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adhdchipmunk · 6 years

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ADHD, IBS, and existing

Growing up I was always scatterbrained and messy, and once in awhile I'd get horrible horrible stomach attacks. Doctor's never figured it out, and with how rare theu were, didn't really try. My Grandparents raised me and didn't believe ADHD was even a thing, and being a girl who was mainly expected to get married and have babies, not go to college and persue a career, no one bothered diagnosing me. Yes, my family was every inch that sexist. I on the other hand wanted to be Something of my own. Not so and so's wife or so and so's mom. I wasn't sure What I wanted to be though, that changed with my current interests. The only constant about me was reading. I'd go through 2 to 5 books a day. I read while walking, eating, sitting in class, riding on the bus. In retrospect, I suspect this was because books were, for me, the perfect hyperfixation. Constantly changing and offering new stimuli, without requiring me to negotiate with my lack of executive function to get started.

I graduated at 17 (summer baby) and moved out, ran back into my best friend and sweetheart from when I was 15 (grandparents seperated us cause I was 'too young' to date), promptly fell back in love, got married and popped out a little boy. Things went straight to hell. Our house was a complete disaster, we had lost our first pregnancy 2 weeks before she was due and I was already heavily deprssed. I was almost constantly exhausted, I'd wake up long enough to feed my little one, or change him, or burp him, or what have you, and then pass back out, but then it was time to introduce solids, well, babyfood solids, and I had a complete meltdown. I couldn't take care of him. I felt utterly isolated. I didn't think anyone would help me, I thought I had to do it all myself. My hubby tried to help in a way thst just made things infinitely worse. Basically, he'd watch our son till he'd need something, then wake me up to come out and take care of the thing. Whereas, when he wasn't helping, I co-slept and would only have to wake up enough to handle the situation and then go back to sleep. What I really needed was someone who'd clean all the baby spoons and take out the trash with the diapers and maybe was the onesies???

Things happened and my mother in law ended up taking our son full time for about 4 years. It was not easy, but she'd raised all 5 of hers and they were alive, albeit not all fantastic people. But at least, I felt, he would survive her parenting. I didn't feel the same about mine.

Some time in that 4 year span, I stopped having stomach attacks once or twice a month, and started having them literally every day. I'd gone back to school, but couldn't keep up between my constant struggle to try to adult and being sick enough I could barely get in to classes most days.

A trip to the ER at the pleading of friends led to a doctor suggesting gallstones, which was not the problem, but in turn led to figuring out my trigger... eventually. Took awhile. First we tried cutting down on fats. Thing was, I could eat half an avocado (16g fat) without repercussions, but a nutrition bar with only 1.5 g fat killed me. And no, it wasn't that the one was processed and the other raw. That 1.5 g? All saturated and concentrated in something smaller than an average candy bar. And thus we discovered my primary trigger. Not fat, but SATURATED fat.

I got my diet under control and went back to school, we reclaimed our son and continued the struggle of existing, I switched colleges and majors, twice in the case of the latter, and, thanks almost entirely to my hubby, managed to eak out a 3.2 at my first school.

The move to the secpnd signaled a dramatic and incredibly stressful period. My hubby's health suddenly went to hell. Massive BP spikes, basically went narcoleptic, falling asleep anywhere and everywhere, (except behind the wheel somehow), dizziness, painful lumps in three unrelated places (all of which ended up being seperate things, blood tumor, cyst, and plantar fibromitosis, basically a thickening of the connective tissue in the foot that can be, and in his case is, very painful).

Additionally, our son was acting up in school, if anothet kid picked on anyone, he'd pick a fight, if he got upset or overwhelmed at school, he'd pitch a fit, including threats of self harm. Around that same time, my sister git diagnosed with ADHD, she told me about how it had effected her and it was basically a recitation of my life, not to mention a quick google search sounded an awful lot like my little man. So we got appointments and got checked out. Our respective shrinks agreed. We definitely had (have) ADHD.

I'm still struggling. Atm I'm not on medication because reasons, my son on the other is, and is on the right one because he's doing great in school, no more ourtbursts and he's on his way to honor roll. He's still definitely got symptoms, particularly at home. He's forgetful and he has the Worst problem with impulse control. "I wanna play on my switch, I'll just sneak into mom and dad's room (against the rules) and sneak out with the controller (he could literally have just asked)" or "I wanna watch youtube, but I'm grounded, I'll just sneak in and take my phone and watch anyway... at 11 pm ... at night... when I should be asleep..." drives me nuts, but at least I get it. My 'demons' are just as bad. Daddy, on the other hand, does Not get it. It's kind of a constant struggle trying to figure out how to get little man to follow the rules and keep his papa from making things worse by trying to discipline him like he's an NT kiddo.

And now I'm 33, just lost my job, hubby's health is finally on the upswing, and I'm suddenly going crazy wanting another kid? And he wants another kid too, but I have no idea if we can make this work. I know so much more now, I know I can ask for help, and I know the kind of help I'll need, but, how can we afford another kid? I don't know if I can honestly hold a job. I did finally graduate in March, and I love the kind of work I'm educated to do. Problem is that I'm not well enough trained and with my ADHD... I struggle to learn things independently without a road map, and programming doesn't really have a road map. It's more like a loose collection of landmarks that may, or may mot have half scribbled notes warning of a pitfal or tip about a shortcut or safe path. And when the notes pay off, I'm golden, but when they don't, I get frustrated and stressed and I ask for help, and apparently this is why I lost my awesome job that I loved.

Anyway, I decided this is just going to be an amalgamation of all the peices of me. ADHD, IBS, programmer, woman, gamer, part time wannabe activist (when I don't get overwhelmed to the point of feeling suicidal, which seems to be my default reaction to failure, stress, and spilling milk, which I do much, much too often to understand how my ancestors survived to reproduce), mother, wife, wannabe lifelong student (no really, can I just go back to school so I can get a masters so maybe when I'm 40 someone will decide I'm worth hiring???).

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