Reflections Part 2: A Discovery
If you missed part 1, go back to last Sunday. This is the story of how I was self medicating with alcohol and didn’t realize until I gave it up.
I’ll admit that as I think about it all, it’s hard to do a timeline. It all unraveled slowly, things changing, and not noticing the changes until my brain was fogged and my passion project, authoring, was taking a hit.
This week I’ll speak about how I diagnosed myself as an adult with ADHD (thank you TT). I’m Gen X and they didn’t diagnose kids, much less girls, with this at that time. It was something kids adjusted to and learned coping mechanisms.
Once I gave up alcohol, my brain raced, more than usual, and I had a hard time focusing on anything. Nothing kept my attention, not even writing the story that was swirling around my head on a loop. I just couldn’t get myself to sit long enough to put the words on paper. I was jumpy, anxious, had mood swings, and losing track of time.
The weird thing was, like I mentioned before, I didn’t see it. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was confused and a little nervous. Then I fell down the adult ADHD TikTok rabbit hole. One video led to another and then another and then my feed was full of them. Piece by piece, things began to fall into place and the puzzle became clearer.
I started to research ADHD. I read articles and blogs I found. Was medication the key? Then I read how some creatives didn’t like medication because they felt it stifled their creativity. That made me more nervous. Then I heard about CBD. I had my dad research brands and dosages (he’s a retired chemist). Since it’s a non-regulated industry, I wanted to make sure what I was taking was worth what I was paying.
It took several weeks but my brain started to slow. The process of sitting and writing started coming back. Step by step, I started working with a new normal.
You may be asking, because I know I did, “How did alcohol help the ADHD?” To be honest, I’m not sure. Most of the articles I’ve read there are negative associations between ADHD and alcohol consumption. But for me it slowed my overactive brain. It calmed my reactions. When I took away the “medicine”, my brain haywired, quite literally.
Next week… another reflection.