TMS had a way of teasing out my problems. I had been blaming my daily naps on rheumatoid arthritis, but it turns out a lot of it was depression. I do still have to take naps several times a week, but it is no longer a daily obligation. I never would have guessed depression was playing such a significant role in my full body shutdowns, although looking back, it does make sense.

TMS took care of the depression. My goofiness is back. I had kind of forgotten about it? This Laura laughs and is weird and silly. (I told you I wasn’t afraid of her.) On the other hand, I’m feeling my feelings all the time now.

A few years ago, I went through a phase when I was crying all the time. That stopped and there was a long time where I wasn’t able to cry much at all. If I did, it didn’t come with any feeling of release. It was an unfinished cry, which is not satisfying.

Our family is at a place in our lives where shit has been hitting the fan. We are briefly lulled into complacency when things settle down, then shit hits the fan again with a vengeance. There are plenty of good reasons to cry.

It has been a steady stream of unexpected financial emergencies, unrelenting car trouble, mental health crises, broken bones. I spend entire days on the phone trying to get help for my kid. With cars being in the shop repeatedly, I’m the one left without transportation since I don’t have a daily commute and remaining cars are taken. I end up trapped at home for days on end, unless I want to take a Lyft (I don’t) or walk (I do, but some places are just too far away). That is the kind of year it’s been. And as I have gone on ad nauseum in two different posts, the “helpers” are not helping.

A number of things I’ve done this year have helped me find homeostasis. My prescriber added a mood stabilizer and anti-anxiety meds to my regimen, because it turns out you can’t magic yourself out of those troubles. I still get moody and anxious (meds can only fix so much), but I finally feel like I’m at the tiller. The feelings are no longer overwhelming, but I can still feel them. That balance was lacking for so long.

My meditation practice has changed a lot. I haven’t talked much about it. I assumed for people who don’t have a meditation practice, reading about someone else’s would be terribly boring. At one time, I was meditating 1-2 hours a day. Looking back, that is objectively insane, especially given my other responsibilities. It also seems to have been necessary for me to swing that pendulum all the way to one side so I could ride it back to moderation.

The beauty of the mushrooms is that I can still meditate years later. It is a gift that keeps giving. At the moment, I’m doing a little over 20 minutes most mornings. On mornings when I know it’s going to stress me out to lay still for another second, I don’t feel bad about skipping it.

I typically listen to ethereal instrumental music while meditating. I briefly tried silence, but I’m too easily distracted and super sensitive to sound, so that was a total no-go. More recently, I’ve been doing a day a week of traditional Palestinian music and making that a prayer. It is emotionally draining and I usually cry half the time, so I can’t do it every day.

I’ve taken to wearing headphones a good part of the day to turn down the volume of the household noise. The clamor is way louder than my tender soul can deal with most of the time. In the morning, I’ll briefly check in on news, an audiobook, or some music from my “Chill Out” playlist on Spotify. After that and for most of the day, the headphones are just on my head, keeping me sane while allowing me to be responsive to the kids’ needs.

Late afternoon or evening I’m back into my audiobook, or my neuro-regulation music – whatever song I’m feeling at the moment, on a loop (I listen to the same song over and over, with the fade transition so it’s like it’s all the same song, which it is…), the Jurassic Park soundtrack, or Afrobeats. My loop song right now is the Crab Rave song. You won’t regret watching the YouTube video, although once you’ve seen it, you can just listen to the song and get the same feels.

I discovered the neurodivergent and ADHD communities online and found that my “quirks” neatly fit into those categories. Identifying myself with these groups has given me permission to acknowledge things that I wasn’t fully aware of or accepting about myself (like listening to the same song over and over). I respect my routines, wear seasonal same clothes every day, and eat samefoods.

This means paying attention to my sensory issues instead of pushing past them. I’m more forgiving of myself, and more aware. It means removing myself from a situation when I need to (mentally or physically). It’s regulating in the moment when I’m overwhelmed. I’m more able to articulate what I need. I’m not making as many unnecessary apologies*, and I overexplain less.

This might be a function of my age or the growth I’ve experienced or both, but even with all the difficulties this year presented, I’m coping with life better than I have, maybe ever. That feels good. And that part I heard about being in your 40’s and not giving a shit about what people think of you? That is starting to be a thing, and I am a fan.

*This is a link to a kids’ poetry book of insincere apologies. I was intrigued by the concept, but I was thinking the kids might not get the references or be bored by it. Instead, they were super into the poems and got the humor. Whenever I read them (we did a few each day), they would always ask for one more.