I did a podcast this week...

I did an interview for the podcast Motherland Australia this week, and it has inspired me to write an update here (thank you Steph!). Hopefully, I will get some momentum and keep writing more regularly, but as you will hopefully understand by the end of this, I’m very much just taking things as they come at the moment.

It’s been a big few years for Tim and I. The last three in particular have been really tough on us; since having two small kids and covid hitting together, all my coping strategies fell apart and I was barely functioning. Tim was having to really keep the whole family together, as well as running the farm and the business. And not just running the farm and business, but excelling at both- he is currently Landcare's Tasmanian farmer of the year and was recently flown to Sydney for the National awards dinner. We regularly host field days for other farms, we had a class of students here last week from a local high school. He has become one of the top pasture cropping minds in Tasmania, by quietly going about his business, learning and practicing, trying to do what he can to make our farm as environmentally sustainable as possible, while making sure to have something well established for our children.   

Tim had married this fierce, motivated, energetic go-getter and she had just completely disappeared. I didn’t like the version of me I was. I was in survival mode. I preach put on your oxygen mask before helping others but not only was I not putting mine on, I had lost it all together. When I say I was in survival mode, I mean my self-care was at an all-time low. I was managing to still feed everyone, pick up Will from school etc, but I couldn’t see the mess in the house around me because I just couldn’t deal with it. And outside just didn’t exist. If it wasn’t for the cleaner I got funded by the NDIS, I don’t know what sort of state my house would have been in. I was barely showering, as in maybe once a week, it was just too hard. I think the only reason I was really functioning at all was because I had the kids to look after. It was this weird juxtaposition where I was so damn bored from the monotony of the everyday mundane crap of being a stay-at-home mum, yet it was my kids that kept me from losing it completely, the fact they needed me to look after them kept me getting out of bed and moving on. I was escaping into my phone every second I could, into fantasy novels became the place I went to get away from the nothingness that was just the same every day. My brain needs stimulation, and it just wasn’t getting it. I literally forgot I had friends. I had contact with about three people outside of my family. I had started on antidepressants, and they had helped a bit, but they didn’t really seem to be doing what I had hoped. I couldn’t pull myself out of it this time. I have been in this space before. I used to call it ‘being in a rut’ before I realised it was actually depression. I’d always been able to get myself out, usually in 2 weeks to 2 months. But this have been going on for 2 years now really. It wasn’t getting any better. I’d also developed migraines in this point, bad enough that I’m still on preventatives for them. I was never in danger of self-harm in any way, I was just completely numb. A constant, exhausted state of nothingness.

Around the middle of last year, Em Rusciano (comedic genius, podcaster, writer), a woman I have resonated with greatly since I began following her work, was diagnosed with ADHD. As she shared her ‘journey’, her symptoms, the effect it had or her life, it became too much of a coincidence. It wasn’t so much a subtle hint as a flashing neon sign with sirens blaring. I started to do some research. After one particularly jarring article, I emailed my mum and asked her if she had ever considered that maybe she or I might have ADHD. (This article had particularly screamed ‘MUM!!!’ at me). Her reply? ‘Why would I have ADHD? I just have all the symptoms’. It was then I knew I wasn’t just reading into things, that I would have her support in this. Together, we talked a lot over the next few months. I am lucky enough that the physiologist I have been seeing over the past 4 years is also a woman with an adult ADHD diagnosis. She has been an invaluable resource when it has come to helping me through this minefield. She helped me find the right psychiatrist and by the middle of this year, I had my diagnosis, ADHD inattentive.

All of a sudden, so much about my life makes sense. We had been looking back over my life, at where my depression started- all these early episodes were linked to events that are highly problematic for girls with inattentive ADHD; starting mainstream schooling, hitting puberty and going through puberty. My issues around homework (unsupervised work), relationships (all in for about 18 months then essentially bored over-night- those poor guys I dated!), adrenaline seeking behaviour (Rodeos, horse racing, driving everything to the limit), poor time management, high sex drive and so, so much more.  

It's a funny thing getting an ADHD diagnosis. For those of us who get the diagnosis, it can be EVERYTHING. It’s all we want to talk about. So much makes sense. It’s like rediscovering yourself. I was doing an interview recently for Paraquad Tas and during the conversation we were talking about how not everyone with a disability is comfortable divulging personal medical information with strangers on the street, who seem to think they are entitled to just ask whatever questions they wish, yet I’m always comfortable to educate so long as the person is polite to me. And lightbulb moment! Ah, that is my ADHD! ADHD often causes us to overshare and over-explain things! There you go, I told you, I just worked that out, you can have that exclusive!

It’s not really like that for our families though, well not the neurotypical members anyway. It turns out they can get bored of it pretty quick. To them it feels like we are making excuses. To us, we are making sense. We are relearning how we work. So much of what we thought we knew about ourselves has been wrong. And if, like me, a diagnosis has come about because of a crisis (like you’ve lost control of your life and you’re no longer functioning), well you need to learn how to put that back together, while learning how to use a new management system, new coping strategies, healthier patterns.  

When I started medication, I came back to life. It was like coming out of a boggy swamp, covered in pea soup for, out into dry land and clear blue skies. I remembered I had friends and I wanted to talk to them! I’m not exaggerating when I say medication for ADHD saved my marriage and me. Tim says he wasn’t going anywhere, but I don’t know how long he could have lasted before he was completely burnt out too. When we say in sickness or in health, I mean, this isn’t exactly what we expect by the sickness bit is it? 

I was so lucky to have had my psychologist on board; she had prepared me for the ups and downs going ahead, warned me to be aware of burn out, to really just try to focus on sleep, hydration and eating regularly and well for the first few months. And without that, I think I would have found it a really rough transition. I’ve still had quite a few slip ups as it is. My phone has been a huge issue still. Due to my improved ability to focus on medication, my phone addiction actually got a lot worse before it got better. For a while there I was sitting up reading until all hours of the morning. An alarm clock beside my bed and the phone staying in the kitchen overnight has fixed that. For the most part. I still slip up occasional and stay up by the fire reading later than I mean to, but on the whole, I’m doing ok.  

And my poor husband. I have always resisted the ‘hero for marrying me’ trope, because I hate how people see any guy who is with a woman with any kind of physical imperfection (i.e. a wheelchair) as oh so wonderful! But he has just about earnt it these past few years, I think. Not because of my physical disability, or because of my ADHD, but because it has been a hell of a shit storm riding all this out together! And of course, I had no idea while I was during said shit storm, just how bad I was (wait a sec, I think I was the shit storm in this analogy…) He was trying to tell me how much he was doing, struggling, how little I was doing, and I would just get defensive (because I felt guilty for how little I was achieving, because I felt I had no purpose or direction) and I was not capable of listening to him. I also hate him describing himself as my carer. It makes me feel useless, it takes away my independence. But looking back, I can see why he has felt like my carer over that time.

(In all of this, I mean no disrespect to mothers and fathers who do love and find satisfaction in their time as stay at home parents. I love being able to spend time at home with my kids, I just need something more. It is not enough stimulation for my brain. I need people, but I have a body that I must be careful not to over-do it with.)

Tim really has held this family together these past few years. It’s only been these past few months since my diagnosis and I started on medication that I’ve even begun to return to my usual self, to even be able to engage in proper 2-way conversations again, to form opinions of my own on things around the farm for example. I’ve also learnt I need extra time to process things in conversation, partially because I think in picture and not everyone does that! My mind pictures moving the cows from paddock A to B much more literally and step by step, than Tim’s does. He also has to draw me a lot of pictures. So, our communication is getting a lot better, even if it does have a long way to go and I can’t really process anything once my meds wear off at about 8pm.

I’ve come across this diagnosis at a time that I’m grateful for it. It would have been nice not to have had to suffer (and torture my family) for so long the past few years, but as ADHD is highly hereditary, it does mean that I know early enough to be aware to keep an eye on the boys and any symptoms they may have. Regardless of whether they were to be medicated, if they did have ADHD, an early diagnosis would provide them additional help at school, it provides us all with a better understanding of how their brains work, so we can help teach them appropriate ways to work with their brains. So, I’m grateful for the heads up there.

I still have a long way to go in my recovery. My poor husband has put everything on hold for us these past few years. I really hope I can get a bit of that fierce, go-getter he married back. I’m not sure which of us misses her more some days. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be the full-on farm wife he hopes for, but I know the better I get, the more I have to give and get out there. I do love the farm and I can’t imagine ever living anywhere else (in fact we’ve agreed if we ever do split up, I keep the house and he’s building an off-grid cottage out the back)! So hopefully it won’t be too long before he is off taking the boys camping and going fishing with his mates and taking time for himself, without having to worry about his wife breaking the wood fire door. Oh wait, I did that last week! But I also got it fixed, all by myself. Ha!

National Landcare Awards (photo: Frank Exon)