A Little Bit of Compassion for the Hard Days

A young woman walks into the bookstore. She arrives just on time, stressed, but grateful that her ADHD didn't get in the way of her time management skills... at least not this time. She stands in the doorway, overwhelm beginning to grip her in it's claws - where does she go now? Where exactly in the store is this event? Where are the other people? Maybe it's out the back somewhere?

The woman approaches the counter, about to ask the bookstore employee where the event is - the event in which she meets a favourite author, the event that she has been waiting over a month for. She begins to ask. And then she stops. Pulls out her phone. Checks. Double checks. Panics.

The book event was the day before.

She had missed it. Her ADHD had come and claimed the thing that she had so been looking forward to. Panic. Overwhelm. Tears. Tears threatening. Tears pushing through regardless. Tears escaping, making their way down her face. She hates the tears, but they always appear regardless. No regard for whether she wants them there or not. Not her choice. Autism chooses the tears. ADHD caused the tears.

The young woman, an adult but now feeling distinctly more like a child with every second that goes by, with every tear that escapes her eyes, crosses the room. A seat at the back of the bookstore, in the far corner, welcomes her. She sits.

She sits. And she finds that she cannot stand now. Fatigue, her old friend, takes her legs, her strength, her energy, with one fell swoop. Her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome now lays claim to her, stealing the one thing she had left. Her energy. She now cannot stand. She cannot walk. She cannot move. She remains seated on the chair at the back of the bookstore. The child that she is wants one thing. She wants her mum. And the tears continue to fall.

The young woman is me. This is my story, my story of my afternoon yesterday. Safe to say, I had a Hard Day. When you are disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill, Hard Days are inevitable. They are simply part of the job. It felt like everything came together yesterday, all conspiring against me. I had missed the much-anticipated event, panicked and cried in public (again, sigh) and to top it all off, extreme fatigue unexpectedly hit me. I didn't have my walker with me, and the fatigue was so extreme that my mum had to help me to stand and walk. My legs wobbled like a newborn foal, all my co-ordination lost.

Yesterday was definitely a Hard Day. And I make sure to acknowledge the Hard Days. Things can absolutely suck sometimes when you're disabled. It's important to acknowledge the suck. And yesterday sucked. Suck suckity suck sucked. But, it is also important on the Hard Days, to lean into compassion. Self compassion.

Self compassion: to treat oneself with the same kindness and understanding that one would offer to a friend.

My Hard Day was a combination of not great luck, bad luck, and even worse luck. I did not cause the Hard Day. I accepted that. There was no point in dwelling on self-critisicm, on overanalysing all of the steps that led me to this Hard Day. The only thing I could do was adapt, to make do with the cards I had been dealt. Sure, there were many bad cards in that deck - fatigue, overwhelm, mixing up the dates. But there was also one key good card - I was out with my mum, and we had the afternoon to spend just the two of us. Maybe it wasn't the afternoon we had originally planned, but there were still enjoyable things to be done - books to buy, coffees to drink, and lovely company to share.

Hard Days are inevitable. They are part of the job. Part of the deck I've been dealt. But Hard Days can still become better days. You just need a bit of self compassion.

Self compassion: to treat oneself with the same kindness and understanding that one would offer to a friend.

Three photos. On the far left, a photo of Saffron's skirt from a birds-eye view as she sits on the green seat in a bookstore. The centre photo depicts two books in the frame - "Eleanor Jones Can't Keep a Secret" and "Eleanor Jones is Playing With Fire", both by Amy Doak. The photo on the far right is a selfie of Saffron wearing a forelorn expression.