Some of you already know this: I've been trying to (literally) work through #AuDHD burnout for months now. It's been going as well as one might expect, which is to say Very Much Not Good, to the point of pushing me into a crisis.

The ADHD assessment I recently paid for was... let's not go there. I posted about it previously, but I've had time to think, and I'm angry. Way too angry to discuss it further right now. (User-pay Autism assessments cost way more, btw.)

So when your best option fails, what do you do?

The health care and "mental health" systems where I live are a colossal mess. Either you have money to find the right solutions or you're forced into the publicly-funded Tiny Little Box. You fit into that, or good friggin' luck.

It's quite an experience for your brand-new primary care provider try to push you into a situation that doesn't feel safe, and then discover that the alleged two-week wait is nearly two months.

But then.

In a way I never imagined, support came from an unexpected direction.

So I moved from anxiety level 11 to about 3.5 in record time.

Also unexpected is I've shifted from crisis mode to a Gen-X menopausal intersectional feminist rage cauldron.

Which means my already-overloaded neurodivergent brain has moved into a new phase of decolonization. (I pity the next fool who tries to tell me to be quiet and fit in.)

But the big lesson here is the value of people who actually give a damn. The people who can hold space, and who understand what "grace" means. The people who value you as a human being, not a problem to be solved, not a pathology, or a set of symptoms. The people who don't have to know all the details to have your back.

We need more of those people. I'm so grateful I have some of them in my life.

I'm by no means on solid ground but lemme tell ya, the rage cauldron is 1000% better than existential terror.