Work with what you've got ~ What you've got is beautiful

Work with what you've got. What you've got is beautiful

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That's what I took from "The ADHD brain doesn't work like others. The problem isn't how my brain works. The problem is trying to make my brain work in a way that opposes its true nature." One of my favourite teachers, Luis Mojica, said this. I took his six-week somatic trauma healing course in the summer. I haven't loved an online course more than I loved his and how his top-notch team works together to deliver it. I still use the recordings he gave us on somatic healing most mornings. I will share some of these musings in the first "A little bit of a lot." ALBOAL will be a monthly gathering of valuable, practical and sometimes funny or random things I have learned over the month. I will share them with you in point form notes. It will also be a chance to share some personal essays I have brewing.

My interests are primarily about healing, cults, human behaviour, non-shit wellness, ADHD tools, relationships, grief, loss, joy, cats and grappling with big questions that I don't have the answers to but try to work on figuring out how to be with it, sometimes through the body, sometimes through music, sometimes by getting a group together to talk things through. So if that's you too, let's hang.

Another message I received a few years back is to stop trying to fit into the neurotypical way. So, same same but different. In one of our sessions, my therapist told me I was getting stuck around putting work out into the world because I felt I had to do it the way it's typically done and that I didn't want to. I was frustrated at myself for not being able to conform to what is generally expected of someone like myself, a writer, soon to be an author of a book that spoke on a topic most people would like to run from, grief and death. She said, "then do it your way." Simple, yet not for a brain hopped up on rumination, shame and years of masking. Those words have stuck in my mind, especially when I enter the compare game. I am bringing that same energy here.

"Doing it my way" means a lot of things to me, but in this context of newsletter writing and writing here in general, that is, honouring the randomness of my brain, writing about whatever comes up for me.

Let me give you a little run down. Some of you who follow me are also on this path or something similar.

Being diagnosed with ADHD at 37 has been a bumpy ride. Still, many missing puzzle pieces have been located, some in the form of grief— what is me? What is life? What are the untreated aspects of this different brain, impulsiveness, and executive functioning? Am I in freeze response again? How does my boredom show up, and how do I heal and deal with my sensitive system? And how to get out of getting stuck in fear. So many things I am fumbling along and figuring out.

I tried a secondary medication for a while, Bupropion, also known as Wellbutrin, which can be used as a non‐stimulant treatment for ADHD. Bupropion is an antidepressant registered for depression and smoking cessation. That helped a bit, I think. But also, what do I know? I had never taken medication before, so I wasn't sure what I should feel.

My most notable changes were finding tools like short list and long list, which is you have a short list every day, and that is what you must get made that day, and a running list of the things you want to do but not as pressing, long list. It has worked wonders for me, alongside somatic experiencing and EMDR, just now venturing into CBT. 

Pictured is my cat Cheddar this morning, having none of my bullshit. As I wrote beside her, I felt she looked how I felt sharing after not doing so for a long time. The second picture is my short list this week. I did not do full-body pilates, and I did not do my physio exercises. 

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I have yet to venture into primary ADHD medications for a few reasons, one of which I will share here, I am sensitive to meds. Ask me about the time the walk-in doctor prescribed me a low-dose SSRI (I think that is what it was) for part of my cycle. I took it for three days, and it had me feeling like a zombie babe. I didn't sleep for days, my jaw started chattering uncontrollably, and my pupils were the size of saucers. Adverse reactions to meds have me a little reluctant to go that route, but I know it can be life-affirming for many.

I also want to give somatics, my food changes, gut health mission ( yes, cringe), vitamins and trauma therapy a fair shot. Lifestyle changes are complex and take time. It's been an ongoing trial and error, and I am exhausted. Also, getting someone to prescribe you a Schedule II substance is hard when you don't have an actual doctor, although I have established a decent relationship with the docs at the walk-in clinic. I live on Vancouver Island and have been waiting for a doctor for four years.

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This newsletter, writing space, sassy sanctuary, ponder palace, and weirdness wonderland will be a place to play, practice and consider together. This is a place where I am going to show up with my brain as it is. Work with what I've got because what I've got is beautiful.

I hope my newsletter is amusing, helpful, and not problematic, but I won't promise that. If I share something you don't like, react to, whatever the case. I trust that you can handle your shit. I am doing my best to manage mine. I am over performing perfection for acceptance in online spaces. I am over doing that to others as well. I am also over trying to get my writing to be something other than what it is, average with some moments of glory. As an almost published author, I will say this, bless the editors amongst us. They make us better. When I overthink my work, it goes to shit. I lose my essence if I try to be all the things to all people. So I will write, share, glaring grammar errors and all, and humbly write here to see what happens.

Welcome, and thanks for reading. It means a lot that you take time out of your day to read my words.