I never in a million years would have described myself as someone with anxiety.
And I still don’t.
The end.
Well, not not exactly.
Do I have clinical anxiety? no.
Do I get anxious about things? Yes, I suppose we all do, but I honestly thought I might be the exception to the rule, because I generally felt the same about most things in my life. I never really got too worked up about ‘the small stuff’ as a general rule because in the grand scheme of things, I could anticipate a desired outcome if a few things were given special attention. So, generally speaking, I would operate at a baseline that I would really only deviate from in special circumstances.
I realize I’m speaking in broad terms, but that’s because I have always done this.
Then I started looking into natural supplementation to assist in recovery from athletic fatigue – i.e. I was running a lot and wanted to run more, and more frequently – and I happened upon an article about ‘cannabidiol’ – a cannabinoid that is fairly cheap and plentiful for those of the age of majority up here in the land of legal weed, better known to most as CBD.
There are several weed stores within dog walking distance, and they’re all pretty friendly to my giant Dane/Hound, so I did a little observational research of my own and found that it worked decently enough as described, but it also offered me an education in what my baseline for operation really was.
On a scale of 1-10, I’d have told you that I operate in the 1-2 range on a daily basis for stress and anxiety, but it was more like a 3 or 4. Again, not staggering, but I’d been hovering around the 3-4 mark for so long that it felt like nothing. As it happens, I’ve been living and coping with “1000 micro-anxieties” of which I was in unaware.
A better name for that is “overwhelmed.”
And being constantly overwhelmed is symptomatic of other things.
It’s truly amazing what we can decide about ourselves, and subscribe to… until we suddenly can’t anymore.
Popping a CBD caplet put me down to an actual 1-2.
And then I knew something that I could never un-know.
Now, again… not an anxious person by definition, and I won’t start to say that I am at any point but it was fairly eye opening to go from ‘not worrying about the little stuff’ to ‘actually not worrying about the little stuff.’
So, I found a little thread… and I tugged on it… and through some of my own research and podcast-listening and conversations with other neurodivergent folks – whom I seem to be surrounded by, for the most part – I decided to go for a formal diagnosis for AuDHD (the one-two-punch of ADHD and ASD, together at last).
I was put on ADHD medication, and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, with the ADHD dog now on it’s leash… I’ve never felt more autistic.
So, there’s an origin story for you, lol.
44 years of believing things were a certain way, and that everyone has a similar experience.
But, no.
They don’t.
The Conscious Pilgrim 