It’s been a while.

It’s been a while since I last blogged.

I used to be so great at keeping journals and writing down everything of the day, poems, and all the jumbled mess that was my brain.

But then life happened. Health conditions worsened, mental health worsened.

2 years ago I had ADHD added to the list on top of the ASD and the EDS and the fibro…….I was collecting an impressive list of letters after my name that would make a doctor jealous……If they were something like MB/ChB/MBBS instead anyway.

I have known for years about the ASD, though it was’t until my kid was born that started learning more about it. That I wasn’t “wrong” or “broken”, just different. Different wiring in my brain.

Over the last few months I’ve been trying to learn more about the ADHD side of my brain. Where it starts and the ASD stops. But there is so much overlap that it can get confusing.

I did learn that when I was little I was diagnosed as hyperactive, but this was in the late 70’s early 80’s so bupkis was known or understood about any of that stuff. I was prescribed these tiny little red pills that I still remember the look of and how they tasted. My mother said they made me like a zombie so she stopped them. But other than putting me on god knows how many fad diets, nothing else was done about it.

So I’ve spent my whole life unmedicated for a medicate-able condition. Not getting help for something I could have been getting help for. It was a miracle I was even diagnosed Autistic since it was thought to be super rare in girls.

So for almost a year I have been trying to find a medication that can help me get some control in my life. Some order in my brain. But thanks to my health conditions I don’t react well to medications. The first 2 almost landed me in hospital as I reacted badly to them. The second one I had to wean off slowly so I wouldn’t get so sick, but I was still laid oud out for days with withdrawals.

Then I started trailing Dex. I was honestly scared to try it considering my track record for med reactions, but by this time I was pretty desperate for something to help me.

Back story time

Ok so most know that a few years ago I started making work mats for assistance dogs that I named after my assistance dog, Kobash. It took off pretty fast and the mats became way more popular than I ever thought they’d be. I was self taught at sewing as well. From the mats I started making gear as well. I had so many ideas for dog stuff. I loved doing it so much. That this was something that came from me. Me who was the failure at life. I felt like I was giving back. I never really made anything from making the mats. After the amount it cost just for the materials I could never justify charging enough to make a profit.

Through 4 years I was doing it alone. A few times I tried to find someone to come in on the business with me to really try and make it something, but never could find anyone.

Then I got separated. A crap ton of stuff happened including my dog dying (not Kobash), my back dislocating for 6 weeks, getting scammed….you named it it was happening to me.

2020 rolled over and after it starting with losing what I thought was a friend to a woman I thought was becoming my first girl friend, I got conned by a used car salesman, and then covid hit.

Shipping anything during the start of a pandemic was impossible. But people wanted fabric for their mats from the one place that I had to order from overseas. The delay in materials to make the orders, my worsening health conditions, dealing with a divorce and that ex spreading rumours I had to also deal with, my kids dad throwing his crap in to the pot and the any rhythm I had in production came to a grinding halt.

When things settled enough and I could start sewing again, my brain and my body had had enough. I’d wrecked my shoulders, one was now frozen, I was in and out of a wheel chair, my brain was giving me all the anxiety and melt downs and panic attacks and anything else it could throw at me…..I had to announce the closure of Kobash Mats.

I’m still behind on like 6 mats including gear. It’s been a year. I get panic attacks even trying to walk into the work room. I have half finished orders sitting on the table. I hate myself.

I’m battling ADHD paralysis, executive dysfunction, ASD burn out…. While my frozen shoulder is now thawing I’ve also managed to hurt myself in other ways. My harmful stims are out of control.

I had to fight through a massive phobia about medications to even make the step to trying to get the ADHD medicated. So having such severe reactions to the first two, I was terrified to try anything else.

The last time I saw the shrink and she gave me the prescription for it including the directions on how to take it, months had gone past as I was detoxing off the last medication. I spent days not getting off a chair, showering properly, doing anything to manage my life without a ton of support. I had to pysch myself up to it but I picked a day I knew I would have a support worker, filled the prescription, and took the dex. The bottle said to take 1 pill. I took the one pill….

Everything was weeeeeeeee! Headspins, giggling, a whole conversation about farts in Bunnings with multiple people I will never live down. This was on a Friday. I had to planned to not worry about taking the meds over the weekend as I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere anyway and had nothing to do. When the dex left my system there wasn’t a dramatic difference as I was expecting so that was good. But that night I didn’t sleep. The whole weekend I felt so DARK. my thoughts, my feels, everything was dark. I felt like what was the point to anything? And at the same time I felt like if one more person tried to fuck us over I’d punch them in the face.

Now I might rant and be very expressive in my emotional output, but no matter how angry I “look”, I’m not a violent person. But I actually felt like I could punch someone.

Naturally I was too anxious to try it again when Monday came. By Tuesday I was still feeling meh but I had a doctors appointment so went to that. I told the doctor about my first experience with the medication and he looked at his computer and said, you know you were only supposed to take half a pill right??

Um….no. I forgot. And the pill bottle said to take 1 pill. So I did that.

He said try the half pill as the shrink said the next day. I was scared, but so desperate to get some control of my brain, that I did it. I took half a pill.

I noticed that what happened the first time was dramatically reduced. I took it from Wednesday to Friday and again not on the weekend. That weekend past as did the last, with dark thoughts. But I found if I took it early enough in the morning I could get some semblance of sleep at night.

Another week, this time Monday-Friday, and again not on the weekend. But here is where I really started noticing a difference physically as well. All through the week I had found that buried thoughts and memories were starting to surface. Things I didn’t really want to remember. I was still dark as all the stuff that had happened I’m my life, all the trauma, was pushing itself right in my face and I felt why the point of anything. People suck. Everything sucked. My emotional reactions to things when it was out of my system were more dramatic or at least more noticeable to me. I was less able to do the things I needed to do as a single parent in the evenings. Trying to multitask was impossible.

But that second weekend I felt the physical difference. I have learned in my knowledge for the workings of ADHD, that it’s common for headaches, neck pain, joints, muscles etc. I have had pain most of my life. Pain is not unknown to me. But now I was feeling it in a more intense way. I was more aware of it. I mean I was still driving with a dislocated back and that didn’t stop me! My brain was getting used to finally getting some dopamine that when it was out of my system my body was WTF?! I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t move my body the way I wanted to move it.

So I decided that I couldn’t stop taking it on weekends even if I didn’t go anywhere. That made a difference.

When I went back to the shrink to give her an update she was honestly shocked I had even tried the dex considering the way I reacted to the other two meds. To help me get through an evening better she upped to dosage.

I do feel like it’s helping, and will be great once the dose is right. I mean I feel like it’s done more than anything else has.

But I’m also getting a lot of moments of existentialism, why anything, too much sucks, I’m sick of humans, family issues are more in my face, the repressed memories I have to now deal with, and after a lifetime of being controlled by one person after another from the time I was born, I’m finally, in my 40’s, asking who the fuck am I?? I honestly have no idea.

But I feel like I’m starting to figure that out.

Once I’m actually able to walk into that work room and finish what I need to finish, and close up Kobash Mats, I’m going to do all the things need and want to do. Help my kid finish up his last year of home ed, get our comic/cartoon released, all the advocacy and education stuff I’ve always wanted to do, including all the things the ADHD side of my brain wants to jump down the rabbit hole into, focus more on training my pup to be my next assistance dog, and learn more about Celtic things as I have this weird connecty vibey feel toward it.

And hopefully in the process find me.

If you would like to help my pup Luisneach become an assistance dog you can sponsor her at https://linktr.ee/PlanetAutistic on the PayPal link. She also has a wish list on amazon. You can also check her out on TikTok @this_is_just_me_genx