My Fucked Up, Beautiful, Brain

I’m going to attempt to put this to paper to do two things:
1. Process these observations as a healing tactic
2. Bring awareness to how these things have impacted me.

Note: Putting this out there for the world is pretty scary, but I really wish we could normalize talking about mental health. I’m not writing this for attention so much as I hope this empowers others to have frank conversations with themselves about their mental health woes. I am also not writing this as an excuse for any behavior. While it’s true some of this is caused by chemical imbalance, it is and always was my duty to handle it. I didn’t, and as a result I am sure people have been on the receiving end of things they in no way deserved. For that I truly apologize.

I have anxiety and ADHD. I also have the insecure attachment style known as “anxious attachment”. I’m going to go down these in order and try to keep it coherent.

DISCLAIMER: These are my own personal observations. I am not a clinical health professional and make no attempt to diagnose anyone else. If you notice parallels, I would encourage you to reach out to a licensed professional. (We all need therapy)

Anxiety. When I was a kid, I would often feel uneasy. I hadn’t the slightest idea why but things that would trigger it would be stupid things. I remember my brother holding his stuffed animal out the window as we were riding in the backseat of my parents car and how it felt in my stomach and the intense and sudden worry I had. Thats probably the most simple way I can describe it. It compounded as the years went on. New triggers would pop up and suddenly it would be all I could focus on. From my job, to my health, to relationships, to pets. All consuming, all the time. One I didn’t fully understand or realize was how Covid fucked me up. I never got it, but I for sure developed social anxiety as a result of staying in my house. It increased my irritability towards others, and really overall, kind of made me a shit. It would keep me from enjoying my day to day, it would keep me locked in my house and everything suffered as a result. At one point I had been on Paxil, and for some reason it gave me panic attacks so I stopped taking it and didn’t tell the doc to put me on anything else. Recently I started taking Buspiron and it has helped quite a bit. I’ve still found myself spinning out from time to time, but it’s far more manageable these days. The social anxiety has largely disappeared though, I find myself going places and doing things I would have panicked about previously. I won’t ever be “cured” of it, but I feel like with time, help (therapy), and medication I think I will largely understand the triggers better and do better at understanding how it manifests.

ADHD. I started getting medicated for that around the 5th grade? It was Ritalin back then, I think I was on that, and then Adderall, and then something else I can’t remember till I was in High School? I’ve always dealt with it, not always well, and very much to the detriment of many things. I’m currently on Wellbutrin for it since I didn’t want to take any amphetamines because they always left me feeling Jittery and weird. Not sure the Wellbutrin works as well, but I like the idea of not taking speed to mitigate the symptoms. Speaking of symptoms, something I didn’t really figure out was that impulsivity is a symptom of ADHD and boy let me tell you how that has royally fucked me up. If you ever hear the phrase “respond, don’t react” it was created for people like me. I have a huge problem with reacting and not responding. I often listen to others not to understand but to react. There is no “fix” other than keeping your mouth closed and thinking it out before you say or do anything. It’s something I’ve had to practice every single day with just about every possible scenario to try to make it become second nature.

Anxious Attachment. Okay before I unpack this one. Let me first say, I love my parents. understanding that my attachment style was brought on via childhood trauma does not make me think less of them or love them any less. They have always done the best they could. I do think my anxious attachment style was brought on by religious indoctrination as a kid. I say this but please understand that I am a Christian. However, I think as a child I was taught to believe that my accomplishments were “blessings by God, and that all the glory should go to him” this often made me feel like it didn’t matter what I did and that it was never good enough. I understand that thinking is flawed but to a kid, it tracks. In my head, it tracks. Hence the attachment style that I do have.

Here are some key notes about Anxious Attachment:
1. Viewing yourself negatively but others in a positive light
2. Overwhelming fear of being alone or abandoned
3. Clinginess, Jealousy
4. Needing Constant Reassurance
5. Highly sensitive to others (perceived) emotional states

I didn’t even know what an “attachment style” was until a month ago, so to find out that I had an insecure one, was kind of a kick in the head. It makes sense though if I’m being honest. The bad part of it really is the “activation”, when there is a real or perceived threat, the system activates and I become consumed with normalizing things. If I can’t normalize things, then something called “protest behaviors” kick in, in which the goal is to re-establish connection or by getting their attention. When the system activates, it also creates unrealisitic thoughts and clouds my judgment completely. Again, this is not any type of excuse. My hope now is that I’ve recognized how I am, I can work to get to a secure attachment style.

Secure attachment looks like not needing the validation of others. Having a positive view of yourself AND others. A healthy balance of independence and leaning on others. Comfortable with emotional intimacy and communication.

So where do I go from here? I mean one could take all of this as a huge negative. But understand that these problems existed for years without my even recognizing them. It’s ugly and scary, and empowering at the same time. Having an understanding of why you are they way you are is the first step in taking action.

Healing isn’t a straight line. There are days that are better than others. There are setbacks, I still find myself reacting and not responding, but I get a little better at it everyday. I am working to be patient with myself and give others more grace as a result. And I feel fucking great about it.

I love you beautiful people.