Blog: I've Got That Summertime, Summertime Sadness.

Typically this is the type of blog that you would find popping up on my page during the colder months of the year & while those depressive bouts definitely feel different from the place I currently find myself in, I feel that this is no less relevant a topic to so many of you who read my writings. Summer is usually the time of year where I am in my emotional & energetic highs. I love the heat, I love that everything is green & lush & all of the best foods are in season. Also, being a water baby, summer offers the most opportunity for me to be submerged…comfortably. I don’t think all of that is not entirely true currently, as I feel what I’m experiencing has nothing to do with the season itself. I suppose to a degree that the title of this blog is a misnomer, as I don’t have seasonal depression as some do with the warmer months, but instead I find myself in a slump triggered by something else…it just happens to be taking place in the heat of summer.

I’ve written many times about my experience with ADHD & I feel like this is more in line with that side of my psyche than the seasonally depressed one. If you’re unfamiliar with ADHD a lot of us get what is referred to as “executive disfunction.” This form of “ED” (lol) is typically entirely driven by one of two things; dopamine or anxiety. I think I’m dealing with the former, but I’m going to talk about the latter first.

Often times people with executive dysfunction that stems from anxiety get that way because they have too much on their plate. They’re looking around, seeing all of the things they feel they need to get accomplished, & they flounder because their brain can’t figure out where to start. A lot of the time when you’re neurodivergent everything comes across as having equal importance so when you’re weighing one thing against the other your scales can come out flush. This is where the ED sets in & you find yourself breaking down & doing nothing instead of getting the things done that you needed to get done which then results in feelings of low self esteem, self worth, etc.

On the other side of this dysfunctional coin lives the dopamine drive, which people who are neurodivergent are often driven by. You see, we crave novelty, we crave change & constant moments of “oo, look at that!” which is often why people with ADHD are impulsive spenders. Autism typically manifests in the opposite way. Those who are autistic often crave stability, comfort, & constants in their lives.

I’m coming off of almost two to three months of dopamine switch backs. I worked on a single, was writing for other people, did PR & asset work for said single, helped a friend move, worked on an acoustic version of said single, started & finished another single, shot assets for it, went to Colorado, played shows, etc., etc., etc. But the line of exhilaration & burn out it the edge of a knife & I think I found myself burning out which then caused me to falter & stop, as I should which then left my dopamine & novelty meter to run out which then causes me to go in search of quick dopamine fixes; food, social media, working out, etc. With those quick fixes in place my executive function sets in because the things that take longer than five seconds to an hour or so now seem not worth the energy & the cycle perpetuates itself over & over & thus, much like the anxious style, so too does the depression.

The problem is that executive dysfunction begets executive dysfunction & the depression definitely perpetuates it as all it makes me want to do is wallow. It is a battle to get up & do anything at all, truly. Even this blog has been a sloooooooog for me & my brain to get through today as the dopamine payoff is long & delayed. (Most blogs take me about an hour & a half to two.) But unfortunately, I have to re-regulate, I have to push through the slump & do the things that take time, avoiding the quick fixes as best I can in order to get back on track which is typically much easier for me to do in the summer months because there is more going on in the world & amongst my peer groups.

As with any blog regarding my struggles with depression or my ADHD symptoms, I don’t write them for your sympathies or to make excuses for myself. What I do is share all of this because I know there are those of you out there who feel the same way I do or are dealing with similar moments in your lives. Additionally some of you may be reading this to better understand the ebb & flow of mental states of someone in your life, & if that’s what has brought you here I applaud the hell out of you & your desire to engage from an empathetic stand point.

Living in a nuerotypical oriented, ‘go, go, go’ world can be incredibly difficult for some of us & often those who find themselves aligned, mentally, with the world that capitalism has built, don’t understand what it is to not have your brain fit in the box constructed around us. I write these blogs to help educate as much as I do to help those in the same boat find commonality with a stranger on the internet.

I’ll bounce out of this, I’m sure of it. I’m in a low tide moment where the sea has receded & I’m forced to bake in the sun for a while but I know the tide will shift & I will once again be rolling in the surf.

As always, much love to you all!!!

-C

Blog: Healing Doesn't Happen Overnight.

About mid-March something happened while I was diving in the Philippines. If you’re an avid reader of my blogs you may already know to what I am alluding, but if you are not, worry not, I will fill you in as we go. I sustained a small, yet meaningful injury while out in Bohol that ended up altering the course of my trip as well as the weeks & months following it & for the last two months I’ve treated said injury like it was nothing, like it was healed or a thing in the past, which for all intents & medical purposes, it is. But I came to the realization this week that I don’t think I’ve psychologically healed from it.

Back in March I perforated my left ear drum. I’m not entirely sure if it was done while diving or when I had two o-rings pop on scuba tanks right next to the ear ear in question, but I am starting to feel it was a combination of the the two with the latter being the inceptive event.

I went to a doctor in the Philippines for the injury as well as two separate otolaryngologists here in The States that assured me that the hole was there initially & that it was sealed up & in the process of being healed. I noticed the injury going forward mostly within the first month of having it. Loud noises would cause it to buzz uncomfortably, almost like the feeling of a high pitched dental drill, but without the sound, & it also kept me awake at night. My eustachian tube would crackle & pop all throughout the night, adjusting to the pressure within & without the mending drum. Other than that, I had no physical pain or wonky discomfort & by all measures of medicine, I was healing.

I came to the realization earlier this week that I hadn’t had my ears underwater since being diagnosed with the perforation in the Philippines. Yes, I take showers & cleaned my ears, but I hadn’t taken a bath or gone swimming which for someone like me who craves the water & being submersed there in, is incredibly strange. I realized that for two whole months I hadn’t stuck my head underwater, which medically is probably wise since a perforation can take a total of 3-4 months to fully heal, but psychologically I found myself getting very anxious at the sheer thought of submerging my whole being back in water which is something that has never happened for me.

The body keeps score, whether we as people want to acknowledge that we’ve been through something traumatic or not, the body knows & often times the latent affects of that take a while to make their way up through the grey matter of our subconscious into the forefront of our thinking, conscious brain. For some of us that never happens & we end up living out lives unaware of the trauma that we are storing in certain parts of our body & the physical manifestations therefrom. The more I thought & thought about submersion, the more anxious it made me, & the more angry I found myself getting that I would be anxious over something I thought so trivial & stupid. I’ve been swimming as long as I can remember, bodies of water, especially oceans, are my calming, safe place, my retreat when I need to stop feeling like I’m drying out. To an extent that all felt kind of ripped away from me even though I knew there were ways of going forward in life had the perforation continued to exist. It didn’t take me long to decide that I needed to reclaim my strength & fortitude & try dealing with my trauma head on so that hopefully, it too will start to heal.

I guess the powers that be kind of forced my hand too as Evan & I had to have birds removed from our walls & the only way the retrieval crew could get to them was through the ceiling of our shower, which I have since patched with drywall & fixed. However, while our shower has been out of commission, I was forced to take baths to get clean.

I spent a relatively long time in the bath the other evening. Our tub is fairly large & allows for a person to lay down comfortably in it at least majority submerged, so I spent my time there preparing for the inevitability of having to dunk my whole head to get clean. When the time finally came & felt myself having to overly prepare for it mentally, like stepping into a cold shower or an ice bath. Once my head was finally under I found myself having to fight to regulate my heart rate.

I did this a process a few more times, each time trying my best to calmly navigate my way through it, osculating my head back & forth to make sure to get the water in my ear. At a certain point I got comfortable enough to set with it & fortunately, by the end of it, my ear didn't end up having it feel wonky or uncomfortable.

I found my anxiety continuing even after the conclusion of my bath. I sat in bed mentally checking to see if anything felt off physically with the ear or if I felt it had been a mistake to carry out my trial, but the more time I sat & thought about it, the more anxious I became. I decided to put it out of my mind for the night & see if the morning bore any different results from those of the evening.

Morning came & went & nothing came of the fears that still lived within me. I took another bath that evening & allowed myself to go through the trials of the ear drum once again, drying it thoroughly afterwards just to be safe & using medicated drops to make sure the moisture wouldn’t become trapped & result in an infection. Still I felt uneasy about it all.

I realized I was trying to rush my healing. I wanted to force & mold something delicate & tender with sheer brute force & will power & I had to realize that, as with all things, healing takes time, especially when it comes to healing the mind. I have to give myself & my body the space & patience they need to come back together on the same page, in a place where I am able to submerge without becoming anxious or fearful that my ear drum is going to just fly back open. Just like my body didn’t physically heal over night, my mind can't & shouldn’t be expected to do the same.

I’ll be alright, I know I will. I know there will come a time down the road where I won’t thing twice about fully entering the water & that is worth waiting for & it is worth putting in the effort to heal along the way.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend or whatever point of the week this blog finds you & remember to extend a little patience & grace your own way!

As Always, Much Love,

-C

Blog: You'll Worry Yourself Sick

I think it’s no secret at this point in our society that our emotions & the things that we give “energy” to end up coming to fruition. Call it laws of attraction, quantum physics, etc, we now have fairly solid volumes of evidence to indicate that where we place our minds, especially where our health & wellness are concerned, ends up becoming our reality. I’m a very strong believer in this & so too are many people around the globe, whether they realize it or not.

I’m going to be using the term “energy” quite often in this blog. I don’t necessarily mean a physical voltage or anything of that nature, although that is also part of it to a degree. Instead I tend to mean more about your physical, mental, social, productive, & spiritual energy. The finite amount of internal processing power we have to give in the day to day or the moment to moment.

I want to circle back to something that I said in at the end of the first paragraph before we go any farther. I mentioned that a lot of people, globally, practice & believe in this philosophy, whether or not they realize it. I mean that simply in the context of prayer. Millions, or even billions, of people around the world pray daily, some more than daily. They put thought & energy towards a desired outcome, an aspiration, &/or a need. A lot of the time these come from a place of lack; Lord, keep me safe, heal my father, help me accomplish my goals, etc, etc, etc. & I think the laws of attraction would tell us this behavior only repels our desired outcome. Our prayers are not but energy put towards what we have each decided to call our own creator. I think there’s no denying that this all functions well outside of the religious or spiritual worlds as well.

So why make this the topic of today’s conversation? Why put energy towards it?

Well, it seems over the last week I’ve been running into synchronicities. This topic seems to be popping up left & right. It’s appeared in conversations I’ve had with at least three separate individuals, it’s appeared as one of the primary topics in one of the books that I’m reading, it’s been on the Tik Toks & Instagrams I’ve been receiving. Really the frequency of its occurrence has been startling!

I think it’s also worth mentioning that I’m not here advocating for toxic positivity, which is very much a real thing. I’ve just noticed that when you live believing the worst it tends to come to fruition.

So what is worry? Why do we as a species have it? The simple answer is that is was designed to keep us alive. Worry is what propelled us forwards as a social civilization, worry towards where our next meal is going to come from, whether our kids are safe, whether there’s a predator lurking in the brush that we can’t see, but I personally don’t think it serves us as much in our present society & way of living as it use to. Worry is how we kept ourselves safe & sustained but it can also very easily be debilitating.

Much like almost anything else, too much worry can be incredibly harmful. It locks us down, prevents us from taking risks, I’d even go as far to say that it prevents us from living altogether. But the worst part of worry is that it can literally cause you to worry yourself sick or even dead.

Worry is brought on by adrenaline, it’s a form of anxiety that saps your adrenals & can cause anything from chronic fatigue to anemia. When we force our body into constant survival states of fight or flight, a state we’re only supposed to be in in short bursts to keep us alive, it wears down the body pretty quickly. This, in addition to being bad for the heart, is bad for the immune system at large. There have even been studies of people who have worried themselves into organ failure, tumors, chronic sicknesses, autoimmune diseases, etc.

Again, not harping on exclusive positivity here, I think a little worry is good for you, but as the saying goes “worry is away present energy towards & unknown tomorrow.

What am I advising? How do I recommend you behave? How do you limit your worry?

I, for one, compartmentalize my worry into rational or irrational. Is what I’m afraid of a rational thought or likely to happen? If no, then I do my best to brush it off. If it continues to nag me I sit with it & try to find the reason behind its existence in my brain. Why am I worried about this? What caused me to worry about this? How can I show my body that this is not something worth worrying about?

In the context of prayer or manifestations how do we reframe our wants & navigate away from this place of lack? Always go from a place of gratitude & joy. Instead of “heal my father” think of how joyous the miraculous reparation would feel or how incredibly it would be to reach your goals! Instead of asking for safety be grateful that you have been kept safe thus far! The key to all of this is of course belief & not letting fear, doubt, worry, & suffering embed their hooks into you & literally drag you down into sickness.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I know, especially for those of you with anxiety it’s like you telling me to just be happy as someone with depression or to pay attention as someone with ADHD, but I promise, as someone who literally had shot adrenals, that there is a path forwards that leads to an easier, more worry-free future.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Persevere

Hi lovelies, how has your day been?!

I hope you’re having yourself a wonderful August in spite of the garbage can fire that seems to be the world at the moment. There’s a lot of pain & heavy feelings going around & I know that so many of you are feeling them so deeply with every fiber of who you are. In all honesty I started this blog with a completely different intent in mind, I was going to write about something that has nothing to do with any of this but as I’m sat down to write, this is what has come to the surface.

I don’t want to get into the specifics of what is happening locally, nationally, globally, etc., not because I’m afraid to steer into the politics on it (you should know me better than that by now) but because I feel this blog needs more general appeal. It needs to be able to be stumbled upon years from now & spark something in the reader outside of the timeframe of its current intent. I’m not ascribing to this some grand purpose or importance because I know it won’t be that, this is just the thoughts of a late twenty-something with a heavy heart trying to inject the smallest amount of light back into the darkness in the hopes that it ignites something brighter in you that you can pass along.

The world is a dark place but there’s so much beauty to be had in it. I know at times that can be hard to see, we’re blinded by the headlines & the disasters we’re faced with, but I’ve found that humanity thrives best not in the moments of grand retribution & triumph but in the small moments that remind us what it is to be alive. It’s in the moments of soft realization where you are reminded of the things you love & why you love them. It’s in the daily mountains we climb, each looking far different from those of our peers but still often requiring immense effort to best. Humanity is found in the perseverance of life because how else do we define life if not the will to keep going even when everything is screaming at you to give up?

I know I don’t have all the answers, I don’t claim to & there is immeasurable beauty in that, in the mystery. We are amazing, luminous beings who often do such dark things to one another with little to no regard. We pick fights, we subjugate those we deem less than, we rage war, & rip apart our planet but I believe, in the end, the light will prevail. I know it’s hard. I know it is. I know there are days when it feels hopeless, where you feel lost in all the noise, or shoved aside, placed in the background. I know that feeling sucks. I’m not here to say the night is always darkest before the dawn, I’m here to urge you to look for those incredible moments of beauty. I’m also fully aware that this may come across as “fluff” or the drippings of my bleeding heart. I mean it, I do & I believe it myself.

I know things look bleak. I know that brighter tomorrow looks a million miles away & feels like it may never come at all, persevere. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will the world or your world change over night, but brighter tomorrows are worth fighting for.

I’d be lying if I said that all of this had a clear end in mind. I just wrote what came up as it happened. These may end up just being the ramblings of the heavy hearted but I hope it ends up being more than that. I hope you get some substance out of it even if it’s the smallest of amounts. I don’t really know what to say to you other than I understand the pain that you feel, I understand the hopelessness, I understand the hurt & the abandonment you feel, I do but these are not the end all, be all. Keep pushing on & finding those moments of life that get peppered into the every day. Treat people with kindness & love unconditionally.

I love you immensely.

Happy Friday.

-C