Author: Georgia Macdonald-Danvers | Content Warning: Death, Loss, Mental Illness This piece is a personal account of my experience as a neurodivergent individual experiencing the loss of my Nana, Marlene May Betty Danvers (1944-2021). My Nana was such a kindhearted woman, she never had the chance to see what I am working on over here but I know she would be proud of the hard work and passion going into this project. I hope there is someone out here who can read this, relate, grow, and learn alongside me. Hi friends, it has been a while. Just as this journey began, I had to take a break. At first, that was hard for me to swallow, as this has been the current thing I have been hyper-fixated on. At first, I wanted to keep pushing and working, but as I account for the last few weeks of my life you will see how that did not go as planned. This story starts before ADH-She was even thought of. To be transparent, this starts before my diagnosis and that makes my timeline especially blurry. So we'll start from where I know when this website was started. At that point, my grandmother's health was declining during her fight with lung cancer accompanied by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. My Nana Marlene was a glowing woman and one of the greatest people I have known, I loved to laugh with her and the parts of her I see in myself I hold near and dear. Getting the news that someone you love is passing is never easy, but the symptoms of a neurological disorder can impact the experience. Not only was the grief already started, but the anxiety around this massive negative life change I could see ahead was setting in and only getting stronger. This led me to work and plan constantly for what I was so afraid of, my life is forever changed. I was in a constant rush cleaning, reaching out to my University just in case, anything I could to feel like nothing bad was going to happen or that I was "ready" for something that I couldn't even understand. This is what I see now (after a chat with my therapist... if you don't have one, get one) as compartmentalizing my pain, the reality of my situation was that my grasp for control was a tool to distract and it worked. There was a point and time where I would get into such a deep space of hyperfocus I would forget what was happening a few hours away. These symptoms of hyperfocus and coping are not uncommon especially in a female with ADHD. I felt a lot of guilt when I would sit down at the end of the day to realize I was not even thinking about how anyone was doing. In saying that, I had to become more aware that these feelings that were surfacing were unlike anything I have ever felt as this was my first experience having to even think about losing someone so close. That grief can weigh heavily and can make your thoughts so overwhelming. So, my mind shut them off. My subconscious changed my priorities and thoughts and I was working hard, until April 22nd. The morning was like any other, I had actually just arrived at a shift at my job. When I say the moments in and around receiving the phone call about my Nana were a catastrophe, that is an understatement. All of a sudden the medication I had just taken to help with my mood, focus, and wellbeing were deemed ineffective, my support system was at home, I couldn't even think. For anyone in this situation, all you can do is reach out and try your best. All I could think to do was call my mom. We talked until I gained some composure so I could get myself home from the shift that never even started. I think this is a part of the story I want to tell because it highlights why sometimes even hearing the voice of a loved one can change everything. The rest of that day is not something I can share, I wasn't really there. In the context of my ADHD, dissociating was not a great experience. I have found the space between all of that time to be upsetting and confusing even now that I have moved past that feeling of mental "blackout". That feeling was not incredibly familiar to me and I still am trying to understand. I guess this means we've entered the aftermath, what happened after and what I am doing now. I still feel negative feelings towards myself I am trying to combat for the time leading up to the funeral, I stayed in my ignorant bliss, pushing things aside, and continued working in isolation. Afterwards, I had (what I consider to be) the worst streak of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria I had ever faced, which was another symptom I did not expect to come out of this. I'll spare the details of the outburst, but the lesson learned was that sometimes you cannot predict or control how something will make you feel. That may not seem encouraging, but the comfort I have found is that I tried, am still trying, and not every situation is a success especially when dealing with conflict regarding mental health. I tried my hardest to be the best friend, family member, peer that I could and although a bridge was burned in the process, that may not have been the bridge that was meant to support me. For me, this wound is still so fresh, I still feel so much. Writing this piece is the first time I have sat down and thought about what happened over these last couple of weeks. Working through my ADHD symptoms and how they connect to this mourning process is still incredibly new for me as well. So I wanted to break my (almost) month-long silence by writing this. I did not know where it was going when I started typing this morning, but what I did know is I am not the only one who has had to feel this way. Being thrown into this emotional upset was not easy, but it wasn't meant to be. These hard times are the times where I feel like I want to spread knowledge even more. I want to share my hardships and pain that has lead to beautiful life lessons or at least silver linings within the darkest clouds. To those who have made it to the end of this post, thank you. I hope even if it is not in the most direct sense, you can be touched by or take a lesson from the story I shared today. Comments are closed.
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