I Want to Meet Myself Again

For almost five years, I have been sober.

And for almost five years, I have done it while feeling like my own mind was constantly fighting me.

Anxiety. Panic. Stress. Overthinking. Trouble concentrating. A brain that seemingly never shut off. I learned how to function through it. I worked. I raised my kids. I built things. I volunteered. I helped people. I stayed sober. From the outside, I could keep moving, so I did.

Inside, though, it could be absolute chaos.

And now I'm realizing I don't actually know where all of that chaos came from.

Over the years, I accumulated medications as we tried to treat different pieces of what I was experiencing. Medication for anxiety. Medication for ADHD. Xanax when the anxiety became overwhelming. Mood stabilizers. At different points, there were multiple medications trying to address multiple symptoms at the same time.

Eventually, I began wondering about something I hadn't seriously considered before:

What if I don't actually know what my baseline feels like anymore?

Recently, I underwent pharmacogenomic testing—genetic testing that can provide doctors with additional information about how a person's genetics may affect certain medications.

The results raised questions about medications I had been taking. According to my report, there were multiple gene-drug considerations associated with some of them, including factors that could potentially affect metabolism, medication exposure, or side effects. I also learned that at points during my treatment, I had been prescribed doses that I understand were above the FDA-labeled recommended limits.

None of that allows me to look backward and declare that medication caused everything I've experienced. It doesn't prove that. And I don't want to replace one assumption with another.

What it does make me question is how much I actually know about myself underneath all of this.

Do I have ADHD?

Maybe.

Or did years of anxiety, enormous amounts of stress, early sobriety, poor sleep, medication effects, medication interactions, or some combination of all of those things create symptoms that felt like ADHD?

I genuinely don't know.

That's a strange thing to admit after being treated for it. But it's also incredibly important.

Because once ADHD entered the picture, there was medication for that too. Then medication for anxiety. Xanax as needed. Mood stabilizers. Different medications affecting a brain that was already dealing with recovery, stress, work, family, responsibilities, and everything else life was throwing at it.

At some point, I couldn't tell where I ended and everything else began.

Was my mind racing because that's simply how my brain works?

Was it anxiety?

ADHD?

Stress?

Medication?

Coming off alcohol and learning to experience emotions without numbing them?

Some complicated combination of all of it?

I don't know.

And for once, I'm okay saying that.

Under medical care, I've now transitioned away from the previous medication regimen. The last couple of weeks without those medications have been incredibly difficult. Today, I started a new treatment approach with my psychiatrist, informed in part by the genetic testing and everything we've learned.

I'm essentially starting again.

Not because I suddenly have all the answers.

Because I finally realized that I don't.

I want to find out what my mind actually feels like when I'm on a treatment plan that my doctor believes is better suited to me. Then we can see what remains. If the attention problems remain, we deal with them. If the anxiety remains, we deal with that. If something else emerges, we deal with that too.

But I don't want to keep treating assumptions with more assumptions.

Maybe I have ADHD. Maybe I don't.

Maybe some of what I have spent years believing was simply "my brain" was being amplified by stress, medication, recovery, or circumstances. Maybe some of it really is just me.

We will find out.

There is one thing I already know, though.

For nearly five years, I have stayed sober through all of it.

Whatever was happening inside my head, alcohol wasn't there to shut it off anymore. I experienced the anxiety. The panic. The racing thoughts. The stress. The nights when my brain wouldn't stop. The days when everything felt like too much.

And somehow, I kept going.

I stayed sober.

I worked.

I raised my family.

I built things.

I helped people.

I lived my life while sometimes feeling like there were twenty radios playing inside my head at the same time.

That makes this moment feel bigger than simply changing medication.

I want to meet myself again.

Not a diagnosis. Not a medication list. Not the version of me desperately trying to figure out which symptom belongs in which box.

Just me.

Today is Day One of finding out what that feels like.

Maybe the new treatment helps tremendously. Maybe it helps somewhat. Maybe there are still adjustments ahead. I'm not declaring victory on the first day, and I'm not pretending genetic testing provides some perfect roadmap to mental health.

I'm just hopeful.

After everything I've done to rebuild my life over these nearly five years of sobriety, maybe this next chapter isn't about fighting my mind quite so hard.

Maybe it's about finally understanding it.

And if I'm fortunate, maybe somewhere underneath all that noise there's something I've wanted for a very long time.

Peace.