I hope you read this in a conversational and soothing Morgan Freeman like narrator voice. I’m not writing to complain, I’m just writing from the heart. Trying to use every creative outlet I have the energy for these days. Also it would be nice to engage some interaction and maybe make some friends. Being ill is lonely, I’m tried of being lonely.

Every minute of everyday is a game of “is this long covid, CPTSD, emotional shock, POTS and Chronic Fatigue, ADHD, Schizophrenia, Depression, or some other undiagnosed disease. What it feels like is old age. I say that because my Grandmother’s and my life look fairly similar these days. We’re both cold all of the time,but heat sensitive too. Our eyes are both extra sensitive to lights. We continue to snack all day because we’re either subconsciously trying to raise our body heat or we enjoy the taste even though we know we will regret it later because we enjoy the taste and we need our brains to produce whatever ounce of dopamine to produce. We both aren’t driving anymore because it’s not safe either one behind the wheel. Going out is overwhelming to our nervous systems so we don’t do it often. Being around a lot of people in general is often extremely overwhelming. Life in general is overwhelming. Standing up even takes more effort than we can both muster at times. The list goes on, really. The difference is she’s almost 94 and I’m a mere 35. Her body is literally shutting down from old age, mine should be in its prime really.

A similarity between our lives is a bucket load of traumatic experiences. Some we share and others are specific to each. My counts much higher than hers because I am impulsive and get myself into bad situations. One major similarity we have is brain injury. Hers from mini strokes she had in her sleep and mine from a car accident. Her damage was minor, she forgot her basket weaving skills. Mine was a traumatic brain injury. I had to learn who I was all over again. And even then I wasn’t learning the true me. I had forgotten all the coping techniques I developed as a child thanks to amnesia. Some traumas we share are the death of her husband and my grandfather (they were both my first two best friends when I was a little girl). My accident and the near death of her granddaughter. The death of my uncle, her first born.

We also each have our own traumas. Her second born son is mentally ill so I’m sure she’s had her fair share of struggles with him. The most recent one is he flushed his meds and ran away. He’s been on the run for a long time now and we only get periodic updates. She constantly worried if he’s even still alive. I worry too but it’s different when you’re the mother. I just recently got out of an abusive relationship with someone that pretended to be the person of my dreams to get me to fall head over heels in love with her, then when she had her claws deep within me camouflaged as love she started a vicious cycle of ripping me open and sewing me back up again. Another one in my own personal memory bank was the birth of my daughter, my second near death experience in life. The list goes on for both of us. Me especially because I am neurodivergent, I am a highly sensitive person, and I perceive a lot as feeling traumatic.

We both don’t have the energy to move much during the day. I have to reserve my energy for when my daughter is home from school. When school is off for an extended period of time, my energy is constantly on E and I’m running on fumes. For both of us taking a shower is so physically demanding it’s not even funny. Seriously way too many similarities. The only real difference is the age gap, our own personal diagnosed conditions, and the fact that it would make sense that her brain is slowly shutting down considering she’s almost 94. She has lived a long life, her bones are tired, the love of her life left her seven years ago, she is ready. I however very much want to live. I have a daughter that no matter how exhausting she may be, I want to be alive for her. I want to see if our colliding neurodivergencies will work themselves out as she ages. I would like my chance of finding my true happily ever after with her by my side. I’m too young to feel this old.