Letters from the black hole...
Hey friends. Long time no chat. I guess I should start this off by saying, life is extremely hard and this blog update is kind of a vent. It might be a little bit heavy. Thus, I'm placing it beneath a cut. But... If you're wondering where I've been... Lemme tell ya.
The thing about being a living breathing human being who is an adult with adult responsibilities that I detest more than anything is arranging my priorities. It's not hard. It's just frustrating.
As of late, I have had to prioritize away from my passions and creativity because life has demanded more from my well of mental and physical energy than I feel like I can give most days. What this means is, the things that matter most have to come first, and as much as writing is important to me, nothing is more important than the happiness and well being of my child.
And boy howdy... Ensuring the Spawn's health and joy and security has been a months long roller coaster of a struggle. I knew that my kiddo was different from the time they were very small. The kind of "can't stop won't stop" energy that was hard to keep up with most days, a lack of desire for a lot of physical contact, a tendency to get angry instead of sad when things went wrong... As they got older, more and more I had to wonder if it was something I was doing that was making my kiddo Different. I was prepared to hear that they had ADHD, but there was so much more to it that I just wasn't entirely prepared for.
Starting in October of last year, the kiddo became more socially aware and was experiencing bullying at school. At the time, we knew for certain about the ADHD, that they also had autistic traits that were emerging, but it was hard to tell if those were really autism or under-socialization due to Covid isolation in early childhood.
Things at school started to get really bad. Kiddo's anxiety was increasing. They stopped telling us things or minimizing how much they were struggling with their peers, they were constantly becoming dysregulated, becoming aggressive, doing whatever they could to escape a situation they didn't want to be in.
Months and months we worked with the school while nothing really improved and what frustrates me most, is the bullying was hand waved. Never truly addressed. And a couple days ago, I got a call from another parent in my kiddo's class asking me "Hey, so, my kid is getting bullied and it feels like his teacher just does not want to deal with him or even likes her job, they keep calling him a liar, is this what you were experiencing?" and yeah. It was. These kids are so small. They're 7. They're little. They shouldn't be struggling like this. Since October, after many failed attempts to improve matters at the school, work with the team and specialists, we had Kiddo reevaluated by a neuropsyche, to see where he was now. I guess I just wasn't prepared. I don't think anyone really can be, to be told that their child's ADHD is classified as "Severe" or that those emergent autistic traits are "Level 2 Autism" when just a month prior I wasn't convinced he was autistic at all, or that their kiddo has a pretty aggressive mood disorder, is showing significant signs of depression, and is unfit to attend school or have a social group and needs intensive care and support.
Having to put everything on hold to focus on caring for my kiddo has been hard. The sense of loss and grief for the childhood I wanted for my kiddo, the sense of loss of self-identity for me as my world has been swallowed up by doing everything I can to make sure kiddo is taken care of, the guilt, the frustration, the exhaustion...
And then, life beyond this new information and all these things that need addressing continues onward.
My own mental health has been a little shaky as of late, I started therapy, but after getting diagnosed with ADHD and starting medication, I was finally able to start living again. Moving my body. Dysautonomia under control, brain functioning, no longer halfway bed-bound. I lots a lot of weight over the last year. Weight I needed to lose, that I was very careful about. I was diagnosed with Alpha-Gal, and cut out all mammal meats, so I have been exclusively eating leaner proteins like fish and chicken and more eggs and turkey. I've been upping my fiber intake as instructed by my gastroenterologist. I've been doing 20 minutes of light exercise a day per the instructions of my rheumatologist. I've been more physically active, eating better, feeling better, and like I was in a really good place physically for the first time since childhood.
But as I was following up with my PCP about my health and to get my adderall scripts refilled, my doctor freaked out about my weight loss. It didn't seem to matter to her that I'd made a lot of healthy choices and changes in my life. In her mind it was either A.) My Eating Disorder Is Coming Back or B.) My Adderall is Making Me Starve Myself and there were talks about taking me off the medication that has given me my fucking life back.
Over 33 pounds in one year.
Weight loss that started BEFORE I started Adderall.
It sent me into a crisis. It was deeply triggering. I suddenly found myself, while dealing with some of the most stressful shit I've been through since my teen years, looking in the mirror and wondering if I was going crazy. Was I really losing too much weight? Was I sick and hiding it from everyone? I second guessed all these healthy choices I'd made to get to a better place, wondering if I secretly was doing something bad to just Be Skinny.
My own doctor managed to make me doubt my healthy choices and sent me into an anxious tailspin over the fear that I'd lose access to medication I need in order to support my kiddo through his own mental health crisis. It was a nightmare. Everything felt so big and so overwhelming.
I miss writing.
I miss it so damn much and instead of writing I was spiraling. I was drowning. Gasping. Terrified. Frustrated. I got a second opinion from a behavioral health specialist who advocated for me, sent my doctor a message. And I'm hoping that's the end of that, but on top of the daily, hours long therapy sessions I take my child to, I now need to find a different prescriber for my own medication.
And, my girlfriend's niece, who is barely 3, is dying.
Just as we were getting our kiddo into their therapy program, starting the process of looking into therapeutic schools, the news comes through that the baby niece has to go into a medically induced coma and it's uncertain that she'll wake up. So, that means its time for the girlfriend to fly across the country to be there for her sister. More crisis on top of crisis, on top of crisis.
And amidst all this, I lost a friend in the most frustrating way possible, and truthfully I don't know if they even realize or care that our friendship has dissolved. But among the plethora of crises occurring, someone I had always been able to count on suddenly had no empathy for the massive amounts of emotional turmoil, loss, grief, or difficulty we were experiencing as a family. Attempts to reach out were met with sharpness and anger, and while I understood the stress my friend was under, given what was going on in their life, I had made attempts to be kind and supportive, only to be yelled at. My girlfriend reached out to check in on them and tell them about what was happening with baby niece, and my friend simply disregarded all of it to talk about what's going on in their city. Horrific as it is, the lack of mutual care forced me to reflect on whether or not the friendship was really a friendship at all anymore when it rapidly became one-sided and my friend receded into a place of constant panic and had no room for anything except their streams and the trouble facing their city. I had to consider how little empathy was shown when my own city was, and still is, suffering. How a simple question such as "How are you doing?" started receiving answers like "If you don't know what's going on you're living under a rock"... After a while it starts to feel almost performative, receiving anger and rants only to turn around and see so many streaming VOD uploads. It hurt to realize that the friendship had fallen apart and I've been angry about it ever since.
And so, I haven't been writing. My second draft of my novel sits in a document binder half-finished, collecting dust while my life descends into chaos all around me and I feel like loss colors everything. Even the things I try to do right seem to be inherently poisoned. It's been a lot to deal with.
The desire to reclaim some part, any part at all, of who I am outside of all this is so strong but I don't know how or when, and that's painful to deal with. But I'll keep trying.
That's all I really can do.
xx Skee
