Magic Pill

There are few diagnoses that ever led to solutions for problems in my life. Bipolar Type II, sure, fibromyalgia, ouch, GERD, eh... The list went on with little relief, each one not really explaining where my energy and focus went and why treating them wasn't making them come back.

ADHD. Didn't really think that was it. I internalized unexplained anxiety, causing mood swings and lack of impulse control. I wasn't an outward exhibitor, largely because surviving in my environment meant a poker face and suppressive methods. Rather than becoming more socially adept, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with not being able to get it. Any of it.

However, I was willing to accept anything a doctor could tell me, get back on medications and be honest with myself. It wasn't until I started taking Vyvanse that I started really seeing myself. The body aches are less. The focus and energy to actually do things I love is back. I'm working on projects more often and having less anxiety about the unfinished things, just enjoying what I'm doing in the moment. With ADHD, there is a tendency to either have no focus or an intense stubborn focus on one thing. I'm both more flexible with having to put something down and less anxious about starting things.

I'm not going to say it's a miracle, but it's promising. A little stimulant is helping me wrangle my brain without the fear I'm becoming too numb or losing myself. It's helping me get back what matters most.

Vyvanse isn't for everyone. I've known some who do better with Adderall. What comforts me about Vyvanse is its lower addictive properties. If longer term side effects are negative, it's less damaging to withdraw from it.

I've been the frustrated Guinea pig in the past but my resolve to be honest about my problems, even when I'm confused, is making a big difference. Public knowledge of ADHD, autism and mental illness is making doctors more aware of what to ask confused patients. Because I'm very intelligent, ADHD was overlooked. Of course, ADHD was once attributed to hyperactive children who struggle with tests. Until markers like focus were examined (I aced tests but skirted around homework. Did class work well but never studied.), doctors were missing what made me awkward, sensitive and frustrated. Teachers were struggling to understand the extremities.

I talk about this because every story can help someone make a breakthrough. People CAN find a way to live their best life if they can learn to balance their chemistry. Now, I'll never be normal, sometimes inappropriate, always socially awkward, but when something can blow away the fog and pain that doesn't make sense, what is left is room for what I want.

I always wondered why Adderall didn't speed me up like it did my peers. But now it makes sense why it was just making me feel the normal that people talked about.

I hope Vyvanse is a lasting solution. I've had very little luck in the past, but a whole lot of hope. Maybe now I can start to do more normal things, like drive a car or go on a date. Okay, maybe just drive. I've never been that interested in dating.

Anyways, back to crochet for tonight. Quite a bit to do before Christmas!

Adding an edit here, something I don't often do. I am very optimistic but when it comes to drugs, I feel the need to be more responsible about my observations.

Mornings suck. When I wake up, I immediately take a handful of medicines to shake off the feeling of being 80 years old. Sour or cramping stomach, body aches everywhere, lethargy. I walk the boys to school feeling like I'm hiking up a bumpy mountain. It takes about half and hour to an hour for everything to make me feel normal and it's almost euphoric to get there. Keep in mind, that euphoria isn't somehow making normal people superhuman and happy. If you don't need drugs like Adderall or Vyvanse, you might feel more focused or hyper, but your risk of dependency and the downside of negative side effects more than someone who does. Because people who are using a drug they don't need are abusing it, and that comes with all the things addicts are often in denial of.

I don't mean to lecture my readers, but it's so important to understand the messages we hear about drugs. At the grocery store up the street from my house, a man was overdosing on heroin in the parking lot. We live in a world where people are chasing false highs at alarming rates and the denial is even greater.

So I hope you understand that my magic pill is simply helping me function on a normal adult level. I'm not free of problems and anxieties, I'm just in a place where my body stops giving me so many false signals. I'm experiencing benefits like impulse control, focus, energy, things people take for granted. I can't blame people for taking things for granted because everyone is struggling.... All the same, where I mostly function as a scared teenager, I've been able to come out of my shell a bit to do things the rest of the world does easily.

I feel incredibly lucky that I can work with doctors who care. Right now, that is largely due to being on poor people's insurance. I can't stress enough how much ALL Americans, even ones who can afford it, should not have to pay for basic or life saving medical needs. So I'm going to close with that. Medicare for ALL. Americans can't be our greatest if we aren't healthy!

Nervous But a Service

Today, I went to see a psychologist. Of course, I was nervous. I'm never quite sure if it will be helpful or a disaster. My first attempts at therapy and medication as an adult were disasters.

As I've grown into a woman who has learned to better deal with myself--getting two degrees, publishing, working on branding myself--I fell into a common mindtrap. Maybe I'm somehow past what crippled me. Things are looking up. Yet after a couple of frustrating months, I couldn't pinpoint why I was struggling to be healthy. My focus grew erratic and my weight started to creep up. I knew the signs even if I wasn't willing to admit it. I had to face the truth and seek help.

It will take some time to find the right medications, but I wasn't forced into therapy. This doctor not only recognized how therapy often caused me to backpedal into old traumas, but she made it clear that there would be blood work and monitoring, an important aspect that was ignored in the past. I feel more confident that I won't be physically destroyed and my concerns will be listened to. There was no underlying current that she would enforce 'what's best for me'.

Like a great deal of women, it was a largely internal struggle. I knew I could be a rapid talker and fidgety and impulsive, socially awkward and end up 'quiet' when I sat on impulses. But a late diagnosis of ADHD is better than burying what I'd always suspected. I can manage the worst of it when I am extremely selective of situations I put myself in. Being able to choose when to work has become an important part of functioning.

Yet I wanted more than that. I don't care about being socially acceptable to the masses, but I want more agency with my desires. If I want to draw, I want to be able to do so for hours, rather than frustrated bursts. If I want to write, the words need to slow down to the speed of my typing. If I want to sleep, and am even exhausted, I want my brain to stop fighting it like I'll never wake up.

It was an important step when I started treating my physical issues but very important to grasp that fibromyalgia is also worse when physical and mental issues are not addressed jointly. I'm a very patient person when it comes to my health, as I'd adapted myself to come to terms with.

It's equally important to add that the eccentricities that come with being smart are not always normal. When the smartness can't be communicated, it is neither helpful to the self nor the people it could benefit. It becomes frustrating, to find yourself bound, glued to the spot, while all those ideas fly into walls and out of windows.

I can't say for certain I was born this way. There is a lot of trauma that could have caused mental illness to manifest as an adaptation. I was often caught in nightmare worlds where no one believed me, blamed me, or turned people against me when their lies were believed. My mom told me I was always impulsive but not mean-spirited or intentionally troublesome. I did balk against the perception of morality, deciding right and wrong for myself outside of strict social constructs.

What I want to focus on is being who I want to be. To stop feeling frustrated when I'm actually enjoying myself. To remember more, even down to what I just ate, without having to write everything down. To not let false chemical signals in my brain affect my nerves and mental processes.

I've never really felt like I was sick. Just entirely too tolerant in being adaptive. Feeling sick always came from swallowing everything that made me different, trying to please people who couldn't care less about me anyway. I've embraced my inner nerd and eccentric.

But I can't hug away the misfires in my body. Sometimes, I need to remind myself that it doesn't just go away because my life is better. My body fights battles I can't mediate away with logic and good intentions.

I'm optimistic about taking small steps towards wellness. I really feel like this doctor, and my medical doctor, really see me and listen to me. It's a step in the right direction.