ADHD · fitness · health · injury

A frustrating mystery solved (I think)

Christine Hennebury

Grab a cup of tea and a snack, this post will be long.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here and there on the blog but I’ve been having extra trouble doing things for a while now.

Everything has been just a little harder. I’ve struggled to start things, I’ve struggled to finish things and there have been some tasks that just felt impossible – tasks that would normally be well within my capacity.

Unfortunately, because of the stress of the past few years and because of how ADHD categories things for me, I didn’t realize how much this was happening.

I’ve been struggling with exercise, including Taekwon-do. I’ve been struggling with writing projects and other creative activities. And I have had trouble summoning the energy to do good planning for a lot of different areas of my life.

I had put this all down to various kinds of stress, ambient stress, grief, and the kind of work-juggling stress that comes from a combination of ADHD and having taken on a few too many projects.

Oh, and, of course, the kind of stress that comes from feeling like you have been making too many excuses about too many things for far too long (even though there have been SO MANY OBSTACLES one after the other.)

Recently, though, I have discovered that there may be an underlying cause contributing to my frustrations over the past six months.

I tried to write a post about it several times in the past week, but I couldn’t pull my thoughts together the way I needed to.

So yesterday, on World Creativity and Innovation Day I decided to take a different approach and I made a zine instead.

I actually thought doing a zine would be quicker but as I wrote page 20, I realized that there was no way to make this story short.

I have photos of each page of my zine below and I’ll put a image description with each one, but if that’s all too long to read scroll way down to the bottom and I’ll put a summary of the whole thing.

Got your tea?

Let’s go!

a photo of a zine page
A photo of the cover of a black-and-white zine called Well This Is Frustrating – a scene about an unexpected answer to a mystery by Christine Hennebury
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with the following text “When you have muscle pain and stress and anxiety and brain fog and extra migraines and low energy and it keeps getting harder and harder to start stuff and to keep doing stuff or to even think about starting or doing stuff” Some of these words have been sort of illustrated. The word brain is huge. The word fog is made in sort of wiggly letters that kind of look like fog and next to extra migraines there is a picture of a person’s head in a vise. There was a black arrow after the word stuff.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with a drawing of a confused looking robot next to text that reads “it can be really tricky to figure out why?”  Why is written in block letters and running vertically on the page instead of horizontally.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that features a pill bottle with eyes and a frown, and the word Concerta printed across its middle and it has its little arms crossed. A speech balloon next to it says This isn’t my fault. The text on the page reads “First I wondered ‘Are my ADHD meds failing me?’ That would explain the stress and anxiety and brain fog and the low energy and the trouble getting started…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads: “but it doesn’t explain why a few minutes of exercise feels like an hour. And it doesn’t explain the muscle pain, especially in my neck and shoulders, and usually my ADHD fights me on getting started, it doesn’t usually prevent me from carrying on, so maybe it’s…” in brackets at the bottom of the page more text reads “I’m 52. Can you guess what is on the next page?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “perimenopause” in big letters and right underneath it says “or even full on menopause?” On the bottom left is a black-and-white witch’s cauldron with bubbles and steam rising from it, and the cauldron is labeled “(peri)menopause may contain brain fog, anxiety, muscle aches, mood issues, low energy, and more!” Next to the caldron is text that reads “I thought: OK maybe but it doesn’t exactly fit. It doesn’t feel quite right.”
a photo of a zine page
Black-and-white text that reads “You know what? The worst of it wasn’t even the symptoms. It was how I had been gradually (and unbeknownst to me) narrowing my life to deal with them.” At the bottom of the page are four speech balloons: 1st speech balloon says – I don’t want to write about that. It takes too much energy. 2nd speech balloon says – Maybe I’ll feel up to that next week. 3rd speech balloon – OK Khalee, maybe we’ll take a shorter walk today. 4th speech balloon – I don’t know if I’ll go. I feel tired just thinking about it.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading: “I adjusted my meds. I got lots of rest. I reduced my stress as much as possible. I tried taking teeny steps toward more exercise, but still, I found myself here”  There’s an arrow from the word here that is pointing to a drawing of the top of a person‘s head underneath a stack of boxes that read 1) I just cannot  2) task initiation issues 3) lack of motivation 4)  fatigue 5) muscle aches 6) nope 7)  brain fog. The person is saying ‘Glerg’ to all of this.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “and this all seems like part and parcel of the same big problem from this perspective. But when it was developing, and when I was living it, it kind of snuck up on me. Each piece seemed like a separate issue.” The word big is written in much larger and darker text. And the word separate has each letter in a box sort of like scrabble tiles laid next to each other.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “I talked to my doctor about some of it, and I did some research on my own about other stuff and I kept meaning to call my chiropractor, but I kept forgetting.” The word Dr is wearing a stethoscope. There is a picture of a computer and some books next to the research sentence, and at the bottom of the page is a drawing of a person with their face enveloped in a cloud that says brain fog and there’s a speech balloon that says “what was I going to do?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads  “But then an idea arrived from an unexpected source. Last time I was at the hairdresser, she mentioned that my scalp was hard as a rock. I said.  ‘Must be stress, I guess’ but it made me think if my scalp is so tight, what else is not working right?” And in brackets at the bottom, it says “good question hey?”  On the upper left on the page there’s a very rough drawing of a hairdresser washing someone’s hair and there’s a note beneath that says “Please note that Hillary is not a ragamuffin. I don’t have the skills to draw her well.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that says “and then I started having trouble with my neck. A knot on the right side kept recurring so I called a massage therapist. I mean, this was a specific issue that could be treated in a specific way. This was what is known in the field as a good idea.” In the middle of this page is a small drawing of a person‘s chin, mouth, and neck and there’s a large black spot on the right side of the neck.  Notes next to the picture read “a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile”, and “in real life, I have hair and features.” At the bottom right of the page next to the word good idea is a light bulb.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that says, “and it was a good idea. During my massage, Renee said something like “You know, you have the tightest neck. One of the tightest I’ve ever massaged.  My other clients with this tight of a neck have a constant headache.” At the bottom of the page in darker letters is text reading “Wait! Could a tight neck be part of the big problem?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with dark text that reads: “I asked her some questions and then did some research about the checklist of things she mentioned.” In the middle of the page (enclosed in a box) is a checklist that reads “tight neck, tight shoulders, ribs tight enough to restrict breathing, tight jaw” and each item is checked off. Beneath the checklist is text reading “and yep! All of those things can add up to brain fog, fatigue, mood issues, lack of motivation, low energy and increased migraine/headaches/muscle aches…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with large text at the top that reads “Maybe it’s ADHD….Maybe it’s menopause…Or maybe it’s neck and back related?” Smaller text below reads “That certainly would explain a lot. Sure, ADHD. perimenopause, and stress could be doing their part but maybe, just maybe, the underlying issue was more directly treatable? I love this for me. I mean it’s still a challenge, but it’s way more straightforward.”

a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with large takes to the top that says “But wait! There’s more!” And then smaller text reads. “I was telling all this to my friend Cathy via text when she asked a key question.” In a Speech balloon is the text “So it’s all due to stress? You didn’t have an injury did you?” In larger text it reads “I went to say all stress and then I remembered one afternoon last October…”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black and white zine page with text reading: “I was lying in my circle swing in the backyard when CRACK the branch it was hanging on broke and down came baby (Me!) cradle (i.e. swing) and all. The branch landed on my hands and I landed on the ground.” The word crack is printed in big letters and there’s a crack running through each one – a little space between the top and the bottom of each letter. At the bottom of the page is a very rough drawing of what supposed to be a circle swing on the ground with me lying on it, holding a branch aloft.
a photo of a zine page
A black-and-white photo of text reading “I was shocked and I hurt, but not ‘specific injury’ and not ‘something’s broken’ hurt. It was more of a jangled nerves and ‘I feel jammed together’ situation. I checked for symptoms of concussion, but you know what I did didn’t check for?”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with a whip drawn at the top and the word WHIPLASH in large black letters. Smaller text reads “Now, I haven’t seen my doctor yet but can you guess what happens when you don’t treat whiplash right away? Yep, brain fog, breathing issues, muscle pain, anxiety, mood issues, low energy, motivation, troubles, headaches.” Text in brackets at the bottom reads: “You get the idea.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page that reads “And you know what else happened a while ago? I fell on the steps and kind of caught myself. So I definitely added to the whiplash or whatever happened as the result of my fall.” Larger text at the bottom reads “And the effects of those two unpleasant but largely unremarkable incidents have been compounding for months.” Note: The words “I fell on the steps” are written as if they are a set of steps with a landing in the center.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white zine page with text reading “All of the yoga, all of the stretching, all of the bits and pieces of exercises? I couldn’t actually make progress with them, couldn’t get them to a new level. All of that effort was actually going towards keeping things from getting worse.” The word progress and the word level are written larger than everything else on the page for emphasis.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of a black-and-white page with text reading “And I had no idea. Yes, I knew about my frustration. I knew about my symptoms, but I couldn’t see the big picture.” The word frustration and the word symptoms are both written larger than the surrounding text and the words big picture are written very large and much darker than the other text and they’re surrounded by a rectangle almost like a picture frame.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that reads “I didn’t realize that I had been limiting myself avoiding things that aggravated my injuries. I noticed that I ‘wasn’t trying hard enough’ and I was fighting the urge to be critical of myself about it.” All of that text is in large black letters, not capitals, but with emphasis. At the bottom of the page there is some text in lighter strokes that is in brackets and it reads” ‘You aren’t trying hard enough’ was my unmedicated brain’s favourite refrain. It still hurts to think it.”
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that reads: “And now I’m realizing that there was an underlying issue, something causing all the symptoms, something preventing me from trying hard enough. It reminds me of when I first found out I have ADHD I feel both sad (for the lost time) and hopeful for the future, but I have a question that haunts me.
a photo of a zine page
A photo of black-and-white text that is all in dark, emphasized letters: “What would’ve happened to me, to my life, to my ability to do the things I like doing, if I hadn’t figured this out?”

So, yeah, that’s where I am right now – trying to be kind to myself, trying not to aggravate my injury further, trying to stretch and rest, and working with my massage therapist (yay, Renee!) to help my neck, shoulders, and upper body figure out how to relax again.

Summary: After months of having a rough time with my physical and mental health, a visit to a massage therapist helped me realize that I may have injured myself more than I realized when I fell in October and then fell again back in January. I may have been dealing with untreated whiplash that has just been compounding over time. Whether or not it’s whiplash, I have been dealing with ongoing neck, shoulder, upper back and rib issues that have actually been physically preventing me from operating in my usual way and at my usual capacity. And I feel rather sad and frustrated about how long it took me to figure out what was going on.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

5 thoughts on “A frustrating mystery solved (I think)”

  1. Just knowing what “it” is after all this time sounds like it could start to unknot your neck and back! Sending healing thoughts to your neck and back. And all that is in their orbit.

  2. Wow. Congratulations on figuring it out. I bet you’ll be back in a comfortable place soon. Your ‘Zine is very impressive. I got through it easily and quickly. And came out very impressed.

  3. Great story albeit a painful one. I like the Zine format! I had whiplash once when I fell face first into a wheel barrel (I fall in the weirdest ways). Took weeks to recover. My chiropractor helped realign me so the massages were more effective. Best to you!

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