A Life update: my health, ADHD, done blogging?

Odds and Ends:

Notes: my shoes are from Toast and the twins’ dresses are from Jamie Kay

Hello my friends. I feel like I am due for a long chat with you guys updating you on life in the KE household. I realized as I was grabbing my morning caffeine and settling into the little corner of the couch that I have claimed as my own that I have done a life update at the beginning of the school year for the last three (maybe four?) years in a row, which got me thinking about how long four years is and then how long ten years is because it hit me that I am coming up in my tenth year of blogging. It’s unbelievable how much has changed in the world of sharing online since I started blogging so in a way ten years fits, but in other ways ten years feels far too long.

To be honest, I thought I’d be sitting down today to share with you that I was done blogging. That after ten years of sharing online, I’d had enough and it was time to be through with it all. I even told my close family and friends that I was planning on stopping and moving on with my life. But I don’t know, something is keeping me from closing the doors on Karin Emily. I think sometimes my life feels so overwhelming to me that I don’t feel like I can even function, and the idea that I need to get on Instagram and share a story feels laughable. Or writing a blog post when I can’t even form a coherent thought is clearly not an option. So I retreat, and the longer I retreat the more I question what it is I’m even doing here and I get stuck in these cycles of endless waffling where what I want changes or what I’m capable of changes constantly, but the inability to execute stays constant. And yes, to everyone else who has ADHD, I know I’m pretty much describing it to a T right now, but does it have to be so dang exhausting? Ha!

All that to say, I’ve been in a pretty big cycle of waffling since this spring, and I know I need to just make a decision or I’ll continue to just stay in this place of indecision, which actually makes me feel really awful because I don’t like to have loose ends in my life. The thing is, I WANT to keep blogging, but I just feel like I keep hitting a brick wall every time I try to get back into it… which normally I would take as a sign that it’s time to be done, but every time I try to mentally close the door I also hit a mental brick wall. SO… yeah.

I think what it really comes down to is that I still feel as if I have something to say, but so much has changed in the last 10 years that I feel a little lost in how to share it. I’m just not going to go down the path that so many people are going down right now to get their voices heard. I won’t rage bait, I won’t share extreme viewpoints, I won’t be wasteful or shocking, I just don’t believe in short form video content or quick turnover mindsets when it comes to influencing. Nor do I think influence is valid if you’ve had to shock people into following you.

I think there is nuance in a good purchase and I don’t think everything is worth purchasing in the first place. If your Tik Tok habit is putting you into debt that’s a big red flag, but I think that’s sadly the reality of so many people right now and I don’t want any part of it… which I think makes me a really boring influencer ha! I’m not good enough at acting to get on here and shill a bunch of stuff at you that I don’t use myself – and yes I do have ADHD so I do sometimes jump from favorite to favorite quite quickly, but if I say it’s my favorite it’s because I’m actually using it and fully love and adore it.

I’m not good at being inauthentic which in some areas of life has been my greatest asset, but has also been my greatest struggle in others. I’m constantly being told I’m being too honest or pushing my opinions on other people, which shocks me every time I hear it because in my mind I just think I’m sharing my heart, but in reality I’m making people uncomfortable with my intense and unyielding authenticity. I just don’t know how to be any other way, and I’m aware now that it’s largely due to my neurodivergence. It’s something I would never change about myself even if it is the thing I get criticized the most for. All that to say, what I share and do here and anywhere else online is 100% authentic because I honestly don’t know how to be any other way.

Which means I just can’t participate in the shenanigans, which means that every day I become more and more irrelevant to the algorithms, and while I don’t feel done, the algorithms are telling me I am. So it just makes me want to throw my hands in the air and say fine! You win! But as I’ve mulled it over I’ve realized that maybe it’s not so much an issue of giving in and quitting, but more an issue of needing to refigure a few things and just stick to my own priorities with a no apology approach.

I also have to consider my lifestyle in all of this as well because my chronic illnesses have been flaring up pretty badly for the past year which has put my energy and motivation at an all time low. I have chronic migraines, GERD, neuropathic itch, and fibromyalgia. I also have diagnosed ADHD, anxiety and depression. I’m not telling you any of this to garner sympathy, but just to give you a clearer picture of what my daily life looks like. I really don’t have any part of any day where I’m not hurting in some way and if one of my chronic illnesses gets a little better for a bit, one of the others will flare up. I also found out this past February that I am going through early onset Perimenopause (it’s genetic in our family) which has made all of these chronic conditions go completely hay wire the last few years because hormones and all of those illnesses are intimately connected. I’m hoping and praying that at least one or two of my chronic symptoms will go away after menopause, but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high.

And on top of all of that, I have four children with ADHD, which often feels like more than I can handle. I don’t know if I would have been capable of blogging this summer even if I wanted to because the emotional toll of walking my kids through the transition from school to summer (which took about two months and then started right back up again as they transitioned back to school) was horrendous.

Whenever I share these things with people I inevitably get some sort of response along the lines of “oh that’s a normal thing for kids to go through” so for the sake of every other mom to neurodivergent children out there, I would urge you to ask questions first before saying that to a mom of ADHD or autistic kids.

Because I can assure you it is not normal to hear your young children talk about all the ways they are going to kill themselves, or all of the ways they are going to kill you while you are sleeping in your bed. Or to have to lay on top of them in the middle of a meltdown that’s so bad that it’s the only way to keep everyone physically safe. I know these things are really shocking to hear and I cringe even writing them because I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about my kids… ADHD kids get a bad enough rep as it is, but that’s the point. Neurodivergent children struggle so badly with regulating their feelings and emotions that they will resort to all kinds of words and behaviors just to get you to help them figure it out, and sometimes that language or behavior is so extreme that it’s actually traumatic for the caretaker. This is not normal my friends.

I understand every child and mom struggles, and there is no competition. But it’s hard to be a mom to neurodivergent children and feel like you’re all alone. It’s hard to constantly be told your struggles are less than they are.

By the end of this summer however, we all were on the doses of medication that seem to be right for us. It takes a bit to figure out the right dose of stimulant and it took about a year of trial and error before we got everyone in a good place. We are just about there. I’ve got one who’s losing weight on the stimulant so we need to really get that weight back up or we’ll have to figure out a game plan, which is such a bummer because this child has done the best on the stimulant. I have figured out the dose of stimulant that works for me, and that paired with a hormone replacement, and I’m feeling so much better mentally.

We also were able to do some intense and frequent therapy with the kids this summer and got in some good regulation practice which has led to some really improved behaviors. There’s still a lot of struggling, but with the tools we worked on in therapy that we also set up in the home, paired with the right doses of stimulant and anxiety meds this year is going much more smoothly for which I am very thankful.

September was spent dealing with a bad flare up of migraines and tinnitus, and my days were mostly full of back and forth conversations with teachers and school social workers. But now everything seems to have leveled out a bit and I’ve had time to think about the question of what I want to do here.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that I still want to be active to some capacity in my little online world. I know I won’t be as active on Instagram going forward, but I’ll definitely be posting here… just maybe not more than a couple of times a month. I’m not sure yet and I’ll probably just do what I can in any given week. I’m also not sure if I’ll be doing as many clothing reviews. I’ll probably post more what I wore roundups and maybe some mom tips or other posts like that. I’m feeling the need to pivot a bit if this is going to be a sustainable thing for me. But I also don’t want to promise any particular thing because I know how much I change my mind and how unreliable I can be 😏. So I guess it’s a we’ll see how it goes, but it’s definitely not a goodbye.

Thanks for reading this extremely long and wordy post. It feels good to share all of my thoughts with you and to let you into my life a little bit. You all are such an integral part of why I can’t walk away… you’ve become my little online community and I would miss having your friendship. Thanks for always sticking around 😊

Until next time,

Karin