The end of the holidays and then new year means most of us start thinking about how we want the next year to go. Last year was a total surprise/no shit! year for me in so many ways that I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it.
Depressed me in January 2024 had no clue that I was going to be diagnosed with ADHD in April and Autism in October. January 2024 me didn’t know that me getting diagnosed with ADHD and starting to take Adderall would result in me having the executive function to get my youngest, 16, diagnosed with ADHD in May- something he’s needed since he was 6.
January 2024 me didn't know that my oldest would come out to us as trans in June, which was a surprise, and then immediately not a surprise at all. She didn't know that the kids and I would go to NYC (the last place on my bucket list then- now my favorite) for the first time, also in June. January 2024 me didn't know the deep dive into neurodiversity after the ADHD diagnosis was going to lead to getting tested for and diagnosed with Autism. That continued deep dive has led me to understand that being identified as gifted as a child is also neurodivergent. I understand now that I am highly Alexithymic which gives me another open window into me. I remodeled my small business, made a new website, and changed my systems.
2024 was full. I have only scratched the surface- but that surface holds so much joy and relief and a sense of peace that my life and my children’s lives make more sense now. We are identifying who we are and what we need and…
It is a complex thing. I feel grateful that I have a husband (also ADHD) who I haven’t lived with in almost 5 years who is willing to stay married so I can have good health insurance which gives me access to affordable therapy. We are making a marriage in our own way. I’m grateful that my diagnoses have given me the wherewithal to find a new therapist after 9 years with the same therapist. I’m grateful that I have a place to live, a car to drive, food to eat, and the will to keep trying to support myself by being self employed even though the roller coaster of that is unsettling sometimes. I’m grateful to be surrounded by people with resources when I have just almost enough. I’m grateful that I understand why I couldn’t do well in school despite being identified as gifted, why friendships were hard, why college was a shit show, why I became a blackout drinker at age 14. I’m grateful that I just knew somehow that trying to work a 9-5 job would mangle me even more than life already had.
I’m not grateful that I spent my whole life feeling like I’d done something wrong and that no one bothered to look very closely at the ways my life wasn’t working and instead called me things like “too much” “too sensitive” “not living up to my potential” “uncaring” and “bad”. I’m not grateful that the institutions that educate our youth are so narrow minded and lack creativity when it comes to learning- by nature a creative endeavor. I’m not grateful that my youngest believed he was stupid until recent psychological testing showed he is almost a genius. I’m not grateful that when things don’t make sense we blame people instead of helping them; that we label them as "not trying" and "not caring" when we care so fucking much and don’t understand why no one sees that.
The ways we determine the worth of people, what smart is, what acceptable is, what is allowed, what is possible, and what is ridiculed make me want to puke. What the fuck are we doing with our one wild and precious life? How did killing the planet and killing our spirits become the norm? Why do we continue to agree to the things that don’t work, pretending they’re going to get better when they've been bad and worse? What is wrong with us that we keep hurting ourselves and sacrificing our well being for jobs and ideologies that would sooner chew us up and spit us out than save us or our planet?
Why, with over 8 billion people on the planet, do we have so few viable options for personhood?
I have always known my own experience even when that experience was dismissed or distorted by someone else. I just learned how to hide myself, mask up. Pretend what others say they think is true for me is also true for me too. I know I’m not alone in this. The difference now is that I trust and believe my experience instead of trusting someone else telling me what my experience should be. Knowing I'm AuDHD gives me the opening to stop listening to people who negate what I say things are like for me. It gives me the new space of being me.
That is what I want 2025 to be- the year I…I. The year I...ME.
I’m sitting at Discount Tire right now, waiting for my car. I have my AirPods in, noise cancelling on, writing this post. I’m listening to one of my favorite writing playlists. When the pleasure of the music takes me I close my eyes, I bob my head, make the hand gestures I make when I am pulled into the experience of what I’m listening to. I was hot when I sat down and so I took off my coat and my hat and found a hair tie and put my hair up without knowing what it looks like. I brought my water in with me. My husband texts me questioning the tire warranty. I text back that I feel good about my decision to get tires today. I don’t get mad or defensive when he keeps questioning the tire warranty, I know he is trying to take care of me. This is me: 2025: Neurodivergent Self-Discovery
All of these things are things I would not have let myself to do last year at this time. I would not listen to music on my AirPods in a public place, much less use noise cancelling- what if they called my name and I didn’t hear it? Then I would look like I don’t know what I’m doing, which leads to people asking questions that I can't find answers for that would make sense to them. So no looking foolish- it's way too much work.
I would have just been hot the whole time I was sitting here because it felt too vulnerable to take my coat off, other people had coats on and I try to match the majority of the room. Taking my hat off meant my hair might look funny and I wouldn’t want that kind of attention. Putting my hair up in public wouldn’t be something I allowed myself to do. I would not want to do work on my computer because I don't want to ask how to connect to the wifi. I would have left my water in the car because for some reason I feel like having water with me is attention seeking. Last year I would have gotten defensive about the tire warranty texts and believed that my husband was telling me I was bad at knowing when to get tires and that he was right, then spent the rest of the day feeling silently resentful, believing this text exchange was more proof that he thinks I’m stupid and don't know what I'm doing. If all these things sound strange or silly to you I understand why. But it doesn’t change the hundreds of rules and cues I need to follow so I don’t stick out as unusual or look foolish.
I often wonder what it is like to be a person who does what they want and doesn’t have to think it through with such careful attention. How do people just go through the drive thru at McDonald's and order food and then eat it? What is it like to go to a place and feel totally comfortable even if you’ve never been there before? I didn’t get my oil changed for 4 months after it was due because I had never been to the oil change place I decided I wanted to try that was a lot closer to my house. Then I finally went and I had to drive my car into the garage over a hole in the floor. Sitting in my car above the hole in the floor where the guy was underneath my car changing my oil- I had no clue what to do. “You just sit there” you might say. But I don’t just sit there. I feel totally uncomfortable and have the urge to drive off, I don’t know what to say and I practice saying no to all the extras they’re going to offer me when it’s time to talk about what they just did to my car. I will never go back because all that on top of a new place was so so stressful. I’ll just drive the extra 15 minutes across town to the place I know.
All the rules and masks I’ve made for myself, the lifetime of things that seem innocuous but exhaust and erase me. Not understanding how things work while everyone else seems to get it. All the understood things that are unspoken. Watching people at the grocery store who seem un-phased by all the things that totally phase me like going past other people, picking up wet misty produce, choosing a line, waiting in line, remembering how to tap to pay, all while constantly feeling in the way. Things that most people think are fun but to me are pretty terrible like festivals, amusement parks, and most parties. It’s an interesting project to re-learn what I’m capable of at this age. It’s an interesting project to see how much and when I supress my natural self to meet societal expectations. I’m trying to teach myself choice and consent by learning what I really am like and what I’m actually really capable of.
My heart aches for my history, for every moment I convinced myself to reject the real me.
My heart sings with possibility, the dear familiarity of a sense of self that comes from letting go of all the requirements to be normal, and instead being weird and wonderful me.
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