Been a minute

It’s been a little while since I posted. Here, have some rumination.

Sometimes I just want to give up.

To give in to the wild mood swings. To act inappropriately. To stop going to work because my brain refuses to focus where I need it to.

Sometimes I want to be my disability clients.

Did my clients “give up?” Well, no. They just weren’t lucky like I was. They didn’t land themselves in a series of fortunate situations that would allow them to push just a little harder and succeed.

They’re luckier than I am in some ways. They have the freedom to be disabled. They have the luxury of displaying symptoms, the security of inability to compete. They have no requirement to ask for accommodation from the world around them, and there are no earth-shatteringly negative consequences if they do ask. They can just be.

Success hurts. Success is relative. Whether it’s relative to others similarly situated or relative only to myself, it hurts to know I’ve achieved maximum success because I am pushing as hard as I can push.

I am very good at rationalizing and coping. Through long practice, and with the assistance of powerful psychotropics, I have learned to brute-force my emotional dysregulation to the side, to silence the part of my brain that wants me to be miserable under the power of towering logic. There’s no need to be upset. There’s no need to be paranoid. I’m good at what I do and what others think doesn’t matter.

I can do anything I set my mind to.

Except that I can’t. That undeniable fact squats in the middle of my thoughtscape, fouling up my logic. I have limits. I have support needs. If I push beyond my limits, if my support falters, then the dysregulated part of my brain ascends and I crash. I forget how to rationalize. I forget how to sequence basic self-care. I panic at every decision point; I withdraw within myself; I lash out at any who dares approach with an obligation.

Well, then maybe just don’t do that…right. I cannot will away that crash. The most I can do is manage my environment to reduce the likelihood of crashing, or to mitigate the fall when it comes.

When you’re in a high-pressure field and you have a disability, there’s a lens on you. It’s a magnifying lens; step in the wrong spot and you will burn. You are a burden. You are a liability. You have to be better; you have to be perfect. Any less and the cost-benefit analysis will fall against you. It’s not a “reasonable accommodation” to allow someone to be less than, and if you are less than your peers then you are gone.

Same as anyone, right? Weakest link gets eliminated. You don’t want special treatment, do you?

Sometimes I feel like giving up.