Tag: AuDHD

Wow. Talk about a wall.

I did, earlier today, talk to my landlord about painting a wall, but that’s not the wall I hit.

At my best, I wonder if my symptoms are simply the burnout I have been learning many of my past episodes of depression to be. The semantics of anxiety turning into the inherent overstimulating trauma of a life where silence is non-existent and the demands on body and mind are multitudinous. The psychology media cries so loud about such connections between trauma, ADHD & Autism; if they are crying wolf, the reveal will await a new acronym, and new school of thought.

At my worst…

Today was a good day. Not all that stressful, couple of errands, boardgames and a bit of work while sitting at a local café, then home to eat leftovers and do a bit more work. Home to eat leftovers, and while I’m waiting for the rice to cook, everything shuts down. Wall meet human.

I didn’t see the sun set.

Headache. Growing from a niggling twinge to all encompassing ache. This isn’t a migraine. This isn’t a toothache. I have one of those, too, and there’s no comparison. When it happens, I’m listening to an audiobook while processing duplicate references in Endnote. The first has 90%-95% of my attention, if not more. I zone out. Miss a chapter. It’s an important chapter, a roisterous dash to save the world. I decide to take a break.

Lying back on the couch, the light hurts. I restart the chapter and cover my head with a blanket. There’s an earthquake machine beneath Yellowstone, the world in peril. The next thing I know, the rice cooker switches to standby. I’ve missed the chapter again, and more. I can’t move.

I can pause the book on my phone, but I can’t move.

I am aware of everything. This could be a panic attack, but if it is, I am disassociating. My thoughts are sluggish. The headache has spread to my body. It is as if every nerve ending is becoming self aware. My limbs are heavy and I wonder when/if/who/how someone would find me. I can no longer even form/send/comprehend a message.

Somehow, sleep comes, shallow, feverous. I am drawn into the story I’m no longer listening to, into a house and home that is this reality yet not. It has few of the issues, none of the pain. I clear the path for a bus through the living room. Every now and then I am awakened by sounds, and fade back into fever.

I wake around midnight. Foggy, the headache has returned to a dull throb and my nerve endings are humming in dull harmony. I can move and do so, struggling to my feet and turning the rice cooker off. Preparing a hydrolyte concoction. Contemplating a record of the event.

That way 30 minutes ago.

I am sitting on top the wall now, knowing myself to be eggshell awaiting horses, not sure if there is anything left in me to shatter. This is the waking fever, the new constant.

This is not burnout, anxiety, or depression. I know those intimately. Have developed strategies. Mindfulness, scheduling, dancing to burn off the nervous energy.

This is torment.

Like

Comment

Share

This was written in response to a video (reel) by Claire Bowman, who presents personal experiences with ADHD and Autism as ADH-She. It can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1457049251509622

I’m peer reviewed AuDHD*; saving up for the proper diagnosis. It’s been 9 years since I was medicated for anxiety, in which time I’ve developed what works for me. I’m also self-employed which allows some scheduling freedoms, but means burnout affects much more than my mental health. It can, and has, severely impacted my livelihood.

As such, I have learnt to schedule-in my depression where possible. If I come off a particularly stressful contract, for instance, I lean into the depression and go full couch/book/TV binge mode.

Last week was a particularly bad week, and it got to Thursday and I was just done. I made the conscious decision to buy bad food and cancel all weekend plans. Then I stepped away from the world.

When this happens, Monday is usually the recovery day, doing admin or washing, basically reintroducing structures, generally while listening to a podcast or audiobook to distract my quick-fire thoughts. Tuesday, I’m back at work.

It doesn’t always work out like that, and takes practice, but overall, I’m more stable I was than 1 years ago, and far more than I was 9 years ago, when my burnout lasted a full year and a half.

*Peer reviewed AuDHD is a term I’ve co-opted. It originally meant someone who has done copious amounts of research into their conditions as to make formal diagnosis a formality. I use it in the sense of “a review of my peers”.