Gifted

It's late but not so late. I've had a really unusual day and my mind is scrambling to make sense of it yet part of my mind is saying, you know, let's just go with it.

Last week I finished my psycholligcal eval and was diagnosed with ADHD and CPTSD. I also found out my IQ is 133 which is considered “very superior". One of the measurements of IQ is processing speed where I ranked in the 99th percentile. Another measurement of IQ is working memory. That was significantly lower though on average still higher than my peers. They call that a frustration profile. When your processing speed is higher than your working memory. I suppose calling how I've been feeling for 40 years frustrating is a pretty good word for it.

I was first formally diagnosed with ADHD in 2012 in the middle of a mental health crisis. I tried Adderall then for the first time. Did it focus me? Yes. Was I ready for it? No. I was in a very unsafe mental place and giving me a stimulant was a bad idea. I still had SO much to still understand about being a conscious human being. Taking those meds with no cognitive or mega cognitive support feels pointless, looking back. I always remember that diagnoses with the flippancy of my assessor, saying maybe I have it, maybe I don't. But I'm probably doing fine with the coping skills I have, he said. He didn't take it seriously so neither did I. But honestly, I don't remember much about the assessment. It wasn't anything like the 4 hour assessment I did last month.

But I knew something wasn't working right in high school. I was struggling in school. I fearfully hoped I had ADHD but didn't have the kind of supportive and open relationship with my parents at the time that I felt I could bring it up to them. Or maybe I did bring it up but even if I did, I'm pretty sure they demonstrated little resonance with my gut feeling. I did talk to a guidance counselor about it. The only time I talked to a guidance counselor, as I recall. Never even talked to one about college because I wasn't going to go. I didn't get school. I just worked my ass off to get a B+ average. I met everyone's standards but there was no way I was going to keep subjecting myself to Education. It wasn't fun or rewarding. Kids were awful. I had huge attachment anxieties and social anxieties and an ever present hellphobia. Junior high and high school were trauma.

And even before high school, I could intuit something was different about me. Even at 10 or 11, I would prefer to stay in the toddler daycare with my little sister than go to Sunday school with my peers. I didn't feel comfortable around other kids. I tended to connect better with older kids or younger kids.

But I was energetic and creative. I started making lists as soon as I had a Mac. Those first ones that landed in our homes. I made lists of things me and my friend could do because I knew I couldn't remember them on my own. Jesus.

My weak working memory has always been with me. AND… I've been (consciously and unconsciously) adapting to it ever since. And if people saw what I had to do to stay organized they'd either praise me for my abilities or they would have a visceral reaction of panic, seeing such hyper order. I've been called controlling and told that I think too much. No more. I will not make things harder on myself because your brain doesn't work like mine.

My whole life has been shame and fear. I use hyperbole a lot to make a point but this isn't one of those instances. I have been hiding from all of you the depth of my perpetual fear and shame. I've talked about it in the outside on public platforms since 2015 but I've never really MET it myself. And that I assume is due to being disspciated most of my life. I was pure mind. Aind that didn't know it was a mind. Through the years I have had to block thousands attempts by my curious mind to ponder what is thought… what is this voice in my head… who is asking this question? It's an ever present curiosity that my trauma with religion and childhood neglect blocked every time. Did I have an anxiety disorder? An eating disorder? Or were these all sideways attempts by my body to handle the anxiety of not letting myself see and ask myself these questions. Questions I've had to lock up ever since I started doubting the whole judging White man in the cloud thing.

It's godamn validating is what it is. I was right. All versions of me were right. My intuition was right. My logic was sound. But I was being gaslit (intentional and non-) by my bio fam, my religious community, and others. Despite my mind being as clever as it is, it was conditioned through shame in my developing years to absolutely distrust itself. God, they literally told us our hearts and minds were wicked things and we needed to trust in God fully. Of course I became who I became. It adds up.

2.5 years past my first experience with shrooms and some 7 years after using cannabis for the first time am I here, with significant visibility out of my mind, able to put into words that I feel confident about the experience of the last 40 years of my life. The Self understanding I have gained has been worth it, I dare say. I can feel my mind finally letting go of it's default to label me, to identify me. I am starting to find it easier to know what Being me is. About what Being is. About what it really feels like to be in that perspective where you understand the nature of the human mind. God, they make it sound like something you have to earn or achieve. Or they make it sound competitive.

I am starting to understand where “I" is in all of this. And starting back up on Adderall today really started gluing some things together. Well. Albeit awkwardly and subject to change. But I feel that kind of clarity where it hasn't reached the conscious/language part of the mind. Something is settling inside me.

And so related to this is I'm deleting social media. I'll write on here once in a while. I feel myself, for reasons of spiritual high grounds but also intuitive health, Knowing how being identified with a social media profile frames my life, how I live it, how I experience other people, and how I see myself. I took inventory. I have a solid inner circle. It doesn't need to be small inherently but it is at the moment. They're the people who reach out to me on their own to make plans… consistently. They are self motivated to connect with me. And I am the same. They text me at frequent intervals. They send me things they know I will appreciate. They know how I am doing not because they saw my post online but because we talked this week. Telling my story and exposing my wounds to my inner circle has made all the difference in contrast to the uninhibited public sharing of my soul bleeding over the last 8 years of public speaking. I may go back to an intentional public life. I know it's true that I love talking about this. I know it's true that I love exploring others' wounds with them. But right now I'm razing it to the ground. So much of my life and my behaviors are built in trauma and fear. I feel myself starting not from scratch, but from silence. Not total silence. The trauma is still there. I feel the wounds inside me. So I see myself tending to my wounds full time right now. And I anticipate that my understanding of my Self and what brings me true joy will be revealed once I can tend to these wounds.

Probably more to come. When I feel like it.