Finding HopeNow That I’ve Finished My Masters…
Posted on September 25, 2021
After two years of being utterly focussed on my Masters, it’s definitely weird not having something specific to work on, having no deadlines to meet, and so on. It’s strange but also a welcome relief: between working on the module of the moment and dealing with whatever the pandemic threw up, plus my health stuff, it’s been an exhausting time. While I’m excited to start working on the next project, whatever that may be, I do need a break first – to rest, recover, and recharge my body and brain – and there’ve been a handful of things I’ve been looking forward to doing for when I finally reached this point.
These are some of the things I’ve held on to when I really felt the exhaustion or my motivation dipped:
- Gentle days – I’ve spent the last couple of months at least working relentlessly on my final project; unless there was a very good reason, I probably spent at least seven hours a day working on various elements of it. I really pushed myself. Unfortunately, my prime working time seems to start around 7pm; that’s when I seem to really get on a roll and sometimes that meant I’d be working until after midnight (those were the really long days), which completely screwed up my sleep schedule. But even if I didn’t get to sleep until 4am, I’d still force myself up as early as I physically could in order to get back to work – my sleep schedule is going to need some serious overhauling. Now that I don’t need to do that, I’m looking forward to having some gentler days. I’m still happiest doing things but it will be nice to do them at a more laidback pace, for a while anyway. I might even sleep in occasionally!
- See more friends and family – I’ve been so buried in this project that I really haven’t seen many of my friends or family, not properly, for ages. I’ve started catching up with people, both over FaceTime and in real life, which has been so, so lovely but there are still too many people that I haven’t seen in far too long. So I’m looking forward to that.
- Read new books – Given that my difficulties with concentration make reading somewhat of a struggle anyway, I could barely manage the reading for my Masters, let alone anything for fun (not that I had much time for that). But I’ve got a list as long as my arm of books I want to read so I’m looking forward to getting into a couple of those. I think I’m gonna start with The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green.
- Watch new TV shows and movies – While working on this final project, especially over the last couple of months, I’ve really only watched familiar things, using them as background noise – something that, most of the time, aids my concentration. I’m now thoroughly bored with all of them and, just like with the books, I have a great list of new things I want to watch, like Black Widow and Girls5eva.
- Swim more – Obviously this isn’t an immediate goal: I’ll have to build up my swimming in accordance with how my hEDS is affecting me. But I am looking forward to doing a bit more here and there and slowly building up. While doing the Masters, I was always aware of how much energy it required, balancing that against the energy I needed to keep working at the necessary pace. So it will be nice to push myself a bit and not worry about whether I’ll need a rest day afterwards, at least until I get into whatever the next project.
- Work on a new project – I have a lot of ideas in the works but they all depend on a bunch of different factors so, as of this moment, I don’t know which one will be my main focus (because, of course, I’ll still be working on the others) but hopefully it won’t be long until I do know and can get started. I’m really terrible at not doing things; I love having a project to work on.
- Release new music – Whatever project I launch into next, I want to keep releasing music. It’s been a while since I released anything new (the acoustic EP was a different kind of release, in my head at least) and I’m dying to put more music out. The Masters was just too big and took up too much of my brain. So, now that that’s done, I’m so excited to start putting stuff out again. I have multiple ideas for bigger bodies of work but those will take time so I’m thinking of releasing a few singles while I pull that next body of work together. There are always songs that I love but that don’t really fit into the concept of an EP or album project so it will be really fun to give them a life out in the world. So, stay tuned! (That pun was accidental, I swear.)
- Finish my album – During my final project, I started writing an album that I’m really excited about. I feel really good about it but there’s still a lot of work to do if I want it to be as good as I think it could be. With the Masters imposed deadlines now out of the way, I can go back to the songs and work on each one more slowly, using everything I learned throughout the process of the project (something that the earlier songs didn’t have the advantage of). I think this album could really be something and I want to give it all the time and attention it needs to achieve that potential.
- Get back to writing on here – I’ve really missed blog writing while I’ve been working and I’ve had to actively restrain myself from writing blog posts when I should’ve been working so I’m very excited to be back and writing here. My brain is bursting with ideas and I’m struggling to figure out how to fit them all in, which, all in all, isn’t a bad problem to have.
There are also things that I’m less excited to do but they are important and I’ve been putting them off, either because they took too much time and energy away from working or because I was worried about how engaging with them would break what felt like the very fragile hold I had on my concentration, like it would be impossible to concentrate on my project again if I stopped, even for a little bit.
So things like continuing my Pain Clinic appointments, getting the prescription for my glasses updated (my current pair are at least four years out of date or whatever the phrase is – it must be doing a number on my eyesight and it’s probably not unrelated to all of my headaches), figure out what’s going on with my therapy situation, make a definitive decision about my medication, and try again to tackle my Trichotillomania. None of these will be fun or easy but hopefully they’ll all improve my life in the long run so they are worth doing.
So there’s my list. I love a good list. I find that they help me organise my thoughts – my often very restless, whirlwind thoughts. It’s been a tough few months but I’m looking forward to diving into all of these things.
Living With Unmedicated ADHD
Posted on June 12, 2021
It’s been a while since I last talked about my ADHD so I thought it was time for a little update. A lot has happened since I was diagnosed, some of which I thought might be worth sharing…
It was a lot to process that I did my BA and have been doing my MA with undiagnosed and unmanaged ADHD but the diagnosis had me looking back over the last few years and a lot of things started to make sense: why I’d excelled in certain areas and struggled desperately in others. Part of me was impressed with how I’d done, factoring in this new obstacle that I’d been unknowingly battling against, but on the other hand, it makes me sad that I’ve had to, you know? It makes me sad that I’ve had to work against my own mind all this time without anyone noticing or supporting me – in this sense, at least. Life could’ve been so much easier.
And now I have to finish my Masters unmedicated.
Because I take Phenelzine for my depression, there’s the risk of interactions with stimulant-based ADHD medication so I can’t take those; both medications have the potential to raise a person’s blood pressure and together, that could be very dangerous. However, given the extreme drowsiness I experience as a side effect of the Phenelzine, I can’t take a non-stimulant medication either due to the high chance that they’ll add to the drowsiness. It’s hard enough staying awake and (somewhat) focussed during the day. I can’t afford to make it worse, especially in this final module of my Masters, the one I’ve been looking forward to since I started the Masters. So it looked like a dead end. But I wasn’t giving up at the first hurdle so I did what I always do: I started researching.
After a bit of searching, I found a research paper about a series of studies done, combining medications when traditional routes failed to work. One of those cases detailed a man who only responded to an MAOI (which is what Phenelzine is) and a stimulant-based ADHD medication. He had to continuously monitor his blood pressure but had no problems and continued on the two medications indefinitely, which allowed him to live a normal, productive life. That seemed very promising, as a starting point for discussion at the very least, so I sent it to both my psychiatrist (who’s been managing my medication for years now) and the ADHD specialist.
My psychiatrist was willing to try, provided I was diligent about checking my blood pressure. Despite our initial ups and downs, we have a really good relationship – and we have had for a long time now – and he always takes my thoughts, opinions, and research into consideration, which I really appreciate even if he ultimately opts for a different approach. So that felt good, like a step in what felt like a positive direction.
We didn’t get a response from the ADHD specialist for weeks. To begin with it was just frustrating but as time went on, I started to swing between despair and anger. I felt like I’d just been abandoned, dropped without a word (something that’s unfortunately happened enough times that it’s become a big trigger for anxiety attacks, episodes of depression, and even autistic meltdowns, depending on the situation); sometimes it feels so upsetting that these medical professionals can just go home at the end of the day and leave all of the struggles of their patients/clients behind while we all have to keep living (and suffering) from them. I know it’s not that simple – that they don’t just stop caring, that they can’t and shouldn’t have to work ridiculous hours – but in my desperate moments, in situations like this, it feels hard to feel supported, to believe that they do care, that you’re not just another file rather than a person struggling through each hour.
After some extra complications due to communication problems, we finally heard back and she was saying a categorical no, having had previous patients respond badly to the combination. While I can understand that, I found it frustrating that she wasn’t even open to trying it. I’ve always responded unusually to medications (proven again and again by my experiences with more than fifteen medications/combinations for my depression – the only one that’s worked is one that’s rarely used) so I was frustrated by the brick wall approach she was taking. My psychiatrist was still open to trying and said he’d talked to her about transferring the medication aspect of managing my ADHD to him since he’s been treating me for so long and has a detailed understanding of my history. But she said no.
So that’s it as far as I can tell. Unless I change my antidepressant, (I have to point out again) the only one that’s helped me, I can’t take medication for my ADHD. It’s essentially come down to choosing which of the conditions to treat, my depression or my ADHD, which just makes me feel so upset and frustrated. Treating my ADHD could make a huge difference in finishing my Masters but I’m getting blocked at every turn. It’s almost worst now than before I knew about the ADHD. Before, I was struggling; now, I’m struggling and I know why but I can’t do anything about it. The whole situation makes me so angry, so angry that I couldn’t do the most recent online appointment. I wasn’t in the right headspace and I doubted my ability to be receptive when my emotions were so all over the place.
My Mum took the meeting but it hasn’t changed anything. I’m still not getting any treatment, any support. I feel like I’ve been given this great weight to carry but abandoned to carry it without help or advice. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to move forward. I feel like I’ve been let down by someone who’s job it was to help me. Again. It’s upsetting and exhausting and stressful.
I don’t say these things to encourage a mistrust of doctors or because I regret the ADHD diagnosis. I just need to be honest – for the sake of my own mental health – and while I generally try to see the positive, sometimes the situation just sucks. It’s just bad and hard and makes a mess of you.
Finding Hope 