2021 in review: On pause
The year is drawing to a close, and the title of this post doesn't refer to my or our intent to discontinue our yearly recap posts or anything like that; we're reporting as normal (sort of) and it's our lives that feel like this was the year that everything just kind of... stopped.
There's our former job, you see. After our parent company bought out some other company and restructured everything together, we were informed that our entire position was being cut and that as of March, we were officially laid off.
I've been pushing myself to my absolute limits to work this job, and we as a team even sometimes have pushed ourselves beyond the limits I would have had by myself. Our system has access to certain mind-over-body tricks and magic when we work as a team, you see. For example, Ardei is physically the strongest woodling, and our physical body seems stronger when he's fronting; he's able to handle strength and endurance-testing challenges such as walking a long way home while carrying armfuls of very heavy groceries and last far longer than I ever could. When the aches and pains come creeping in, Sara can numb them. I don't know how--she doesn't front for it and she just does something from her seat in the back--but somehow she just has the ability to administer psychic painkillers (something I've written about before in our astral stuff filter.)
The problem, in retrospect, is that I think our armor and our survival mechanisms might have been a little too good. It would seem that this was the year wherein we learned pain exists for a reason and just because our system has the power to no-sell things that should have flattened us sometimes, doesn't mean it's a good idea to do that regularly or excessively. It can catch up with you, it turns out! Because once the job had finally ended, once we were cut loose with no work to get back to tomorrow for the first time in so long, we just mentally, spiritually, and physically collapsed into a state from which we still have yet to recover nine months later. It was like our metaphorical tires had gone out a long time ago, but we had just gotten so good at sucking it up and driving on the rims that that's what we did. Now that we've finally come to a stop, it turns out the entire transmission is totaled. Gosh, how could that have happened?
Our mental health hasn't been great, either. I say all of this like we were being ground to dust by some brutal prison labor-style career, but it really wasn't. It wasn't even retail or food service. It was white-collar. It was a cushy office job. Our boss was largely absent and trusted this department to more or less run itself, so we were never micromanaged or given any kind of pushback from Corporate or anything like that. I brought my phone with me and we chatted online for a large portion of each day. Most able-bodied neurotypical people could have handled something like this in their sleep, and never faced work stress ever again. When I say that we struggled with having too much on our plate every day, it was never because the "too much" was that big; it was and still is because our plates look like this.
I have ADHD inattentive type, it turns out. You may recall last year's review in which I went into great lengths about how I just physically cannot do the thing, and I don't know if it's ADHD or what but I need help. Well, this was the year we finally got that diagnosed and confirmed after a lifetime of having struggled with it. I never knew the things I struggled with had a cause; I thought that was simply normal, that that was how life just was, and, you know, welcome to the club. These beliefs came from seeing people around me facing the same problems--I related very heavily to Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, and my mother always complained about the same time and deadline-related stress issues I faced. It turns out that I had fooled myself using bad examples and misleading data; there's a good argument to be made that Calvin himself could be exhibiting signs of ADHD regardless of whether that was Bill Watterson's actual intent. And as for my mother, well, guess what neurodivergency happens to be hereditary?
So that's ADHD confirmed along with the anxiety. We're still on "strongly suspect but technically not diagnosed yet" status for ASD due to the three year waiting list (!!!) for adult screening. The complete lack of ability to can manifests in sleep or sleepiness-related ways (irregular and inconsistent sleep schedule, sleeping like a zillion hours a day, being hit with this sudden wave of exhaustion when thinking about trying to get anything productive or important done, dozing off in my computer chair sometimes) could also be any number of issues from depression or chronic fatigue syndrome to sleep apnea to narcolepsy; we're still looking into those. That whole thing from last year's post about the load-bearing anxiety could still be true, too. It's not at all uncommon for people with ADHD to develop anxiety disorders as a "there was an old woman who swallowed a fly" type response to control the ADHD; the added stress about doing the thing is a coping mechanism to get them to do the thing. In our case, we treated the anxiety first because it was the far more urgent and pressing issue (panic attacks suck and getting them regularly was what caused the last time I actually had anything that could be described as suicidal ideation) but maybe that was load-bearing anxiety and the ADHD flourished in its absence like X Parasites without the Metroids, turning us into complete lumps.
Anyway, the point is, it was an easy job, really, probably, but I was de facto disabled. We're trying to make that official; I have an appointment with the Social Security Disability attorneys I hired to get our forms filled out and submitted and everything on the 11th. Fingers crossed, I guess.
In the meantime, I've become a licensed field underwriter as a work-from-home freelance kind of position because it's basically the only thing I can do at this point; it's that or get on disability. I just can't be counted on to wake up at the same time of day two days in a row, or to avoid oversleeping by some comical amount (14 hours today! Which is why I'm writing this at three in the morning! Hi, I'm a mess.) Until the ADHD is under control (and the depression/chronic fatigue/whatever else this is if the sleep stuff is something else, too,) I simply can't work any kind of "real" job involving having to clock in at a set time every day.
Field underwriting is basically a fancy word for, like, I take people who are interested in various forms of life insurance (term, universal, mortgage protection, final expense... it's good to get your young kids on some kind of permanent locked-in policy if you have any, because God knows what their rates will be by the time they're older and have any kind of health history to consider) and I go over their applications, their age and history and so on, and see what they qualify for and what products at what rates I can get them with the various carriers with which I'm contracted. We haven't had a lot of (read: any, at all) success with the venture yet, but, again, since it's that or disability, we're still trying. So, uh, anyone who's reading this, if you need insurance, or you know anyone who needs insurance, maybe we can hook you up? Just saying. *cough*
I know we've been dropping the ball on posts and stuff, too. Much like the mental health stuff, we mentioned in last year's review post that 2020 was the year Ardei and Kurt joined the system, and that there was a whole story about how we found the latter, the initial turbulence with getting those two on the same page, Northwind Palace, and just... everything, that I didn't. All I said in last year's post was "Due to reasons I still haven't gotten around to writing up yet (it's a long story, have you seen how big this post is turning out already even without it, and I have executive dysfunction,)" and as it turns out, all of those are still true! God, I had an entire year to get around to introducing Kurt to the world and I still haven't. I'm sorry, Kurt.
We still plan to do this year's Gameblogging Awards, too. We have the spreadsheet with the tentative nominees and everything (barring any last-second mind-changing) and we just need to... you know... write the posts. Which we're going to. Eventually. Mluf.
And, uh, that was our year, I guess. For this year's music, uh... it's probably because we're writing this right after Christmas, after just having watched a ton of Rankin/Bass Christmas movies, but Kurt wants to pick Put One Foot in Front of the Other because he's on a similar "recovering ex-villain" journey (yeah I know, I need to post more to explain his deal, I'm sorry) and Sara wants We Wanna Wake Up to a Big Surprise because she's a silly little cat with yellow-green eyes (yellow-green eyes) and she gets all <3 over "We love you, pretty kitty, we'd like you to stay." I see no reason not to defer to them on this one.
It is my sincere hope that at least some executive function will be restored over the coming year, so the eventual 2022 writeup won't be as full of "yeah I know I was supposed to do the thing and I didn't, sorry" as this one. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/482757.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.
There's our former job, you see. After our parent company bought out some other company and restructured everything together, we were informed that our entire position was being cut and that as of March, we were officially laid off.
I've been pushing myself to my absolute limits to work this job, and we as a team even sometimes have pushed ourselves beyond the limits I would have had by myself. Our system has access to certain mind-over-body tricks and magic when we work as a team, you see. For example, Ardei is physically the strongest woodling, and our physical body seems stronger when he's fronting; he's able to handle strength and endurance-testing challenges such as walking a long way home while carrying armfuls of very heavy groceries and last far longer than I ever could. When the aches and pains come creeping in, Sara can numb them. I don't know how--she doesn't front for it and she just does something from her seat in the back--but somehow she just has the ability to administer psychic painkillers (something I've written about before in our astral stuff filter.)
The problem, in retrospect, is that I think our armor and our survival mechanisms might have been a little too good. It would seem that this was the year wherein we learned pain exists for a reason and just because our system has the power to no-sell things that should have flattened us sometimes, doesn't mean it's a good idea to do that regularly or excessively. It can catch up with you, it turns out! Because once the job had finally ended, once we were cut loose with no work to get back to tomorrow for the first time in so long, we just mentally, spiritually, and physically collapsed into a state from which we still have yet to recover nine months later. It was like our metaphorical tires had gone out a long time ago, but we had just gotten so good at sucking it up and driving on the rims that that's what we did. Now that we've finally come to a stop, it turns out the entire transmission is totaled. Gosh, how could that have happened?
Our mental health hasn't been great, either. I say all of this like we were being ground to dust by some brutal prison labor-style career, but it really wasn't. It wasn't even retail or food service. It was white-collar. It was a cushy office job. Our boss was largely absent and trusted this department to more or less run itself, so we were never micromanaged or given any kind of pushback from Corporate or anything like that. I brought my phone with me and we chatted online for a large portion of each day. Most able-bodied neurotypical people could have handled something like this in their sleep, and never faced work stress ever again. When I say that we struggled with having too much on our plate every day, it was never because the "too much" was that big; it was and still is because our plates look like this.
I have ADHD inattentive type, it turns out. You may recall last year's review in which I went into great lengths about how I just physically cannot do the thing, and I don't know if it's ADHD or what but I need help. Well, this was the year we finally got that diagnosed and confirmed after a lifetime of having struggled with it. I never knew the things I struggled with had a cause; I thought that was simply normal, that that was how life just was, and, you know, welcome to the club. These beliefs came from seeing people around me facing the same problems--I related very heavily to Calvin from Calvin & Hobbes, and my mother always complained about the same time and deadline-related stress issues I faced. It turns out that I had fooled myself using bad examples and misleading data; there's a good argument to be made that Calvin himself could be exhibiting signs of ADHD regardless of whether that was Bill Watterson's actual intent. And as for my mother, well, guess what neurodivergency happens to be hereditary?
So that's ADHD confirmed along with the anxiety. We're still on "strongly suspect but technically not diagnosed yet" status for ASD due to the three year waiting list (!!!) for adult screening. The complete lack of ability to can manifests in sleep or sleepiness-related ways (irregular and inconsistent sleep schedule, sleeping like a zillion hours a day, being hit with this sudden wave of exhaustion when thinking about trying to get anything productive or important done, dozing off in my computer chair sometimes) could also be any number of issues from depression or chronic fatigue syndrome to sleep apnea to narcolepsy; we're still looking into those. That whole thing from last year's post about the load-bearing anxiety could still be true, too. It's not at all uncommon for people with ADHD to develop anxiety disorders as a "there was an old woman who swallowed a fly" type response to control the ADHD; the added stress about doing the thing is a coping mechanism to get them to do the thing. In our case, we treated the anxiety first because it was the far more urgent and pressing issue (panic attacks suck and getting them regularly was what caused the last time I actually had anything that could be described as suicidal ideation) but maybe that was load-bearing anxiety and the ADHD flourished in its absence like X Parasites without the Metroids, turning us into complete lumps.
Anyway, the point is, it was an easy job, really, probably, but I was de facto disabled. We're trying to make that official; I have an appointment with the Social Security Disability attorneys I hired to get our forms filled out and submitted and everything on the 11th. Fingers crossed, I guess.
In the meantime, I've become a licensed field underwriter as a work-from-home freelance kind of position because it's basically the only thing I can do at this point; it's that or get on disability. I just can't be counted on to wake up at the same time of day two days in a row, or to avoid oversleeping by some comical amount (14 hours today! Which is why I'm writing this at three in the morning! Hi, I'm a mess.) Until the ADHD is under control (and the depression/chronic fatigue/whatever else this is if the sleep stuff is something else, too,) I simply can't work any kind of "real" job involving having to clock in at a set time every day.
Field underwriting is basically a fancy word for, like, I take people who are interested in various forms of life insurance (term, universal, mortgage protection, final expense... it's good to get your young kids on some kind of permanent locked-in policy if you have any, because God knows what their rates will be by the time they're older and have any kind of health history to consider) and I go over their applications, their age and history and so on, and see what they qualify for and what products at what rates I can get them with the various carriers with which I'm contracted. We haven't had a lot of (read: any, at all) success with the venture yet, but, again, since it's that or disability, we're still trying. So, uh, anyone who's reading this, if you need insurance, or you know anyone who needs insurance, maybe we can hook you up? Just saying. *cough*
I know we've been dropping the ball on posts and stuff, too. Much like the mental health stuff, we mentioned in last year's review post that 2020 was the year Ardei and Kurt joined the system, and that there was a whole story about how we found the latter, the initial turbulence with getting those two on the same page, Northwind Palace, and just... everything, that I didn't. All I said in last year's post was "Due to reasons I still haven't gotten around to writing up yet (it's a long story, have you seen how big this post is turning out already even without it, and I have executive dysfunction,)" and as it turns out, all of those are still true! God, I had an entire year to get around to introducing Kurt to the world and I still haven't. I'm sorry, Kurt.
We still plan to do this year's Gameblogging Awards, too. We have the spreadsheet with the tentative nominees and everything (barring any last-second mind-changing) and we just need to... you know... write the posts. Which we're going to. Eventually. Mluf.
And, uh, that was our year, I guess. For this year's music, uh... it's probably because we're writing this right after Christmas, after just having watched a ton of Rankin/Bass Christmas movies, but Kurt wants to pick Put One Foot in Front of the Other because he's on a similar "recovering ex-villain" journey (yeah I know, I need to post more to explain his deal, I'm sorry) and Sara wants We Wanna Wake Up to a Big Surprise because she's a silly little cat with yellow-green eyes (yellow-green eyes) and she gets all <3 over "We love you, pretty kitty, we'd like you to stay." I see no reason not to defer to them on this one.
It is my sincere hope that at least some executive function will be restored over the coming year, so the eventual 2022 writeup won't be as full of "yeah I know I was supposed to do the thing and I didn't, sorry" as this one. This is a cross-posted entry that originated from https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/482757.html. Please leave all comments there; I am no longer actively maintaining my LiveJournal blogs.