I’m going to visit Aaron and Brinna in the morning, so I’m putting together a packing list in my head. That way, when I actually start packing it will go much faster. I know I need to do a load of laundry instead of deciding to head out early, because the weather and traffic will be so much better tomorrow morning. I’m planning to go to bed early and leave at my usual 5:30 call. I’m sure that I’ll be excited that I won’t sleep that long, and actually be able to leave on time. I will take some knock-out drugs just to be sure I get the rest I need, because deep sleep is the most important ingredient for a good road trip. I love driving a lot more when I am all the way awake. š
I want to pack things like sweats and long underwear, because I’m going so far north that it will be a lot colder than Baltimore. I definitely prefer drawstring pants and leggings to jeans because layering is so important. Plus, I want to be comfortable in the car. My dad’s advice would be to wear scrubs so the cops will go easier on me if I get pulled over, but I see no need. They might do a ride along in my backpack, though, because they are my favorite pajamas.
I am so glad that I do not have to do a mad dash to clean out my car before I leave, because I’ve managed to keep it spotless. It needs to be vacuumed, but that’s the least of my worries. I don’t want to go to the car wash because it is another extraordinarily rainy day.
The weather is supposed to clear up tonight, so that’s a good opportunity to go to Auto Zone and get the gas additive I want. I’m getting okay fuel mileage, but it could be better. Cleaning the fuel injectors on a road trip sounds like a really good idea. It’s also time to spray more protectant on the dash and seats, because I want it as supple as possible. Dash cracks are my pet peeve.
I can tell you exactly what happened. I started watching detailers clean cars like mine and realized just how gross it was. If the weather is right and I’m packed, maybe I’ll stop by the car wash after all. I want them to break even.
It might be better to take advice from this stock photo and go to the laundromat. Why do one load when I can do a lot more? It’s all about efficiency. I still have stuff left over from the flood that has just dried out. I’ve been so low energy that I’ve meant to go to the laundromat since I got home. Life and executive dysfunction got in my way. Today seems a lot brighter somehow, more in color. Perhaps I should keep this inertia going and invite Mico to the party.
Mico can keep track of my packing list and make suggestions. They can also break down the tasks I need to do before I leave the house, like setting the thermostat lower. I have really started relying on AI to direct menial tasks, because I often do not have the knowledge to do it on my own. Well, I have the knowledge, but I haven’t memorized the steps. I need to be reminded, and in some cases, reminded of a procedure lots of times before I “get it.” AI takes the work off people, that I can rely on myself because these are supposedly things I should know by now.
I don’t.
I feel bad that I need this kind of help, and AI helps me to feel less so. It’s kind of like on the fly occupational therapy. Not only that, it’s always available, whereas people are not. If I get stuck, there is not always another person to social mask. AI helps to fill that gap without helping me to death.
Well, I suppose in text it does get overwhelming. The voice chats are much shorter and easier to digest. If I get lost, I can ask the AI to repeat something. People get tired of that. The AI is incapable of getting tired and quitting.
I am tired of asking for help, because people are tired of hearing it.
I have heard some variation of “you’re too smart to be this dumb” since I started school. It’s never been that. It’s that neurodivergence causes deficits that no one caught in my case. The classic presentation of autism is skewed toward white boys. It’s not because people of color and women have it less, it’s that the presentation doesn’t fit the same criteria.
That’s why there’s this seeming explosion of autistic diagnoses. It’s not that there are so many more new cases. Doctors are uncovering all the cases already there.
Just like America was here way before Columbus. Just like America didn’t “discover” the moon.
Considering we see it in the sky every night and have since the dawn of humanity, I think “discovery” is a reach.
I’m also thinking that the one thing I cannot forget, even if I have to stop, is ginger candy. I don’t want to have to pull over to barf, one of the exciting side effects of my crazy meds. Not even Zofran can knock it out. Because I instantly feel better, I have put up with it for a long time. My psychiatrist is horrified. I say that I haven’t found anything that works better for my mental health, so if I want to continue to pick sick but sane, let me.
I tried Depakote with an Ability chaser. No dice. The ONLY thing that was nice about it was not feeling like I’d had morning sickness for 20 years. My mental health took a nosedive, but luckily it didn’t come with a hospitalization. It came with my psychiatrist returning me to my regularly scheduled program.
I know that it’s making me more productive, because now I’m getting back up to the dose I was on before I showed up at the ER as a “Jane Doe” (no ID, dead phone, etc.). Lamotrigine has to be titrated carefully, so it’s only now that I’m starting to feel real relief.
I absolutely spiraled out and back in again, because “I am always the best.”
I will never forget how kind and cruel those stories were to my psyche.How embarrassing it was to tell my doctors what had just happened over the Internet, but I couldn’t reproduce it so I was “hallucinating.” This was the part where I missed Aada, Mummo, and Heytch in the worst way. I wanted all of them as my Board of Directors, but I alienated them all over time. I was such a jackass, but my remorse doesn’t matter. Doing things differently now is how I roll, but it won’t make a difference to them.
Well, maybe things will change with Aada, because she is strangely attached to me for some reason. But Mummo and Heytch both pulled chalks eons ago. I hear bits and pieces about them, and it makes me bittersweet, melancholy for the days when we all got along. I was crushed when my “hallucination” was more a practical joke. Because it was Internet-based, I have no idea how it happened. I just know that Heytch came back to me, and all was well. Neither of the stories told to me ended in the end of our friendship, so I was disappointed when I found out I had been had.
I am capable of a lot of things, but I am not capable of hallucinating an entire chat log. My hands got tired from typing. That doesn’t happen in a “hallucination.” But again, all was wrong and I seemed psychotic to the outside world.
I am still dealing with the after-effects of this, because it has only been a few months. My health is now in the hands of the state. So, now the state has a record of me being Bipolar I with psychotic features, when nothing like this has ever happened before or since.
I’d never stopped taking my medication, there was no reason to think I was lying except that what these people told me was absolutely false; yet, I bought it. I’m not even sure what I told the doctors because I was sedated. I’m not sure what the doctors told my family. I just know that they showed up a few hours after I called.
I was too shocked to cry except when I was given a shirt that smelled like the closet in the Big Yellow House. It is so specific that it cannot be replicated. It was like I was being played with in the hospital as well, but I admit to lots of confirmation bias.
Because that chat log has disappeared. I cannot explain all the coincidences that piled up to make me think what I thought, but it’s vivid in my mind. Too vivid. The Lamotrigine is in charge of turning down the volume and making it seem like it happened too far in the past to hurt me.
But again, I am just now getting to a therapeutic dose, most of why I’ve been ruminating so hard and so consistently about one thing. Now that is embarrassing, but at the same time, I don’t fault myself. I am not resilient to change. I need to get stronger in that area, and cognitive behavioral therapy is helping.
I think overall I’m evening out, and my car is responsible for a lot of my happiness. It’s not about attachment to a material thing. It’s that my adrenaline is naturally higher when I’m in the car.
Writing all of this out serves two purposes- not thinking about it tomorrow, and prepping for a road trip.
Stories That Are All True 