The Car Wreck of My Life Has a Name
Since the pandemic, I have discovered something harder to deal with than Tourettes. It challenges my efforts to be upbeat and optimistic, and has given me very little to laugh about.
I manage my ADHD & Depression just fine—or should I say I deal with them just fine. They represent road bumps that cause me to slow down, but then I get back up to speed. My Tourettes acts more like an IED that blows up my schedule. It takes a bit more effort and time to recover from, but I always get moving forward again. Post Viral Dysautonomia, as I’ve been recently diagnosed with, has been more like a head-on collision with demolition charges for the past four years, taking out both the car and the roads. It leaves me exhausted, susceptible to illness, and with oxygen saturation that routinely drops below 88%.
Recently, I had a setback in my efforts to overcome dysautonomia. It was just back surgery. I had a cyst removed. Nothing drastic. It was day surgery. I laughed and chatted with the dermatologist and his assistant while they did their work. It was a lark, I tell you.
And yet coming off the anesthesia hit me like a truck. I still needed to finish packing to move, so I implemented pacing techniques to manage my stamina, but I made myself sick and crashed out after a few days anyway. I did manage to maintain my 3200 steps daily baseline, though. Victory? ✌🏻
No, clearly I did too much. This is where ADHD and Dysautonomia come together like a four car pile-up. I become so focused on what I need to do that I forget to take notice of how I’m doing. And I stop. No energy. I might fall asleep right where I am, like a narcoleptic behind the wheel.
With each new day, I square my shoulders and push myself forward. I try to learn from my mistakes, but not dwell on them. What will today look like? Part of the crashout was getting over eight hours of sleep. I’d been functioning on less than six all last week. So I feel much better.
I’d like to…
- ❑ go for a short walk
❑ continue packing with breaks
❑ do my sketching practice
❑ finish & post a blog
I don’t know how well I’ll do. Making lists helps, but I don’t hold myself to them too tightly. When I poop out, time is lost as I recuperate. Then the day ends, and I prepare for the next one. Overcoming dysautonomia calls for careful pacing, not exceeding one’s limits, as well as pushing forward without crashing. It’s a very, very hard balance to achieve since cognitive and physical activities pull from the thimbleful I have of stamina. This is my new life, but at least I’m getting guidance finally—a roadmap to skirt around the crashes. Perhaps in time, I’ll even learn to laugh about it (like I did when Grok spit out this “station wagon”).
