I’d gone 8 days without a meltdown. 8 days. 8 days of meetings and zooms, of arrangements and chats, eye contact and conversations, dinner parties and hosting, digging and dancing, eating proper and sleeping well, planning and working, attempting to engage the hyperfocus, being the person I needed to be. But there I was yesterday afternoon, head hitting and swearing, raging and shaking, losing it because an app lost my bearings as my AuADHD mind temporarily lost mine. There was no warning, to play book rumble, no signpost in that particular Maccy D car park at that particular time of what was to come. Just the blow-up. Just the neurodivergent wiring refusing to connect as my brain found my day’s plan broken and my ability to cope gone. No path ahead of me. No way to see the wood or even the trees. A rigidity of thinking that absolutely can’t see the change needed, the diversion required, so can’t work a way round or through it. The atypical soul my masked persona presented crumbling as the overload finally kicked in. Like an analogue TV unable to tune in, my brain’s ability to function fractured as the decision paralysis, plan disruption and acute anxiety kicked in rending me a ball of rage and frustration.

Of course, it wasn’t the app break that broke me. It was a pile-up of atypical life – the masking I do to be the person you and I need me to be to function failing to keep me safe in that particular moment. The irony that I was listening to an ADHD podcast moments beforehand, that I had been discussing the challenges and strategies of living the ND life with friends just hours before not lost on me as my life shifted gears and my brain failed to compute.

It’s passed the now, just the lumps and bruises on my now aching battered head the only reminder of another meltdown. The seven hours to recover from 1 hour of meltdown rule in play. Again. A reality no amount of planning can dismiss, a misfire I need to manage, a moment I hope will be just that as I climb back into this masking of mine and start again. Waiting for the next one. Hoping it’ll be a while in coming. Planning to never plan on using that app again. Probably for the best. Who needs Maccy D* for tea anyway?

*Yes, I’ve read the stuff on junk food and ADHD. And yes my meltdown happened before I’d dipped those fries or slurped a vanilla. Preemptive meltdown strike perhaps? Got a pair of Maccy D socks though, courtesy of those Winning Sips. Doubt my autistic soles will cope with the texture but you know. Winning at life. Always winning at life.