It’s 6 AM, and I wake up as I have every day for the past two months. I look at my phone for a few minutes before rolling out of bed towards my bedroom desk where I keep my meds and a small whiteboard. I pop some pills, glance at the whiteboard – mostly containing tasks from the previous day which might need addressing – and head to the upstairs of my parent’s place. I am greeted by the boys, two dogs (black and white), still puppies, and very excitable. I’m excited too so we share that moment together and jump around a bit. My mother walks by on her way out for a morning cigarette, and we greet each other kindly. It’s Tuesday, and that means the artist run work week has started and there is much to be done. For now, I go to the kitchen, grab a spoonful of PB and a cup of coffee for my morning ritual. The dogs stare at me because it’s what they do, and I dole out a bit of the good stuff for them by fingertip. We have done this for weeks now, and it’s become a bit of a bonding thing. I’ve never had rituals like this before, and I welcome it. Each morning, somewhat similar to the last, has become entirely pleasant.
I am 30, soon to turn 31. I have been at my parents place for about 6 months now after living with roommates and partners in Calgary since roughly 2016. I have bounced back and forth between widely different and unstable living situations for the better part of a decade, an experience that saw a compulsive cycle develop: I would enter a new living situation, I would attempt to implement all the things I knew I wanted to do, and I would slowly be drained trying to juggle everything. A job, friends, family, addiction, leisure, and love. My apartments were dirty. Relationships were often tense. I had to go home a couple of times in that period, but it was never for very long. It was always just long enough to recover from some previous disaster right up until I found some way to get back out. I never really let myself feel at home, or get to know my family.
Being here, in the family home, used to stress me out entirely. I was ashamed and angry and every other thing too. I remember most of my interactions with family being impacted by some flaw I perceived in myself, or consternation at the ways I would lash out. I was volatile, and even I didn't even want me around. It went on like that for years, even as I tried to escape the gravity of living with the condition I didn’t know I had. It was miserable, perpetual, and I was slowly eroded. Being home felt like a sandblaster.
Now, I keep the kitchen clean in the home, and look after pets. I search for jobs in my field of study and complete side gigs in writing and illustration here and there to make sure I can afford my meds. My parents offer help readily, just happy to see me making some steady progress instead of the sheer wildfire of impulse they were used to seeing. Sometimes they thank me for simple things like when I do the dishes, or vacuum things without them asking. This has become the weirdest part for me because I actually like doing these things and I don’t really need a thank-you. I’m good. It’s not a big deal anymore.
Nonetheless, the change of pace is wonderful for everyone involved. It doesn’t miss me, though, the fact that this still catches the people who’ve known me longest by surprise. Not necessarily out of spite, I catch myself thinking “if you had done something about this sooner, maybe you wouldn’t feel that way.” It’s fine, but it’s also simply not. I was just a kid when the expectations began to crush me, after all.
Maybe it’s the trans-POV, reflecting on the second puberty aspect of maturing into a truer form, but at times it feels like my post-medicated life is something like a second childhood. Contrasted with my previous experience of desperately trying to make things work without the stimulants and with the constant fear of homelessness and resentment by my loved ones, being at home is a place where I am learning how to do simple things. I clear my cups most every day from my room at an appointed time. I have developed a calendar with dates on it. I have manifested a kink for dry erase whiteboard organizing that has become so entrenched in my day-to-day that they feel like extensions of my brain meat. I tutor a kid in English after developing lesson plans a few days ahead of time. I listen appropriately when others speak to me. The onset of a transformation comes slowly, right up until it’s there.
These changes in behaviour didn’t just occur, unlike the rampant cleanliness that characterized my early months under chemical aid. Those skills are examples of the ones that I had practiced and honed to combat my scattered nature, and their sudden efficacy was more like that time when Rock Lee dropped his weights: I was simply too fettered to be who I really was. These other things are very, very new, and deliberately cultivated. As I raise myself, I have a few parental appraisals: I am a good kid, an ardent pupil, and entirely weird.
The whiplash, though. It’s hard to explain what it’s like to finally be there for yourself, but I would like to give it a shot. I talk to myself, many times a day both externally and internally. Or at least I think it’s “me” if I were the one who gets to make all the decisions. One of the things I’ve learned though, from the “ADHD to Relative Function” pipeline experience, is that I have been terribly fragmented. There has been nothing to do about this except roll with it. The anxious attachment, the anger, and the parts that just want to sit all compete, and are easily distinguishable to me. I show up now as a mediator and caretaker, finally. In this safety I have room to write, be angry, experience losses that are well overdue.
“Where were you?” I wonder. This thing (me) walks around inside and I recognize it but can barely claim it as real. What is the relationship between this whole, accountable person I am now, and the scattered debris which represents the rest of me? Did that person walk in here and see this mess and simply start care-taking or did they sit and talk to each scattered remainder before taking charge? Probably both things, and more things in between. I can hardly accept that change sometimes, and the safety of it all is outrageous. What is being built here, and will it last? I can gnash teeth about it, and sometimes I do. I teach myself new things every day, about life and grief. How do you sit with a child and teach them about different kinds of sorrow and upset? What if you are that very child? I think we sit and talk and point it out and make it known, and so I suppose I do and will continue to do so for myself, perhaps forever. I have many years to make up for.
A short addendum: I managed to find employment down south, and so I think that this early chapter of my new life is coming to a close. This time, it feels like it’s paced appropriately, and there was never any rush. I’ll walk out this door to something new and this time it feels like it can last.