I’ve had a tough few weeks.
Lots of stress, a to-do list so big that I covered a giant white board in a desperate urge to empty my head of it all, with items ranging from “paint the bannisters” to “GET A NEW ACCOUNTANT ASAP”. No pressure.
I am busy, work is starting to trickle in in freelance-whatever-I-am Land, which is wonderful (and much needed), and I’m now starting to work out what the hell I do with my life when I finally qualify as a GP in February. As much as I’d like to freelance, write, and live off the land, I have a mortgage to pay and cats to feed, and neither my gardening skills nor my speaking gigs are anywhere near consistent enough yet.
I’m normally pretty adept at getting my head around a big ol’ liost - after all, with my ADHD, I’m literally designed for a portfolio career (oo, look, a new shiny thing to do over there!), but this week has been different. I’ve tried resting, a v quiet weekend, I even took Friday off after a nasty injury left me unable to work that day (an injury caused by my paying even less attention than normal and picking up a red-hot skillet handle without and oven glove on - which I came within a hair’s breadth of repeating the following day).
I’ve been waking up through the night, fixating on a potentially challenging conversation I had to have come Monday, which inevitably turned out to be 30 secs of “oh yeah that’s totally fine”.
Now there are a few explanations for this;
I’m genuinely stressed out of my tree, and struggling with the concept of having full life and work autonomy for the first time ever come Feb.
I experienced some truly ridiculous homophobic abuse on an instagram reel over the weekend, requiring a LOT of blocking and reporting (and I can confirm, Insta’s reporting systems are TERRIBLE).
Yesterday was the anniversary of my Dad' having a massive cancer surgery that didn’t go to plan and that left us being told he was unlikely to survive the next year (well, he did, so well done DaddyB).
I’d normally write off pretty much all of those, especially the last one, except brains really do do this. The subconscious has what’s known as the ‘Anniversary Effect’, a trauma response which can lead to sleeplessness, increased stress, and irritability. The events of last year kicked off a period of really poor mental health and burnout for me, requiring a lot of time off work, and ongoing therapy. I’m acutely aware that it’s not *just* my Dad getting a terminal diagnosis - it’s that that diagnosis was the final box on top of a teetering pile of traumatic experiences, which finally overbalanced the tower, sending it crashing down upon me and my poor, unwitting psyche. In previous years, I’ve found myself struggling to sleep around the anniversary of the deaths of my brothers, despite not consciously making the connection that was indeed the date.
I’m really hoping that it starts to settle soon, as I could really do with a good night’s kip. If nothing else, I’m headed to see my parents this weekend for their 40th Wedding Anniversary, so I’ll hopefully sleep soundly there, even if my morning wake up call is liable to involve phrases like “wasting the day” and “get moving”… ah, family.
I’d love to know if the Anniversary Effect is something others experience - sometimes it’s just nice to know your brain isn’t the only chaotic one out there, you know?
Description: a v adorable 2 year old Hannah, in white tights and a tartan dress with blonde curls (I used this in a talk last week, and couldn’t resist sharing my cuteness once again)
Currently reading: See Me Rolling by Lottie Jackson
Currently crafting: a rag wreath - harder than you’d think with one fully functioning hand.
Currently sleeping: terribly, thanks for asking.
Although in slightly different contexts I can relate to pretty much everything in this post - unsurprisingly I have an ADHD brain too! I'm also working on building a freelance design/portfolio career and finding it all kinds of challenging (but helped by chronic illness taking away my option to hold down a "normal" job anymore, so at least that keeps me focused on figuring it out because making it work somewhat sustainably financially would come in very handy!!!)
And yes to the anniversary effect - it sucks! We suddenly & unexpectedly lost my 22 year old niece, Bethany, four years ago, which was followed by an incredibly shitty experience with the coroners & inquest lasting nine months that I led on for our family (and that unhelpfully coincided with the fallout of workplace trauma & the start of my chronic illness too!) and basically every year it all feels a bit shit from the 7th March (my niece's birthday) through Easter (she died on Easter Sunday) and to the anniversary of her funeral on 15th May. It gets a little less intense each year, but it pretty much overshadows everything from December (knowing new year is approaching fast & we're heading towards March) until mid-May. Last year I did feel like I'd made a bit more peace with it being what it is, and finding better ways of managing it all, and so I'm hoping this coming years anniversary effects are a little less shit than the last!