HYY - where you been, girl?
Wow, where do I begin?
The past ten months have been challenging to say the least. Its been a year of massive loss for myself, my family and my friends whom I consider family. Loss of family, loss of relationships, loss of health and stability.
I do not feel that it’s my place to share names or detailed stories of those I love, but I still believe that as a reader and a human, these cumbersome experiences can be appreciated on a macro level.
September 2022
Bomb #1: My ADHD diagnosis
After a few years of wondering, suspecting and speculating, I finally contacted my doctor to ask about the possibility that I may have undiagnosed ADHD. Her response was, “I’ve suspected this for some time.”
More articles have been popping up online about this group; women in our forties who have gone undiagnosed until now and sometimes referred to as '“the lost girls.”
The term ‘chronically overwhelmed’ is the absolute perfect description of how I have felt these past ten months.
“Somehow, over the past few years, my already-frayed cognitive controls had just … evaporated. ‘I can’t keep it up any more,’ I said wearily. ‘It’ being life… I was chronically overwhelmed.”
I feel this level of overwhelm ALL. THE. TIME.
I’ve been looking back and wondering what my life would have been like had I known this and learned to live with and accept it sooner. I wonder about lost opportunities for anything and everything - college experiences, friends who outgrew me, positive romantic experiences or even things as ridiculous as adorning my own skin with tattoos which always felt right to me but I listened to others who convinced me otherwise, certain that I would one day regret it.
What I am certain about is that I ended up in the right place.
I feel more like myself than I have in my entire life but had I known about my ADHD when I was 18, I likely would have made different choices. I would have left volatile or unhappy relationships sooner than I did, I would have taken the leap and applied to art school for undergrad, or I just would have fucking became who I was meant to be in my twenties instead of my forties.
“My diagnosis has become something of a bereavement – I’ve cycled through many stages of grief… I find myself angry and sad, mourning on behalf of my younger self.”
I’m still struggling to see ADHD in a positive light. I know that eventually I will accept and acknowledge it as a gift. I’m just not there yet.
I continue to attempt to reset my perspective and undo 40+ years of habitually trying to force myself into a “normal” neurotypical box: something I have never and will never fit.
Bomb #2: My BFF very suddenly found herself in the role of primary caretaker for her Mom, whom she lost to cancer
My BFF was contacted out of nowhere one day in September by her mother with whom she had a very complex relationship. Her mother told my BFF that she was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and that it had metastasized. Due to such irregular contact with her mom this was exceptionally disorienting.
Overnight she went from the most minimal contact with her mom to taking care of everything (both before and after her passing.)
For some perspective: my BFF’s regular, average base camp approach to the people in her life and everything she does is equivalent to most peoples’ absolute max best (the kind that happens like twice a year at most.)
But not her. That is her freakin’ baseline.
ALL DAY. EVERY DAY.
The next four months were a grueling combination of emotional and physical exhaustion while constantly re-living past experiences and trauma. It was a complete and utter wrecking ball to her life in every way imaginable.
I tried to support her and be there as much as I possibly could. I tried to imagine what that must have been like for her to get up every single morning, knowing that people were depending on (and arguably expecting) her to do it all:
All basic human needs - food, hygiene, elimination, emotional support, entertainment
Create the most comfortable home hospice environment possible
Medication management
The contact person for all things medical
Make all the appointments
Ensure that she and her Dad were understanding everything that was going on, and everything that needed to happen
Schlep between Brooklyn and Connecticut countless times (spending a fuck ton of money on car rentals), sacrificing rest and her mental health
Dress her mother post-mortem
Contact the appropriate people to vacate her mom from the home
Call family and friends to notify them
Arrange everything having to do with her mother’s ashes
Organize a night when people could come to her parents’ house to pay their respects (no services)
Probably a crap load of other things I’m either forgetting or just didn’t know about because she just made it happen
And she did this all while maintaining a full time job which as a mere thought, let alone a reality, is enough to make my head spin.
While her mother was still alive I went to visit my BFF at their home in hopes that it would be emotionally supportive. Later that day when I left and arrived at my own home it was the middle of the day. My husband was at work and the kids were at school. I immediately FaceTimed my parents and sobbed. Hard.
I sobbed because she was so heartbroken.
I sobbed because I know the details of the dynamics she had with her mom and saw just how emotionally complicated it must have been for her.
I sobbed because I knew she was doing her damndest to handle all of it, but since there was no space for her emotional experience she’d hold it in all day, every day until everyone went to sleep at night.
I sobbed harder than I had in a very long time and the worst part was that I knew that my empathy was virtually useless because it could not change a single thing.
January 2023
My BFF’s mom passed away. Each day since her mom’s passing she continues to grieve as she attempts to make sense of her past while simultaneously trying to process those four life-altering months.
March 2023
Bomb #3: I vended at Golden-Con in Chicago, IL and it solidified the fact that my company dream and creative endeavor did not succeed in its original goal, and that it is time to move forward.
Financially, it was vastly different from 2022 and very sobering in what that meant for HYY moving forward and no longer having The Golden Girls be the focus. I’m still making peace with it while simultaneously trying to embrace growth opportunities as I recalibrate my vision for this next leg of my journey as a small business owner.
Real talk: I worry that I will lose connections, followers and possibly friends that I’ve made along the way as a result of this pivot, but I think it’s really just a symptom of the more challenging issue for me: change.
May 2023
May 9
Bomb #4: One of my closest friends learned that her cancer had spread.
She is open to radiation treatment in tandem with a holistic approach, focusing on her diet and energy. She will not entertain chemotherapy as an option.
I support her decision to do as she see fits with her own body. It doesn’t matter if I don’t agree with her decision and quite frankly, having dealt with so many medical professionals who are strongly pushing chemo I don’t think she needs yet another person in her life telling her what healing path she should take.
Many Black women distrust the medical community and with good reason. I certainly won’t attempt remove the historical context, dismiss critical thinking or ask her to suspend her experience as a Black woman to make the decision about her treatment (especially when that ask is for selfish reasons.)
We’ve been through so many life transitions together; jobs, relationships, pregnancies, marriage and endless creative endeavors. I don’t want to experience more transitions without her there to hear about it.
Science continues to uncover and expand our knowledge of illness and the human body, providing new information every day so we can best prepare for or take action with as much knowledge as possible.
Alternatively, healing from serious illness by way of ridding your body of environmental toxins is not exactly unheard of. I can’t say that I have done a heck of a lot of research on it, but I do know that I’ve read other peoples’ stories: survivor stories. And if those people were able to heal themselves holistically, who’s to say it couldn’t also heal her? There is still so much to be learned about our environment and how our bodies are affected by what we do and do not absorb.
However, I then read articles with statistics and stories about the progression of this disease. I would be lying if I were to say that these articles and stories have not lead me to some dark mental places.
I want the results of her treatment choice to completely confound all the doctors and scientists, as she beats the odds and completely flips science on its head.
I want her to hear the surprise in my voice when she tells me that things are significantly improving to which she would respond by rolling her eyes at me and say, “Girl, I TOLD you this would heal me! Why were you trippin’?”
Nevertheless, I am still afraid.
May 11
Bomb #5: We received a FaceTime call where we were informed that a family member was brought to the hospital. They were alive and healing, but it will be a long road to recovery.
I can not stress enough how far more complex the situation is, but that’s as much as I feel comfortable sharing. It has been weighing heavily on our family and is very much in the forefront of our minds.
SOME “BONUS” HORSESH*T
Add to the heap some health crap - thyroid nodules that turned out to be benign, new heart issues to manage, plus the regular run-of-the-mill trying to be the best person/mom/spouse/friend - and it’s a perfect recipe for overwhelm!
And when overwhelm hits one of the first things to go is my business’ online presence. And without a presence on social media or cranking out tons of new, quality content every single day, we as small business owners are basically punished and told to go to the end of the line.
‘How much longer are we gonna circle the airport, Hillary? You wanna bring this baby in?’
The point is that this past year has been a crap ton of overwhelm largely in part because of so much processing happening in my brain. My brain decides when it has reached max capacity and right, wrong or indifferent, since September I have clearly chosen - consciously or subconsciously - to save my bandwidth for my loved ones and their experiences.
As Rose Nylund would make up put it: I feel catharticized. I’m also exhausted having put all that out there but hopefully, people won’t see my lack of presence within the social interwebs as a sign that I have resigned to anything.
Quite the contrary; I am preserving my creativity for the moment when things begin to feel a little lighter.
I’m still here. It’s just chronic overwhelm.
With heaps of warmth, gratitude and gusto,
