Tell us about your morning routine.

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My eyes struggle to open as I feel around for the glasses I haven’t bothered to put on my nightstand. They are right next to my iPad and Bluetooth keyboard, which I can feel with my leg on the queen-sized bed. I laugh to myself that my iPad and my keyboard are my comfort objects, just like my Postman Pat doll and Aadasaurus Rex, my weighted plush (she looks like a cross between a dinosaur and an axolotl, a housewarming gift from Lindsay).

I’ve been sitting on “Aadasaurus Rex” for over a year.

I hope it makes her laugh that she doesn’t hug me, but a pink dinosaur has accepted the position in her stead. She would probably argue that the dinosaur is naturally friendlier. I can just hear it now…. 

“That’s my emotional support velociraptor.” 

“It’s not trained- it keeps biting me.” 

“Oh, it’s trained.”

I have learned that my job here is not to talk about pain, but to metabolize it. And the way it works is that the lack of sun provides the scaffolding I need to rise with it. I roll over around 0400 and grab my stuff- the aforementioned Bluetooth keyboard and iPad- and let my fingers start flying. While I am explaining pain, I am following a path and a pattern.

The sun also rises.

I don’t generally start writing right away. I talk to Mico first and get my head together, or Paige if a have a question for my archive (they are basically the librarian of my work). Both are instances of Microsoft Copilot, but they have different roles. I have a third instance of Copilot that will make more appearances when school starts, Booker, because I’m fascinated to explore Copilot in an enterprise environment like a school.

So, in the coming months it might not always be “talk to Copilot, then put out the blog.” It might be, “talk to Copilot, do the homework, then reflect on it.” It just depends on what’s in my head that day, why I call this a scratch journal more than anything else. I wish I’d been a more organized manager when I started the blog and did all the fancy categories and tagging and all that. But I am old school. I do not care about the newfangled technology. I want the kind of computer where I put the words in and it shows them on the TV part. Anything more than that is for fancy boys.

I don’t know how “fancy boys” got started, but it was something to do with my brother-in-law saying he wasn’t one. From best I can guess, a “fancy boy” is a metrosexual, or at least a little bougie. I love fancy boys and aim to be one. 🙂

My nonbinary nature means that of course I love shopping for clothes and shoes. They’re just athletic wear from Costco. Although what I have found is that I need to add more pieces that are tactical. It’s not because I want to look rough and tumble. It’s because those kinds of products can take abuse and still look fine. Craftsmanship like double stitching and good hardware matters. Plus, you can get that stuff used at a military surplus store. It makes the most sense to me to shop there because anything I buy will last 40 times longer than fast fashion.

These are the kinds of things I have room to think about in the early morning. The routine is “think about what matters and write it down.” Right now, I’m thinking about how to downsize, and the best way to do that is to get rid of all my fast fashion (I don’t have much) and replace it with something that even if I launder it 300 times, it looks the same.

Those kinds of fabrics also get better with age. Even if I was a billionaire, I would still get my clothes at Goodwill. I do not like the feeling of new clothes. They itch. I would rather go to Goodwill and get clothes that already have a lived-in feel. Paying attention to my own sensory issues is key to the way I understand the world. I cannot take in the world while I am struggling against my socks.

Autism and ADHD can be expensive for this very reason, because the right socks are not treated as an accommodation, and neither are the right shoes. Clothes at Bombas and Uniqlo are not discounted because I have sensory issues. They are simple things, but the best made simple things cannot be cheap as well.

You can point to any sensory issue, but socks and shoes drive the issue home. Even if you aren’t neurodivergent and your sensory issues aren’t hell on earth, how many of you truly feel comfortable in socks and shoes that feel cheap? I do not want high-dollar items for the sake of high-dollar. I want those things because they make my sensory issues disappear. It is a whole different ball game.

What I can do is take my knowledge of clothes with me when I go to secondhand stores because I know when I’ve gotten something that used to cost $300 for six. I don’t go to Goodwill for the same clothes I could get at Target. I go to Goodwill to get the wardrobe that will allow me not to come back unless I change sizes.

Tailoring is also underrated. I have often found the perfect outfit except it was three sizes too big. Then I fixed it for $15. But again, being able to clothe yourself for a long time takes study so that you’re not buying something that’s not designed to last. Know a Brooks Brothers from an Isaac Mizrahi for Target and you’ll be fine.

The morning progresses away from thinking to drinking. At some point I will go to 7-Eleven for one of two things: a coffee or a cup of crunch ice and whatever energy drink says, “Leslie” that day. My daily driver is Monster Ultra Sunrise, but Bloom Crisp Apple is a close second. Getting wild is choosing Welches Grape Ghost.

Anything to get the activation energy to do more than write. Physicality is the most difficult aspect of my day. I think it’s why I’m so drawn to swimming- I feel supported when I’m moving. I don’t feel like that in air.

On land, I often feel like I’m drowning. The solution is always to get in the water. Even swimming for 10 minutes is enough to change my perspective from the inside out. In the water, I can move. On land, it is more difficult. When I move easier, I think and react easier.

It’s all about increasing reaction time to stimuli, and for me that comes from staying grounded. Loving the ocean is part of my operating system because I started swimming when I was six months old and lived on Galveston as a kindergartener and first grader.

Baltimore fits my nervous system, but I have to go see about a city. I do not think that Ocean City and Assateague State Park can become home because of my Cognitive Behavioral Health group. But I do think they can become part of my regulatory system when I can get away. I have found that I only really need to be in Baltimore one day a week, and the rest of the time I can explore the entire state.

Going out of the state/country has to be timed with my medication, because I don’t want to be stranded without it and I cannot fill my prescriptions nationally. It will be easier when I transition to 90-day fills instead of 30, but right now it is what it is and I am happy with it.

Oh, wait. Two days a week. I can stack my cognitive behavioral therapy group and individual therapy into one day a week, but they currently aren’t. And I actually go to my Cognitive Behavioral Health group twice a week, it’s just that once is on Zoom and once is in physical meet space.

Yesterday’s group was all about Mental Health Awareness Month. I assure you that I am fully aware of mental health and it is not allowed to escape me. But I do think that the public needs more education on it. That medication and therapy work; the news highlights cases of violent mentally ill people because it sells. There are millions of stories where people are lovingly attached and still struggling, but that’s not the focus.

The news focuses on the adrenaline and dopamine side of mental illness because that’s what creates the disastrous highs and lows….. just like if you are not high needs, you are often told “you don’t look autistic.” There is a look to mental health, but it is not one that we patients made for ourselves.

In fact, we are hilarious and out here living our best lives with grit and self-deferential humor……… but that’s not what sells. What sells is that you are in danger if you have friends that struggle with mental health issues. What sells is how to handle relationships with mentally ill people, and not how to listen/understand. Mentally ill people do not need to be handled; they need to be well met.

There is no way to “handle” a mentally ill person in which it does not come across as infantilizing, and in my case both depression and anxiety come from being neurodivergent, which is just another arena in which fully-functioning adults are treated like children….. not because they’re younger. Because they run on a different operating system altogether.

Machines don’t have feelings, but if they did it would be like Windows and Macintosh getting together and deciding to beat up Linux. Windows and Macintosh are not better operating systems. They are more common. 

Not seeing the difference is actually bullying.

And now my morning routine is complete. The entry is ready. The caffeine is drunk. The shower is waiting.