I am writing this a few days before this post will go live. By the time it does, there’s a good chance I’ll have forgotten I even wrote it. That happens with many of my posts that come from periods of mania or emotional overwhelm. I don’t always label which mindset I was in when I wrote something. Sometimes I’m triggered. Sometimes I’m grieving. Sometimes I’m simply experiencing one of the many versions of myself I’ve come to recognize over the years.

Living with a neurodivergent brain can be exhausting.

Many of my symptoms overlap with trauma, OCD traits, PTSD, bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, ADHD, learning differences, sensory processing challenges, and moments where it feels like different parts of my mind are all trying to speak at the same time. I call it “splitting,” not because I believe I have multiple personalities, but because every emotion, fear, memory, and thought seems to compete for attention all at once.

Today was one of those days.

My friend became frustrated with me because I was barely functioning. Something that normally wouldn’t have bothered me hit one of my deepest wounds instead. I told them, “Please take your time. I’m going upstairs. I need at least ten minutes.”

What they heard was simply, “I’m going upstairs.”

They eventually found me sitting in a scalding hot bathtub, trying to soak away emotional pain I couldn’t explain. I don’t know how long I stayed there trying to understand why such a small interaction had hurt so much.

The words themselves weren’t the problem.

The wound underneath them was.

When someone tells me to “just remind me,” my brain immediately translates that into, “If you remind me too much, you’ll get yelled at.”

So they tried to reassure me by saying, “If you don’t constantly remind me, I’ll be upset.”

Instead of helping, it pushed directly into the same wound from the opposite direction.

Some days my brain simply cannot untangle those thoughts.

Today was one of those days.

Anything said the wrong way was going to send me into an emotional spiral.

After a nap and taking my medication, I slowly came back to myself. That’s when I realized I had reached out to the only person from my childhood who is still alive besides my father.

My father has never really known how to help bring me back when my mind is spinning. Neither does his son. I say something from a place of pain, and somehow the conversation grows into an even bigger spiral instead of bringing me back to solid ground.

Today I found myself missing the two people in my life who also lived with bipolar disorder. They understood my brain because they had experienced something similar themselves. They knew how to steady me.

Now they’re gone.

These days I live next to neighbors who believe I never sleep and make too much noise at night. From my perspective, I spend many nights awake because I don’t feel safe where I live. Whether every fear I experience is completely accurate or amplified by stress, the fear itself is real. Living under constant stress changes the way your brain interprets the world.

One thing I do know for certain is that I have never been able to have a calm, respectful conversation with the woman next door. Every interaction feels tense. Sometimes she makes comments that feel cruel. Sometimes they feel prejudiced. Sometimes they simply leave me wondering why so much hostility exists between two people who barely know each other.

No one should have to feel unsafe in their own home.

After surviving abusive relationships, the feeling of constantly being watched or judged doesn’t simply disappear because someone tells you everything is fine.

It stays with you.

Looking back, I can see that one of my past relationships became unhealthy in ways I didn’t fully recognize at the time. Maybe parts of it always were. Maybe we simply brought out the worst in each other. I honestly don’t know anymore.

What I do know is that we weren’t good for one another.

That realization hurts.

Despite everything, I still like the version of myself that believes people are fundamentally good. The version that believes if I keep loving the world enough, somehow things will eventually work out.

Some days I believe that completely.

Today is not one of those days.

Right now my housing feels uncertain. My income is inconsistent. My business is still struggling to become financially sustainable.

Sometimes I look at my art, my books, my stickers, my cards, my writing, and all the dreams I’ve spent decades building, and I wonder if they’ll ever become anything more than ideas.

Manufacturing costs are expensive.

Marketing costs money.

Building a business takes resources I simply don’t have yet.

It’s difficult not to hear the voices from my past telling me I’ll never succeed.

Growing up, I was made to feel like becoming a teenage mother would be the greatest accomplishment I’d ever achieve.

If that’s all history remembers me for, I suppose there are worse legacies.

My children are among the greatest gifts of my life.

But I don’t want that to be the end of my story.

I want to build something that helps people.

I want my books to comfort children.

I want my blog to remind people they aren’t alone.

I want my artwork to make someone smile.

I want my stickers, cards, and ideas to exist somewhere beyond the notebooks they’ve lived in for most of my life.

Today, though, I don’t feel like someone building a dream.

Today I feel like someone carrying generations of wounds while trying to convince herself that the future can still be different.

Some days, that weight feels unbearable.

Tomorrow, it might not.

That’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned about living with my brain.

The worst days always convince me they’ll last forever.

So far…

They never have.