See, the thing is, we try and strike while the iron hot. Nowadays writing is a negotiation of energy. Or, rather, a negotiation of my body and its relationship to energy. In this post long-covid reality of mine, I’m grateful for any wins I can take. In the last 4 years, I’ve learned how to be thankful for anything my body does. I been alive so long that I forgot every breath is a miracle, every keystroke a blessing.
On good days, when these prescription ‘phetamines are hitting, I can take a shower. I can make a to-do list and do a fairly decent job of completing it. This is a blessing. There were entire months where time seemed to swallow me whole, where I felt trapped at the edge of an event horizon, watching time and space dilate around me, being powerless to do anything about it. Deep stasis, I call it. No thoughts live there.
Nowadays, I’m grateful if these meds overcome my adhd even a few times a week. I’m more mindful of my baseline energy, realize that these pills are false energy, and I try to prioritize rest on my off days. Most days are off days. Where was I going with this piece? I’m not sure. I had a shower thought, urgent, thought about my self image. This beard is outta control. Self care is one of the primary things disrupted by the adhd. I justify the mange on my face by remember that Michael B Jordan red carpet picture. His facial hair mad disheveled. No clean, sharp lines we expect from a superstar like him. He said something about taking back the power to look natural, without always needing to be on. I said all power to the people, my brother.
It’s a weird thing to know that your ability to function is directly tied to this pill, and that this pill also takes more than it gives. Ask me about my off days. Slow, headache, foggy. A cappuccino gets me going. Ask me about the crashed when I do take the meds. Or how hard I have to convince myself to Pop Pilly on Monday mornings. Look, this is a negotiation, not a truce.
The majority of my life has been spent unmedicated. It’s a blessing I got these diagnoses. I also often wish that I was EITHER autistic or ADHD, not both. But God don’t take requests like a dj. We make the most out of the one life we are given and we try to be grateful for it.
It’s hard to find gratitude for my circumstance when I think of the brief period of my life that adhd meds turned me into a different (more capable, happier) person. Perhaps that was all a lie. Perhaps I confused the amphetamine high for adhd being in check. Perhaps the extended years long crash I’ve had since the meds stopped “working working” is due to withdrawal as much as it is a result of long covid. Perhaps we’ll never know, and perhaps I’ll never be “back” as I keep expecting to be. Perhaps that’s unfair.
No one said life was unfair. All I know is that them shits is flowing in my bloodstream currently. I know that my body can now tolerate small doses of meds a few times a week. And yes, it comes with a lotta bullshit, and I do be tired af on off days. But I also know that this is a blessing. There were weeks where I tried to force the meds to work – take them every day no matter how shitty they made me feel. Like trying to kickstart my body’s brain battery. But I learned from various therapists that that’s not how our body works, especially when thinking about energy.
They said think of it like a bank. You can’t just keep withdrawing from that bitch without ever depositing, too. Eventually, you’ll go bankrupt. And that’s when you enter burnout territory. And the harder you push yourself while in burnout, the longer it will take to recover. My provider told me that the adhd med energy is a lie, especially when our body isn’t operating at full strength. That whatever energy you feel now is pushing your body past its limits, that it comes at a cost, and that you will be asked to pay that full cost on your next off day, two, three.
Once I became aware of this, I started paying attention to my baseline energy on off days. I experimented with what that looked like after two consecutive days of meds; after three days off meds; after alternating on/off days; after a full 5 days in between pill poppy. This gave me real insight to where my body was in regards to long covid recovery. It showed me I came a long way, but I still had longer to go.
Look, I’m used to life giving me the short end of the metaphor. Most of my life story has been quite tragic. I’ve learned to find hope within the bleakness (or: as Vince Staples once said, beauty in the dark, like Rembrandt). I try to be grateful even if I don’t always pray. Or if I almost never pray. Or if I only write about a desire to pray, despite my not being able to pray. I pray Allah forgives me all the same.
The important thing is that I get some good out of these meds now. As an all or nothing, autistic Somali thinker, sometimes is a very difficult concept for me to grasp. I often think about how little time I think I have left on earth. What am I now, 37, 38? Most people would say I still got a long way to go. Shit, I thought it was a wrap for me at 25. People told me then what they tell me now: you should be on an upward trajectory, why are you so pessimistic?
Bitch, because I have autistic pattern recognition and the pattern I’ve recognized from my life is one of heartbreak and misery. It’s a wonder I manage to smile. Why you think I spend all my time cracking jokes on Facebook? They say the best comedians have the most painful life stories. Well, I must be one funny bitch, lol.
Anyway, this piece of writing has strayed far from its intended purpose. That’s okay. What did Bobby Caldwell ask? What you won’t do, do for love. I’d do a lot. And learning to live with my body’s deceptive/changing patterns is an act of love. I focus more on the progress than on the grief of time lost. And I know I’m only writing this because this pill is near its peak, and that it will soon wander over the mountain, and that I’ll be slowing down again. This is the nature of ADHD. Be grateful for what you have, fucknigga, and try not to focus on what you’re going without. Plenty of people have had it worse. Do have it worse.
Shit, niggas still getting bombed in Palestine. That’s fucked up. The homie just told me yesterday that his brother was shot and killed. That’s fucked up. There are so many bad things in this world. The nature of human nature is such that we think only our problems exist. In a way, they do. We only know what it’s like to be alive in our body, to grapple with our mortality. We can try and empathize with others, but, ultimately, all we have is the world through these eyes. I’m grateful for that. And I hope you find gratitude, dear reader, regardless of the darkness surrounding it. I find that reaching for gratitude is often as powerful as finding gratitude itself.
Peace.
Damn! I loved every second of this.
Thank you for reading!