Preface
It's been 5 years.
I've tried coming back to this blog and writing up something new a few times since the last post, but those attempts never really panned out for some reason.
These days, it feels a lot harder for me to write for myself than it used to. I'm usually either not in the mood, too tired from work, or too...
...whatever about my thoughts, which I don't hold in the same regard as I used to. I used to operate in a manner where I actually wanted to document every little thought I had, because I liked keeping track of where my thoughts went and I tend to forget a lot when I don't document things.
But since the pandemic (or arguably in the years leading up to it), I stopped valuing my thoughts as much. You may notice it in the more serious posts leading up to the last entry before this, but those posts were starting to become too heavy for me. I don't enjoy coming back to them.
I also feel like a different person today than the person who wrote them.
It feels weird re-reading my older writings. I remember the feelings I had when I wrote them at the time, but I'm also relying on memories of those feelings and not the feelings themselves, which I no longer feel so strongly. In a way, I feel very detached from the thoughts I had then, which used to mean something more to me.
And I don't know if I like that or not.
I would say I'm much happier, much lighter today than I was in the past. The scars are still there, but they're less obvious to most people who interact with me unless you know my history. And it's not something I bring up most of the time these days anyway.
But I do miss the intensity of my feelings sometimes. Which may seem like an odd thing to say, but if you know... you know. (just kidding)
All I mean to say is though, the depths of my pains were also some of the moments where I felt the most alive in the past. These days, I'm still alive, but I also feel more muted in comparison. It's ultimately better for me in the long run, more sustainable, but what it means to feel "alive" is different to me now, I guess.
So with that said, let me try to recap a bit.
The Past Few Years
The process of trying to figure out my career, sexuality, faith, politics, and relationship with my family and friends led to me having a mental breakdown when I was 27 and a multi-year long battle with depression that I believe only really ended with the eventual return from the pandemic.
I believe my breakdown fundamentally stemmed from me feeling unable to live up to the values instilled in me by my upbringing, which were in conflict with the values I had developed from my own life experiences. I felt like I was trying to please everyone when everyone was giving me conflicting advice, and I could not handle the knowledge that I was going to fail people in my life.
Two years after the fact, I had another quake in my life that I am not inclined to describe in more detail here, except to say that it fundamentally changed how I see relationships (whether I wanted it to or not). I still enjoy the presence of other people, but I also tend to see myself as equidistant in some way to everyone, even the people I am close to.
About a year ago, as I was finally coming out of my nearly decade-long depressive slump, I decided to change therapists, in part because of an off-hand comment that was made one time suggesting that I might be on the spectrum (to my friend replied, "you've been seeing him for 8 years and he's only telling you this now??")
So I switched to my friend's therapist on his recommendation. Within the first session I was recommended to see a psychiatrist, which after two inconclusive sessions led to a $10K assessment at a Neuropsychology clinic where I finally got diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD... + Other. Other in this case meaning having unspecified subthreshold symptoms of autism without actually having autism. One of those symptoms being the fact that I like to spent inordinate hours of my day writing to-do lists without actually doing them.
Apparently from assessments, I'm relatively high in intelligence, which means I'm also good at masking my symptoms, which is why this slipped under the radar until I turned 35. But high stress at my job was really starting to expose cracks that bled into my personal life.
As my current therapist puts it, I didn't really have the support system to address my needs as a neurodivergent (ADHD+) person for decades. I've bled into more of a caretaker role with my family (which is half-disabled) over the years, and a lot of the underlying things I struggle with in my day-to-day were often treated as personal failings (i.e. "Ryan is careless") with both family + peers, which led me to internalize a lot of shame as an adult.
I spent more than 17 years of my adult life not feeling like an adult, and also feeling incapable of learning how to become more like one. I had this life-long feeling that something was fundamentally wrong with me, and wondering why I struggled with issues that other people in my life seemed to have no problem with.
I feel like everyday chores and adult skills do not come naturally to me at all, and that I do not have the physical intuition to figure things out for myself without someone else showing me how first (and even when they do show me, if it requires lots of intermediate steps, I forget very easily unless I turn it into muscle memory). I often tell people that you should assume I will break something if it is a physical object that requires being careful when handling. I am accustomed to seeing other people maneuver around me to accommodate certain things like me not paying attention to my surroundings, and while I am not totally oblivious to what they are doing, I have a kind of learned helplessness about it.
From all outer appearances though, I'm actually doing quite well for myself (at least financially and career-wise)... so why am I so bothered by the littlest of things like how to measure how many cups of hot chocolate it takes to make for a party when the container is listed in fluid ounces, and now I'm beating myself up over not being able to do basic complex mental math with unit conversion because my short term memory is shit handicapped by my ADHD impairing my attention?
(I also spent a half hour trying to reattach a cap to a shampoo bottle which resulted in me breaking the cap and substituting it with a completely mismatched bottle cap that stares back at me hauntingly everyday.)
So anyway, after all of the above happened, I went back to my psychiatrist and decided I didn't want to do drugs for now (would have worn off as soon as I stopped taking them), and instead opted for this much more expensive option called neurofeedback, which entails my sitting in front of a laptop watching Netflix while wearing a cap wired to an amplifier that sends EEG signals from my brain to the computer and makes the screen go brighter/dimmer depending on what signals the treatment program is looking to amplify/discourage. It operates under the idea that my ADHD is leading to neurotypical neural pathways in my brain not functioning the way they should (some combination of too fast and too slow), and is trying to course correct them over time.
It sounds like a lot of hokey to be honest (I honestly was skeptical), but I think studies have shown that Inattentive ADHD is one of the areas where this has the most efficacy, and I am starting to see some apparent improvements in my day-to-day, so fingers crossed this actually helps in the long run. My therapist has also noted more recently that I'm not struggling with executive dysfunction lately in ways that I did originally when we started talking.
So I have some hope that things will get better. Just a bit of a lament at how long it took me to get here.
Current
On a much less serious note, I'm trying to prepare for several back-to-back trips happening this coming week (Yosemite-London-Amsterdam-NYC) and instead of preparing for those trips directly (aka packing), I've been agonizing over which Broadway show I'm going to give up seeing on this trip due to lack of time and writing this post.
The shows I'm seeing are the main highlight for me; I'm trying to cram 13 over this trip lol.
What I'm most excited for:
for next time (likely September+ at the current rate...)
- I wound up giving up on Operation Mincemeat this trip, but will likely return sooner than later this year because I already spoiled myself on Dear Bill and need to see it live (edit: wound up seeing Mincemeat instead of Gypsy)
- the new immersive Phantom-themed Masquerade
- Heathers coming back to NYC
- maybe Little Shop of Horrors finally
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