Airedine and the ouroboros

From Wikipedia:

The Ouroboros (or Uroborus) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail.

[...]

The Ouroboros represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life, and infinity the eternal return, and represents the cycle of life, death and rebirth, leading to immortality, as in the phoenix.

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Hi. It's me, Airedine.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about ... my own experiences. Be warned: this may get a little rambly.

I want to start by saying that if this touches you, if you need someone to talk to. Even if what you're experiencing has nothing to do with what I've experienced, and you just need someone. Anyone. I'm here.

In the following, there may be content that will make you uncomfortable. Maybe even lose respect for me. I've done some shitty things in my life that I don't support. But I did them for a reason, and that's why we're here, isn't it? Trying to deal with these things. Feeling lost in our own skin. I've been there. I'm still there. I'm still a good person. If you'd rather not know, and I can't blame you, please don't read on.

Let's just get it out there: I've got anxiety issues, mainly stemming from, what my councillor described as "severe female-pattern adult ADHD". I also frequently suffer from bouts of depression.

Let's start with the ADHD.

When I was a child, I had male-pattern ADHD. What this means is I was hyperactive. "Attention span of a gnat" as my mother would say. Adventurous. Dangerously so. Extremely active. Very bright, but could never do the work that was needed. I was always well behaved, in my own way, though, having avoided the oppositional-defiant-disorder that often goes hand-in-hand with ADHD. ADHD, when it is let to run its course, changes through the teenage years. I am often dismissed when I say I have ADHD. "But you're so calm!" Yes. That's one of the possible outcomes of growing up with it. I'm mostly quite calm, with a great ability to focus. Sometimes. What it is, is my ability to focus on many things. By ability, I mean need to. I have dual monitors on my computer. I can't ever be working on one thing, with nothing else going on. I always eat with a movie or TV show playing. I'm always browsing plurk or facebook while working in SL. When I don't have many things going on, I get restless and anxious. Ah, anxiety. This too comes with growing up with ADHD. The depression comes from having ADHD, anxiety, and some unfortunate circumstances. I also have a very mild case of OCD when my anxiety gets bad. Books and stacks of coins out of order can make me cry.

My grade one teacher tried putting my desk in the corner, and I would create imaginary worlds out of the papers and strange looking cracks on the wall in front of me. She tried putting me on a disciplinary rubric. She tried putting me on a bribery rubric. "If you behave for a whole half hour, you can win this butterfly pencil!" (I only ever won that one butterfly pencil.) Eventually, by second term, she gave up entirely. She let me play with the puppets, and when I was too rowdy, she'd send me into the hall to do cartwheels.

I figureskated, did karate, soccer, horseback riding, track and field. I learned to play just about every instrument I could get my hands on. I was the kind of kid who got in trouble for reading too much. I never had tv, which is probably for the best because when I was younger it was very difficult for me not to pay attention to every bright, moving thing.

All in all, for me, my childhood was great. I say for me, because I've been told on many occasions that I caused a great deal of anxiety for my parents. "Oh god there's our four year old child 70 feet up in that pine tree over there," or "Jesus H. Christ, there she goes, running across the monkeybars." My mother never put me on ritalin or any other drug. Until I was well into elementary school, I was on an entirely organic diet. My mother would not have anyone dismissing my behaviour. "Well maybe you feed her too much sugar?" No. "You know red dye..." No. "And the chemicals..." NO.

My childhood gave me a wealth, a bounty that I am greatful for. An active imagination. Activities to stimulate body and mind. Creativity, words, love! A mother who fought for me. A wonderful sister, 7 years my junior, who has (though certainly aggrivating as piss at times) been like a best friend to me when I needed it most. She's brilliant and beautiful and I'm so proud of her that I'm a little jealous sometimes.

Things took a turn for the worse when I was about 16. My father left, and all my activities went with him. I spent most of my grade 11 cleaning up after him. Literally and figuratively. It was the first year I ever failed a course in school. I couldn't give a rat's ass that I failed grade 11 university-level math. I was too busy trying to get my mother out of bed in the mornings. Listening to her cry herself to sleep. Being the mother that my mum couldn't to my young sister.

I became a serial monogamist. I still am, really. I think the longest I've been single for since grade 10 is a span of about 7 months... and that wasn't 7 months without sexual activity. I dated several guys in a row before things went badly. I got cheated on and dumped for the first time, the summer between my second year of university and my first year of college. I took it hard. He cheated, dumped me and took all my friends with him. I was barely able to get out of bed in the morning. Most days I didn't. I could usually manage three, maybe four days of being out of the house for a few hours during the day before I collapsed again. Of course, at school I was charming and witty and brilliant. Fun to have at parties. Darling conversation over lunch. I had never before contemplated suicide... but I did off and on. I thought about what it might be like. What would people say? Would they miss me? All I could think about was my beautiful sister and my wonderful mother and how broken they would be if I did something like that. Despite anything else, I did also have friends. They would be devastated. I could never hurt anyone else like that, no matter what I was going through. I would suffer through it so they would never feel that pain. And I did. I suffered. I wrote angsty poetry and songs. I slept with an embarrassing number of guys.

Now, that's another interesting thing I learned from my shrink. Promiscuity is just one of the lovely things that I deal with that stems directly from what she, again, referred to as "severe female-pattern adult ADHD". Admittedly, there have been a few times where promiscuity and serial monogamy have overlapped. I won't brush it off, blaming it on my disorders. I did bad. I know I did. I love my current partner to death, you who have me on plurk know this. I haven't cheated on him, but it's still difficult sometimes. That's awful to say, isn't it? But it's true. "Why don't you just stop? Push those feelings away?" I wish I could. "Doesn't he treat you well enough?" He treats me better than anyone could ever hope for, and more. "Then why do you still want to fuck other guys sometimes?" I don't know. I don't. There's no easy answer. Trust me, I've googled. The important thing is that I don't. While the feelings may make me feel absolutely helpless in my own body, they can't be helped. My actions can. I keep busy.

The worst part for me is knowing WHY I do what I do. I've studied psychology. I'm intelligent enough to hold forth on the subject. I watch myself from the outside in, doing things, which makes it feel nearly beyond my control. If I know what I'm prone to do, why can't I just NOT DO IT? Why can't I NOT be a statistic? Why can't I break away from these 'daddy issues' and bullshit that comes with, what I cringingly call 'mental disorders'? If I KNOW what I'm doing, WHY I'm doing, why can't I just NOT? I wish I knew.

Through all this writing, I am trying my best not to disqualify myself. I read an article not long ago that described how people tend to devalue their feelings by dismissing them. "Oh, I must be PMSing" or "But I have ADHD so whatever". I am who I am. I feel what I feel. All of it... all of this is for a reason. Every experience cluminating in myself at present.

And you know what?

I'm pretty alright.

Sure I still have bad times. Really bad times. Dark days. Dark weeks. Months... I've been stuck, afraid of moving forward for almost two years, dealing with depression and anxiety. I can't tell you there's a fix. It's day by day, but what gets me through it is knowing I'm not alone. I have my friends in SL. I have my friends in RL. I have my boyfriend. I have my sister and my mother. I have people to support me that I don't even know about.

I am not alone.

YOU are not alone.

I want to be better, and though I know I will never stop having anxiety and depression, I can change the world around me to help me cope. My anxiety attacks are rare now that I'm in a stable, healthy relationship. My depression comes and goes, but it is no longer crippling. I can't concentrate for shit, but I start work sooner.

The ouroboros is the symbol of rebirth. The cycle of life. To me, it's the symbol of continuous motion. We are neither the head nor the tail, but we are both and everything in between. Every day is a new day, as they say. We evolve with every experience, moving towards tomorrow.

So love yourself, despite all your flaws. Accept what you can, do what you can to change what you can't. Know that you are not ever alone.