neurodivergent

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New to this Mighty site

I am Katness, or Kat, older adult with ADHD, Ankylosing Spondylitis and Type 2 Diabetes. I have an adult son and an amazing husband. (The kid came first, then hubby applied for the job of step-dude.) We have been a family unit for 20 years now. The #ADHD was a learning curve for my husband, but as my mother told him on our wedding day - "life with me will never be boring!" She also told him "No Returns". A sense of humor is the one thing our family has in abundance. My mom and dad, my brother and I all have ADHD. My dad and mom each have at least one sibling with ADHD or other #neurodivergent challenges. The #AnkylosingSpondylitis I inherited from my father, and it is a royal pain in the back. My back is the main location for the AS to flair up, though I once had a flair up of my intestinal tract. That was horrid. It can also decide to flair up in a person's iris, which us an urgent ER trip. So far, I have not had this happen, thankfully.
I am extremely fortunate that my husband is willing to do 90% of the household chores, and I have a steady salary job that covers all our expenses. So, that's me in a nutshell, though I have a lot of wild stories that are all true, and some even have photos to prove it. 😅
Pic of hubby and me.

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Anyone else?! 🚫🎭

"I have been many different people in this life, but my favorite is the one beneath the mask"

- ME 💜

#Unmasked #happy #authenticity #BeYourself #selfadvocacy #happyplace #FollowYourPassion #growthmindset #neurodivergent #nd #Autistic #ADHD #BFRB #TOCD #BeneathTheMask #navigatingneurodivergence

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Our society prioritizes our life achievements and goals entirely backwards; it is only after you learn what you need and how to get support for those needs can you successfully actualize your aspirations. Don’t be afraid to forge your own path.

Browse resources in the ND-Affirming Resource Drive to help navigate this part of neurodivergence and more: www.navigatingnd.org/neurodiversity-affirming-resources

#navigatingnd #resources #liveauthentic #society #needs #support #neurodiversity #neurodiverse #neurodivergent

Navigating Neurodivergence - Neurodiversity-Affirming Resources

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Just wondering…

Does anyone want to hear how having undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy after a traumatic brain injury and having new traumatic experiences since have cured my dissociative amnesia that resulted from a month long coma?

#TraumaticBrainInjury #TBI #dissociativeamnesia #spiritualawakening #ChronicIllness #TemporalLobeEpilepsy #neurodivergent

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Rembering the good and the bad #narcissisticabusesurvivor #CPTSD #PTSD #neurodivergent

Today would have been the 2 year anniversary for my Narcissistic X and I. I was was planning on proposing to her today. I was discarded in January (on my 40th birthday). I had the proposal all planned out before that. I went to the hiking trail that we loved to bike. I walked it alone for the first time since she left me. It was sad and cathartic. I played back so many memories and then rembering all the abuse just before the discard. The abuse, her rewriting our history so she is the victim in everything and the threats of false accusations are still being held over my head.
It is a day full of mixed emotions, but I know I am better without her in my life.

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Just an activist trying to save an endangered species #diariesofanempath #neurodivergent #MentalIllness #Dysautonomia #EhlersDanlosSyndrome

I wish I meant as much to people as they do to me. People say they care about me but yet no one really calls or texts to check in. I am not okay right now. If you’ve seen Encanto, I feel like pretty much the entire Madrigal family in one body and brain. Trying to be strong like Louisa by shouldering my own pain and suffering while also absorbing everyone else’s hurt and agony. Holding myself to expectations of what everyone else deems to be “perfect” like Isabella. Putting on different masks and metaphorically shape shifting like Camilo just looking for acceptance and support. Picking up on like each and every single sound like Dolores. Being a healer like the mother and trying to fix the utter brokenness of humanity with love and grace, all the while wondering why I’m so different and feeling left out like Mirabel. Except in my case I’m the only one who is gifted. Just a magical girl surrounded by brick walls like it’s been my whole entire life. And I have to break the rules and talk about Bruno and his visions, because I can totally see how this world is going to end up one day if something doesn’t change. The only one I don’t feel like is Tia Peppa because she controls the weather and I don’t feel like I’m in control of anything.
Hell, even my body is out of control, thanks to a constantly disregulated nervous system, and can’t properly do the things it was designed to naturally do.

Like sleep for example, because it’s currently five in the morning and my poor brain has been running a marathon all freaking night long. Just constant thoughts about all the ways the world is doomed because no one knows how to love anymore.

As a pure empath, well as pure as one can be these days, I am literally suffocating from all the narcissism and negativity I’m surrounded by. Especially in the place I’m supposed to call home. But it’s always been like that because I just seem to attract really broken people all around me, wherever I go. People that only want anything to do with me when it suits them. Once I stop providing the praise and glory, the narcissistic supply if you will, people forget about me. I am left beyond depleted forced to pick up the pieces of my broken heart. Which breaks into more and more pieces each time, continuously increasing its fragility. I am a member of a dying breed. An old soul that follows the golden rule to treat people the way you want to be treated. However when I treat people like they treat me, they don’t take too kindly to it. Funny how that works isn’t it? People just take and take from my bucket to fill theirs, but then get annoyed when my bucket is empty and needs refilling. They then accuse me of being needy, and vanish from my life leaving me refill my own bucket over and over again. If that isn’t a perfect example of a pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what is.

God created animals to love and whether we admit it or not, humans are in fact animals. He didn’t create a world to be dominated by hate and greed always looking for the next way to make a buck. Depleting a beautiful planet of its natural resources and commercializing them for profit. Think about the story of the Lorax. He chopped down all of the beautiful trees just to make a stupid product to make him bank, but it caused all of the wildlife to leave and forced the town to breathe recycled air.

We have over farmed our land so much we can’t even get all of our necessary vitamins and minerals from nature anymore. Oh and let’s not forget how basically all of our food we eat is either genetically modified and/or engineered unless you buy it homegrown from a farm stand. It’s all now manufactured just to ensure the government’s pocket stays full, when you look at the big picture. The shit they put in our food and medicine is seriously fucking with our natural hormone production and dulling our senses.

But honestly I’ve given up processed food before and the world is terrifyingly overstimulating without it. I ended up in a mental institution cause my body never left dorsal vagal and I always felt like I was dying cause my senses were perpetually overwhelmed.

And while I am once again eating some sugar and processed food, my nervous system is still completely overwhelmed and I can’t just ignore the stimulation now that I am aware it’s there. I’m in a constant state of hyper vigilance fight or flight but the medicines the use to treat that just turn me into a zombie and all I want to do is eat and sleep. I confided some pretty big stuff to the doctor at the mental hospital hoping to garner some compassion I’ve been so desperately needing. His immediate response was to start me on a large dose of an antipsychotic drug that made me feel like absolute shit. It got so bad I started walking with a cane regularly. I decreased my dose on my own because I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open or really get out of bed even. But I kept taking it until I got paired with a regular psychiatrist who took me off. Two to three weeks after stopping it I no longer needed a cane to keep me steady on my feet. Also it made me gain like fifty pounds in just a few months, which didn’t help with the depression. It was just not a good experience all around.

But I’ve gotten way off track, my apologies, my thoughts are completely disorganized these days. My whole point of writing this is to share with the world that while yes, evolution is a good natural thing, and we can never stop improving our situations, we has humans need to slow the fuck down and learn how to truly love again. And we need to do it quick before narcissism and greed takes over the planet and everyone ends up killing each other because the world will be full of assholes

thatbaldhippy.art.blog/2023/05/21/just-an-activist-trying-to...

Just an activist trying to save an endangered species…

I wish I meant as much to people as they do to me. People say they care about me but yet no one really calls or texts to check in. I am not okay right now. If you’ve seen Encanto, I feel like prett…
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Someone here will understand #neurodivergent #Autism

I have been craving fruit but its still crazy expensive where I live. So I got some grapes they were the best thing ever !!! Ate almost the whole bag. Only thing I want to eat so I've gotten a few bags this week - all good.
Just got a new bag and they are WRONG nothing is actually wrong with them but to me they are all wrong. The taste is different and the texture is wrong- my husband is eating the grapes, staring at me and he's trying to decifer what I think is different because to him they taste like grapes #neurodivergent #foodie #Autsim #AutisticNotWeird #AutisticAdults

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The Truth About (My) Suicide.

I am a survivor of #Suicide . I live with the guilt every. damn. day. So why tell my story now? I want to feel liberated. I want to #EndTheStigma . And I want people to know why and how and when. So that maybe they can see the signs or the #triggers for someone they love who might be struggling.

This is me. This is my story. And this is me at my most vulnerable.

First, an introduction. I’m a 36-year-old, former PR pro turned #sahm and housewife. I struggle with #Depression and extreme #Anxiety . I’m #neurodivergent , you’ll quickly come to realize just how #ADHD I really am, and I’ve recently been diagnosed with #borderlinepersonality disorder.

So that's me. Definitely not a princess and I don't wear a cape. I'm still hopeful for a happily ever after, though.

And now, some context.

It's important to understand that I've felt unlovable all of my life. Growing up in a traumatic home and seeing more hate than love had its toll on me. And being emotionally abused and neglected as a child and having it continued through my adulthood continually makes me feel unworthy of love. Despite my efforts to be the best daughter I can possibly be, I get constant reminders of my selfishness. My unhelpfulness. My failures. It's just facts. I'm in therapy, don't worry.

It wasn't until I met my husband at 19 years old that I experienced unconditional love from someone other than my brother, my grandparents (RIP), and my pets. To this day, I still don't believe it or understand it. I'm hard to love and I don't grasp how someone can love all of me - with everything that comes with me. Skeletons and all. I still don't love myself. I'm in therapy, don't worry ;-)

Ok, now for the story.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: depression, suicide, self-harm, self-hate.

It was the morning of Monday, November 18, 2019. I had suffered a weeklong streak of migraines and hadn't left our bed in almost as long. I was depressed, and I was well off meds because I couldn't keep food or water down. I was exhausted and hopeless. At the time, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, #Insomnia , and ADHD. I was in a complete state of psychosis. I had no idea and neither did my husband.

In the most loving way possible, my husband was over my sickness and depression. He'd been single parenting our 4-year-old for over a week, and he needed his wife back. We fought. About what, I can't remember. It doesn't matter but whatever it was sent me into a downward spiral I couldn't climb out of.

This is where everything gets foggy, or completely dark. My mind has blocked most if not all of the rest.

Like a zombie (or so I'm told), I got out of bed, threw on some scrubby clothes, got my son dressed and fed, and walked him over to the neighbor's house for childcare that day. I don't remember any of that part, at all. My hubby said my face was blank and my eyes were vacant.

In my brain, the wheels were already turning. This was a feeling I was intimately familiar with. My comfort blanket. How many different ways could I imagine dying this time? If only I could just disappear and not come back. It would be so easy. So simple. No one would miss me. I'm a burden to so many. They're basically living without me already.

After dropping my son off at daycare, I returned to bed. Hubby had more words with me before leaving for work. After he was gone, I googled, "How much Xanax does it take to kill yourself?" and "Can you die from too many muscle relaxers?"

Five minutes later, I swallowed my entire prescription: 30 tablets of 2mg #Xanax .

As a topper, I also poured 15 muscle relaxers down my throat, left over from my car accident in early April. Or was it from my wisdom tooth removal? So many procedures and pain meds and illicit prescriptions to choose from. I then ditched the bottles to make it harder for the EMTs to identify what I'd taken. I'd planned this meticulously in my mind for years.

I sat forward and said my goodbyes to the dogs. The longest goodbye and cries for Duke, of course. Kisses for Cooper; he couldn't understand what was happening, but Duke was completely aware. Duke jumped on the bed and put his head in my lap. I cried as I said my goodbyes out loud to my son (as if he could hear me from afar), reassuring him that his life would be full of joy and accomplishments without the burden of his overweight, depressed, mess of a mom. I'd be there in spirit, I said. Watching him succeed and rooting him on, always. I cried and wished that my husband would find new love and hope. That all his dreams and wishes would come true. That life would be good for him because he is an amazing man that deserves the world.

I drifted off.

When I awoke two days later I was hooked up to machines from my neck and both wrists. My husband was right by my side and my brother came into view.

I remember thinking, "Fuck, how the FUCK am I still here?!"

So here's what I'm told.

After hubby left for work, he ran a few errands close to home. Before getting on the freeway, however, he got a *weird feeling* in his gut and decided to backtrack home to check on me before heading into Seattle for work. Thank god he did. He saved my life and he will forever be my hero.

When my husband arrived home, he called out for me. Nothing.

He found me upstairs, unconscious and blue in the face. I was halfway fallen off the bed.

He called 911 and immediately started CPR at the operator's direction.

It was six long minutes before paramedics arrived.

They couldn't identify what I'd taken and were unsure if Narcan should be used for overdose.

My heart had stopped. I wasn't breathing.

It took nearly 8 minutes for them to get a heartbeat.

With a faint heartbeat, I was quickly transferred to the ambulance and rushed to NW Hospital in North Seattle. After life-saving measures were taken, I'm told that doctors placed me in an induced coma to allow my organs to heal and regain strength after shutting down. I was on a ventilator to support my lungs, and another machine to pump my heart. Once the doctors took me out of the coma, they slowly removed me from the heart machine as I grew stronger. The ventilator came next. I finally awoke.

What's happened next? You'll have to follow my next posts to read more.

#MentalHealthAwareness #MentalHealth #SuicidePrevention #depressionsucks

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