Hypermobility

Long story short.

Oh, I love the fantasy of the "long story short" right there for me, an ADHDer.

But I'll try.

Last year, I laid on a surgery table, unresponsive, in hypertensive crisis.

I was not responding to medical intervention.

It was terrifying. I laid there for some time with my hand up in the air trying to communicate to someone that I was in incredible pain and something was not right, but I had no words and was going in and out of consciousness.

I slipped into an unresponsive state and I remember actually thinking that was the moment I was about to move through into the next stage of life (not a huge believer in spiritual death, but also agnostic).

Thankfully I pulled through. I had a life saving surgery after one hell of a dodgy year and am here to half tell the stories.

Anyway, since then a significant amount of weight has shifted from my body (this is not a diet culture, celebratory "I weigh less" post at all), and I'm now uncovering a whole host of realisations about other co-occurring conditions related to being neurodivergent.

Hypermobility.

Oof.

I had forgotten.

When a person realises or is diagnosed autistic, or ADHD, etc, there is this lifelong process of coming home, remembering, unlearning, etc.

This has been the same for me physically as I come home to my healthier self.

Well, I want to say healthier self, but life has actually become slightly more challenging with weight loss if I'm honest.

The pain, the subluxing, the twisting and bending and slipping and crunching and locking, the popping and cracking..

I had forgotten about all of this.

Growing up, I constantly had my joints and muscles popping out, I was constantly in pain with joint issues.

I mean chronic, endless pain.

I ignored it, not knowing what it was and just thinking it was my fate (with soooo many other things ND)..

I would sleep on the floor, not be able to move from my neck or ribs or a thousand other areas of my body being 'out' and there was nothing I could do but wait for it to magically pop back in somehow.

It was absolute misery.

Over the years, as I gained weight, the fat on my body cushioned and helped these issues, believe it or not.

I didn't have to experience it as much, and I actually had come to forget how awful it had been.

And here I am today, remembering!

Anyone else experiencing hypermobility, or Ehlers Danlos, etc and have any tips?

- KF x

Image credit: milos-kreckovic and is an XRay image of a subluxed shoulder, something that plagues me the most. My shoulders!