Day Four: Up the Creek without a paddle or "Can someone bring me some toilet paper please!?"

I have found something in my chest that I forgot existed.  A good heart, strong and true, with a love for life and all that it brings.  So funny all the things that are coming forward now; a never ending barrage of memories, fond and painful, trickling over my mind's eye like the headwaters of the Skeena converging in the verdant meadows of northern BC.  Reminders of all that is true - of all that I believe with every fiber of my being.

And the bullshit, slowly floating to the top, easy  to see, easy to smell and able to be caught with a small butterfly net and filtered away.

Yesterday was a new moon.  My mom used to have the odd new moon ceremony.  This is a good time to begin something; to chase away the clutter of the past and commence anew.  I feel it in my bones.

Addiction and all that it brings has been a part of my life for many, many years.  Even before I was a separate breathing entity, I was part of a duality within my mom's womb, where addiction played a role.

Funny. I always knew it.  That our history - her history, helped to forge this alchemical soup that I had become.

My mom used to tell me stories when I was young...   (I LOVED hearing about myself and our little travails and twisted, happy/sad life stories).  But stories that would shock.  Stories about how I was conceived.  About getting punched in the stomach by a drunk when she was pregnant with me.  About crying herself to sleep with me inside of her.  Stories of violence and fear, pain and sadness - but also of hope and beauty and all things that made this life worth living.

I used to think of this poor 16 year old Indian girl.  It's 1970 and she's in a small redneck forestry and mining town.  She is pregnant by the bad boy son of the strict disciplinarian high school principal - an English principal, no less.

Whew...

What pain, what fear, what stigma.

What stress.

What stress...  Stress.  The emotion that wreaks the most havoc on a teenage girl's endocrine system, and most assuredly on her developing child.  I always wondered what it must have felt like in there.  In the dark, warm, comfort of the womb - a place that is generally considered to be safe and sound - a warm wet reprieve from the ills of the world.  In there, among her pain and fear and sadness and other emotions, as she found her way past parental alcoholism and the other goodies of her teenagedom.

I always knew in my gut that I was not "unscathed" from her travails.  That somehow, in some way, they touched me irrevocably.

Dr. Gabor Mate, Canadian physician and author extraordinaire, has written some books which speak to this truth.  In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is an amazing book (thanks Dad) that speak about some of the most cutting edge brain research that steps out some of these causal factors.

He is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel in Downtown Van.  The only legal injection site in N. America.  He has a few insights to say the least.

It has been through rifling through his work that I have discovered that I am, in fact, ADHD.  Some of you probably figured this out 20 years ago!  ; )  But mostly that I am not alone in my struggles.  At about 5:59 of the video attached above, he touches on some things that make sense right down to my core.

Something interesting that I have finally realized is about the nature of the stimulant addiction I have maintained for nearly 12 years.

See, I used to work with kids in care; I supervised group homes and staff and some of Alberta's most troubled youth.  All came with their own alphabet soup of diagnoses and prescribed medical reprieve.

I had many kids who were ADHD and who seemed to be unwilling passengers on their brain's joyride with their bodies.  We didn't prescribe them "downers"....  They got ritalin - a psychostimulant.  This stimulant flooded the brain's chemoreceptors with dopamine and norepinephrine, effectively allowing them to "slow down" and react in more normal operating levels.

I've known people who are addicted to stimulants and, when they take them, they fly off the handle.  They turn into cleaning machines or sex machines or whatever.  Not me.  I would turn into a zombie.  I would slow down.  Calm down.  I couldn't handle company or other people.  Always alone, always quiet - no music, no sounds.

I understand now.

Self prescribed medical reprieve from ADHD.  Nice try Dr. Hughes.

How bout some other ways to manage ADHD... Like diet, exercise, high energy/high adrenaline hobbies, proper sleep and nutrition.  And love.  Lots of love - both self and for others.

You know, my recent discoveries about the nature of my addictive self destructive tendencies do not absolve me from my responsibility of dealing with them; managing them - mitigating them.  They do not pass off the blame to my parents and the circumstances of my life.  They bring light to dark shady places.  They shine a penetrating unwavering spotlight on those narrow twisted curvy places in my psyche that threaten to undermine who I am.  They threaten to take an otherwise beautiful person and separate him from love and light.

It's nice to know where the "Crazy" came from.  But it don't change anything.  I still have to deal with it, walk with it, and learn how to keep 'er saddled and between the lines.

No pun intended.

Much love all.
S.