when he smiled, he looked like the kind of man who would sing to the oysters.”

-Katherine Patterson, Jacob Have I Loved

"Zombie" - Fuck That

I’m so so so fucking tired of the “meds will make you a zombie” trope. Every time I hear someone who is not on meds for mental illness talk about how meds make you into a zombie, I want to scream. It’s a narrative that keeps people from life saving treatment. It’s a narrative that shames people for seeking that treatment and depending on it.

Medication can help. It can also hurt. You know who can figure that difference out? Your doctor and you. That’s it. If it’s not working, talk to your doctor. If you don’t like how it feels, talk to your doctor. If you don’t want to rely on medication, talk to your doctor and your therapist about alternative treatment options and coping mechanisms. If your doctor isn’t listening, fuck that doctor.

But don’t stay away from meds just because some shitty neurotypical person in your life or shitty neurotypical TV show or book tells you that medication will make you a zombie or take away your edge or make you less of who you are. Your illness is not who you are.
But don’t stay away from meds just because some shitty neurotypical person in your life or shitty neurotypical TV show or book tells you that medication will make you a zombie or take away your edge or make you less of who you are. Your illness is not who you are.

Decisions, decisions

Three kinds of ADHD decisions:

1. *presented with 4 options*
1. ADHD person: *looks at options for 30 seconds* uhh, that one.
2. Someone else: Are you sure? Did you consider the potential outcomes?
3. ADHD: I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life. It’s that one.
2. *presented with 4 options*
1. ADHD: That one, definitely.
2. *thinks about it more* Yea.... still that one.
3. *thinks about it more* yep, that’s the one.
4. *thinks about it more* yknow I’m really not sure. I’ve done some research and it seems kind of complicated and like maybe it’s not the right answer. I’m not sure. I’m just... not gonna make a decision.
5. Opt. *thinks about it more* Yeah, that one!

1. *presented with 4 options*
1. ADHD: Well, maybe option A, but that means this consequence so maybe option B, but option B means option A isn’t a problem, maybe option C, but option C is actively bad for options A and B, and the opportunity cost is high, so maybe option D? But that seems really hard so idk option A is sounding pretty good, but that would mean this and this and this, but option B would still mean this and this but not this and option D would get rid of all this but would mean that and that and...

First option has limited effectiveness and hight potential for disaster, but sometimes it works out great
Second option makes committing to plans very difficult. It's great when trying not to buy things, but it's very bad when trying to buy things.
Third option means spiral. There’s no good outcome here. Breaking the spiral requires external input or a concentrated effort to extract oneself from the situation and make the decision later.

Edit

Caring

Me: often has trouble maintaining regular meal times, is impressed when I drink a whole glass of water in a day

Also me, any time I know someone is busy or having a rough day or sad or doing literally anything: don’t forget to eat and drink water!

waffle sweater

Thanksgiving 2017

You know your boyfriend gets you when he doesn’t judge you for saying you want to rub your face on his shirt bc it looks soft and also he’s wearing it.

Fortunately, I’m cute. Unfortunately, this was a text conversation bc he’s far away.

Thankful

Thanksgiving 2017

Okay so I made my grouchy status already, here’s the sappy one.

Today is a day to be thankful, to look at your life and be grateful for what you have. This has been a hard year for gratitude, I’m gonna be honest. But I will look at my life over the past year and extend grace to it and to myself.

I am grateful for my family. We are safe and mostly happy and mostly healthy, and that’s what counts.

I am grateful for my friends. I’ve hit some incredibly rough patches this year, and every single time my friends have stepped up to help me out. Y’all have shown me what it’s like to have a support system. Even on my hardest day what I felt most was love.

I am grateful for mental health treatment. I started seeing a psychiatrist in April, and it has changed my life. I’m on medication for bipolar disorder, something I’ve been sure I had for a couple years now. I’m also on medication for ADHD, which I never would have imagined. These things, along with therapy, have contributed to this being my most emotionally stable year in recent memory.

I am grateful for my amazing partners. Benjamin Shelton and Charlie Rossander have improved this year beyond measure, showing me love and kindness and patience and support and joy. They are both ridiculous people who remind me regularly to take care of myself and give me the opportunity to help take care of them. Between the two of them, there is nothing I have to hold alone, and nothing I feel incapable of. Thank you.

I am grateful for the sun and the clouds and the ocean and the trees and everything that reminds me to see beauty anywhere it exists.

I am grateful for my awe and my wonder and my joyous child’s heart.

Say thank you. Look at your life and say thank you.

What They Need To Hear

If you only ever use “I’m just telling them what they need to hear” to mean negative or hurtful things, give that some thought. Sometimes what people need to hear, and I mean need not want, is encouragement. Sometimes they need to hear that you believe in them, that you’re proud of them, that they tried their best.

The next time you want to tell someone what they “need” to hear, consider if maybe there isn’t something else they need to hear too.

So Many Steps

You would think that getting out of your car would be a process that didn’t have that many steps to think about, but it totally does.

1. Park, 
2. turn off car, 
3. [headlights opt 1], 
4. seatbelt, 
5. grab things, 
6. open door 
7. [headlights opt 2], 
8. get out, 
9. close door, 
10. lock car, 
11. walk away. 

The frequency with which I turn my car off before I park, get all the way to open the door before I turn my car off, or try to get out of the car without taking off my seatbelt is kind of absurd.

This is the sort of thing controlled by executive function, which is a struggle for people with ADHD.

ADHD Facts

Some things I have learned about ADHD:

1. ADHD people overall are more likely to get injured, for several reasons. Difficulty connecting past actions/outcomes with future actions/outcomes. Inattentiveness. Actual issues with gross motor control and balance. Also the tendency to exist in somewhat chaotic environment. 
2. ADHD people tend to have poor working memory. Which if you’ve ever heard me talk about my own brain, is kind of wild bc I’ve specifically described myself before as not having a lot of RAM. One of the areas in which some ADHD people particularly struggle is visual-spatial working memory. It is not an issue of short-term memory, ie- the ability to hear and repeat information, but an issue with the ability to manipulate that information once we have it. My spatial reasoning is absolutely terrible. This suddenly makes sense.

Intrusive Thoughts

cw: obsessive thoughts

When obsessive thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and ruminating are part of both your mood disorder and your learning disability, it can make for interesting days.

You know that conversation we had two weeks ago? It’s running through my head, word for word. And that problem I kind of need to solve? I’m working on it constantly and probably journaling about it and I haven’t gotten anything figured out yet but give me a few more weeks and I just won’t care anymore. And that song I listened to this morning? There is one single line of it that keeps playing over and over and over and it won’t fucking stop. I also read over texts that I send and posts I write so many times, just bc the words are stuck in my head.

Still figuring out how to make myself slow down enough to work on mindfulness techniques.

Name Your Demons

As anyone who has read Harry Potter knows, fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. I’ve spent several years trying as hard as I can not to say the name of the person who hurt me. I’ve called him “shitty abusive ex” many times, and long enough that the times that I did say his name were enough to hurt me and have him on my mind for days.

I’m done with that. I will name my demons, to myself and those around me. I won’t name him here because that... isn’t the point. But I won’t hide from it in my own heart. He is not a monster. He is a man who did bad things. He is a man who I met at the wrong time in both of our lives.

I’ve had to spend some time talking and thinking about him over the past few days because some events in my current life have felt far too similar to events from that point in time. They are not related, but my mind tied a string between them nonetheless. But taking the time to unravel that string means I’ve looked at those events more thoroughly. I have examined their continued influence over me and I’ve gotten one step closer to excising that influence from my life.

If you can, speak the name of your demons. If you can’t yet, don’t feel bad. Even some of the strongest wizards were afraid of You Know Who. It took Ron Weasley a long time to overcome his fear too.

Oceans

Is it any wonder we invented monsters and gods and the end of the world, looking out over an expanse like this?

It took some of us, called us away and never gave us back. And those who returned came with stories of things we couldn’t believe or imagine.

There’s still so much we don’t know, and so much to learn, and so much damage we can do.

“There’s a line where the sky meets the sea, and it calls me.”

Toxic Masculinity

I’ve just about had it up to my eyeballs with toxic masculinity, gender policing, and the idea that men can only go to women for emotional labor rather than themselves or other men.

Today has been really trying to piss me off on this one particular topic and I’m done.

Men should have feelings. Men should be able to talk about feelings, particularly with other men. Men should be responsible for their own emotional health. Men should be aware of the emotional labor they are asking their partner to perform and make sure they are offering that emotional labor back.

“Being a man” should not preclude taking care of your family or your house or cleaning or giving your kid a bath or hugging your mom or your brother or your son. It shouldn’t preclude being sad when something bad happens. It shouldn’t preclude seeking professional help for depression or other painful things.

When was the last time you asked your wife if she’d had a rough day?

When was the last time you asked your buddy if he was happy in his relationship or if he was struggling with anything at work?

When was the last time you hugged your son or let him cry without making him feel bad about it?

When was the last time you let your kid play with what they wanted to play with whether it aligned with stereotypical gender roles or not?

I Am Nice?

Something I’ve noticed lately:

When people talk about me, one of the things I hear most often is that I am nice. Consistently, this is what I hear over and over, even when I think I have not been my best self to someone or when I simply don’t think I’ve treated them with more than casual respect. Even my friends from high school, when I know I was at my toughest point, in the midst of a depressive episode for a long time, remember that I was kind to them. My college friends know and remember me to be considerate and caring. People tell me that I am bright-eyed with wonder and that I am kind.

I can live with this legacy. If this is what people know of me, especially when I do not always know it of myself, I am proud.

Love in the Little Moments

Sometimes, it’s the little moments. The little gestures. The story someone tells that feels like home and safe and me too and I understand you. The things that feel like love, that feel worthy of love. Sure, sometimes it’s a big moving gift or a grand gesture or a proclamation. But sometimes it’s just light that’s been building in your chest for weeks and the small silly thing that finally makes it spill over.

It’s grackles and video games and chainmail and cartoons and data analysis and party prep and fancy drinks and try this and tell me about it.

Your Health, Your Treatment

Remember, kids, the point of mental health treatment isn’t a uniform standard of “normal,” it is an individualized version of success often centered on harm reduction and risk mitigation.

Your symptoms don’t have to go away, the parts of your personality that you like but are part of your illness don’t have to go away. They just have to be managed so they can’t hurt you. (The parts you hate and that hurt you and you feel serve no good purpose can be worked against. Can be worked with. You get to define that version of success too.)

Learn to recognize the signs of mania and figure out how to still have fun, but set boundaries to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. Keep all the bubbly energy and creativity of having an adhd brain, but learn how to manage hyperfixation and keep your distractible nature from standing between you and your passions.

I feel like a lot of people struggle with “but if I get treatment, I won’t be myself anymore!” which is an absolutely understandable fear. I’ve faced it myself. But the point of treatment is not perfection or making you a zombie or even making you normal. It’s about making things not so hard, not so scary. And if you feel like your treatment is making you not yourself, and you’re unhappy with that? Talk to your dr or therapist or psych. Redefine success.

Also remember, if you ever need support asking for help, finding doctors, making that final call when you want to make an appointment, let me know. I’ll do what I can.

#nationalcomingoutday

10/11/17

Anybody who has been paying attention to my Facebook feed lately should not be particularly surprised about this one:

I’m polyamorous. If you google polyamory, the definition you’ll get is: the philosophy or state of being in love or romantically involved with more than one person at the same time. I am absolutely capable of (and pretty enthusiastic about) maintaining and fostering romantic feelings and relationships with multiple people at the same time, with everyone aware and consenting to the extent of their desire.

Why this matters today: I’m dating this really great guy, Benjamin Shelton, and I’ve been feeling like I can’t talk about him and how great he is because he’s also dating this pretty spectacular girl, Charli. I’m done with that. These people are important to me, they are both open about their lives and they’ve helped give me the confidence to be open about mine.

For those playing along at home, the scoreboard is thus. Bisexual, genderfluid (they/them pronouns, folks), and polyam. Usually open for questions, as long as they’re polite and preferably can’t be answered by a quick google search. Thanks for listening.

#worldmentalhealthday

10/10/2017

Hey y’all I basically haven’t stopped talking about my mental health for the past several months and honestly? I don’t plan to any time soon. I have ADHD, bipolar disorder, and lots of fun anxiety stemming from both of those things. I’m medicated and in therapy and so damn grateful.


Remember:

You don’t have to fight alone.

Treatment is about your version of success, no anyone else’s.
Things can be easier. Maybe not all the way better, but easier.
Other people feel this too.

Fight the stigma. Speak out. Do your best for yourself and the people around you.

Shopping is Hard

When your executive dysfunction cancels out your poor impulse control because you realize you need to make a better decision but you can’t figure out what would actually be the better decision because there are too many options one of which is just giving up and going home so you freeze and sit on the floor in the children’s section at Target staring at everything for 20 minutes.

Mental Health isn't Violent

PSYCHOSIS DOESNT MAKE YOU VIOLENT

MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE ARE NOT INHERENTLY VIOLENT

VIOLENCE IS A SYMPTOM OF SKEWED MORALS AND A DESIRE TO DO VIOLENCE 

(and a society that promotes, values, and does not adequately protect against violence)

Intrusive Sleep

So one of the symptoms of ADHD that I can't find talked about enough is Intrusive Sleep.

It is explained in an article on ADDitude in this way: "If... an individual with ADHD loses interest in an activity, his nervous system disengages, in search of something more interesting. Sometimes this disengagement is so abrupt as to induce sudden extreme drowsiness, even to the point of falling asleep." The next paragraph explains further "that brain wave tracings at this time show a sudden intrusion of theta waves into the alpha and beta rhythms of alertness. We all have seen “theta wave intrusion,” in the student in the back of the classroom who suddenly crashes to the floor, having “fallen asleep.” This was probably someone with ADHD who was losing consciousness due to boredom rather than falling asleep."

It also mentions the fact that this can be especially dangerous when driving on long stretches of boring road. Or, in my case, my afternoon commute home.

A lot of people that know me probably recognize this pattern in me. Interacting with life, everything is normal, suddenly having really extreme difficulty keeping my eyes open or my head up. Like clearly trying really hard and doing the "nod off and twitch awake" thing like every 15 seconds. It's happened in classes (all the way back to freshman year of high school at least) and at work, and like I said before, while driving. It fucking sucks. I'm trying to function and to focus. And my brain decides it's bored and and it's time to just check out. The only thing I've found helpful so far is taking a quick 15 minute nap, wherever I am, then getting back to my life. The driving one I still don't have a solution for. I blast music and sing along and keep my eyes open by sheer force of will.

I don't really have a good question or wrap up statement here. It just sucks.

A hard day

Sometimes, you think you've made it through a hard day unscathed. You functioned, you laughed, you hung out with family, you got important shit done, you even made plans and went out for the night. You think you've made it through and you're okay.

And then you get to the end of that day and finally stop moving. You stop pushing yourself to stay functional and upright. And then you curl up in a friend's lap and sob about as hard as you can remember doing for a solid ten minutes.

And sometimes the only thought on your mind is "I want to go home."

Struggles

I am once again confronted by one of the constant struggles of mental illness- I can recognize the pattern, or the skewed thought process, or the challenging behavior... but that doesn't mean it stops happening. Recognizing "that's an irrational thought pattern" doesn't automatically make it stop being the default thought pattern.

Knowing might be half the battle, but y'all it's really only *half* the battle. And the part between knowing something is broken and getting it all put back together is tough.

Forgive Me For My Struggle

This is an update for my earlier post about the struggle of realizing mental illness but not being able to solve the issue right away.

There is another part of this that I realized as I talked through it later. I have to forgive myself for the struggle. Hell, I have to thank myself for the struggle. Yes, this is the hard part, but the time before I recognized the issue was hard too. It was hard and I was doing it alone and I could have kept doing it for a long time.

I'm not sure if it's something anyone else needs to hear, but it was something I needed to say to myself:

Not being able to solve the problem immediately isn't a flaw in me. It's part of the process. These things are hard and they're allowed to be hard. It sucks! And it's allowed to suck. I can acknowledge that without blaming myself for the feeling. I can live and work in this place where it's hard and I can get to the other side.

A Person With a Body

Twice in the past couple weeks I have looked at pictures of myself, from a time I can remember being incredibly self-conscious. Self-doubting. Self-deprecating. I look at those pictures and all I see is a person with a body. That person is cute! They fit in with the people around them. There's nothing horribly wrong with them or how they stand or how they look. But I remember the shame and the doubt.

I think I can learn something from this. I feel the shame and the doubt now some days. Fewer days than I used to, but some. But if I can look back at myself and see that no matter how I felt, I looked good. I looked happy and average and young. If I can do that, maybe I can do that now. Maybe I can realize now that there's nothing wrong with how I look. Maybe I can realize now, instead of 5 or 10 years from now that the shame I feel isn't real. It doesn't have to be. Some days will still be bad, but maybe some days I can remember 13 or 15 year old me and go "it was okay then, no matter what you believed. It is okay now too"

Fragile

My response to fragile days, at least right now, is to reach out. Not for help, but with love. I reach out to the people that matter to me and let them know it. Even though I'm afraid. Even though I'm really scared that my love is too much and I'm fretting over saying something wrong. I'm scared, and I want to isolate, but instead I'm throwing flowers. Sending little paper boats down the river and hoping that even though I can seem to feel good about myself today, maybe the people I love can.

Today I'm scared, of everything, of everyone, of doing something wrong. But maybe I'll brighten someone else's day. Maybe my impact on the word today can still be good.