Still In It

I haven’t posted in a while.

Not because nothing has been happening — if anything, too much has been happening, and none of it has made me feel anything in particular. Which is its own kind of unsettling when you’re someone whose feelings usually show up first and ask questions later.

Lately though? Quiet. Not the peace-that-surpasses-all-understanding kind of quiet. Just... quiet.

I’ve been trying to figure out if that’s growth or avoidance. If I’m finally getting better at not letting every emotion commandeer my entire day, or if I’m just not home…grounded right now. Dissociation feels dramatic. But so does pretending I’m fine when I genuinely cannot tell you how I feel about anything that isn’t on my immediate to-do list — which, for the record, requires approximately one million dollars and three extra lifetimes to complete.

So that’s where I am.Emotionally flat.Spiritually held.Physically in motion.

Let me explain that last part…

I signed up to walk 100 miles in April.

It’s a fundraising challenge for the American Cancer Society. 100 miles in 30 days. On purpose, with full knowledge that I have Polycythemia Vera, chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, chronic migraines, and ADHD — a condition that has a deeply complicated relationship with the words “commitment,” “routine,” and “doing the same thing every day for a month.”

I don’t even know what possessed me to commit to this. I saw the challenge, something in me said yes, and I clicked before I could talk myself out of it. Which is honestly the most ADHD way to start a journey that requires sustained daily discipline.

Day 1 is done, though. 3.15 miles. Weight vest on. Fasted. Average heart rate 147 BPM because my body wanted to make sure I knew it had opinions about not consulting it first.

96.85 miles to go.

The same week I signed up for this, I tried ADHD medication for the first time.

My new psychiatrist recommended starting with a non-stimulant — Atomoxetine — which felt reasonable. I wasn’t expecting miracles. I wasn’t even expecting to feel much of anything right away. I just wanted to stop losing time. That’s the thing about ADHD that people don’t always understand — it’s not just distraction. It’s time. Whole hours. Whole days. Gone. And I am so tired of losing time.

So I took it.

And then I slept for 48 hours.

I woke up more exhausted than when I started, frustrated in a way that felt almost funny if it weren’t so not funny at all. I’m trying to get time back, and the solution knocked me out for two days. I don’t have time for that. Literally. I have 100 miles to walk, rent money to make, TV to watch…and still need to find time to meet my husband.

But here’s where it got really interesting.

While I was coming back to consciousness and doing what any reasonable chronically ill person does — frantically researching the medication I just put in my body — I found something that stopped me cold.

There’s a potential drug interaction between Atomoxetine and one of the medications I’m already taking.

And the doctor didn’t mention it.

I don’t know if it was an oversight. I don’t know if she weighed the risk and decided it wasn’t serious enough to flag. What I do know is that I was lying in bed, two days post-knockout, finding out about a possible interaction on my own. That feeling — the “I have to be my own advocate even when I’m barely conscious” feeling — is one I know too well.

It’s actually why I built something.

A few days ago, in the moment of frustrated clarity that I can only describe as vibe coding with a purpose, I built a web app for the Ill Boss community. It’s called My Health Advocate™ — and one of the things it does is run your medication list through an AI model to flag potential drug interactions. The kind of thing that should happen at the pharmacy, at the doctor’s office, somewhere in the system — but often doesn’t.

I’m hoping to make it available to the full community this summer. Because if I’m going through this, I know I’m not the only one.

All of this — the miles, the meds, the app, the emotional flatness — is running on the same fuel right now.

The Spillhouse Vol. 2 album has been on repeat for weeks. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s getting me through. There are songs on that project that remind me, in the way only music can, that God hasn’t left. That the uncertainty I’m sitting in isn’t the same as being abandoned in it. That He has a plan even when I genuinely cannot see the shape of it from where I’m standing.

That promise doesn’t make the to-do list shorter. It doesn’t fix the medication situation or hand me a working dopamine system. But it keeps me in the game. On the hamster wheel of entrepreneurship and adulting and chronic illness management — which is a wheel I chose, mostly, and one I want to keep spinning because I believe there’s something on the other side worth spinning toward.

I want to see His plan through. Even on the days I can’t feel it.

So here’s the full circle moment I’ve been working toward:

I committed to something that requires routine and discipline — two things my brain has fought me on my entire life. I did it in the same season I’m trying to rewire my brain/body chemistry. In the same season I’m emotionally quieter than usual and can’t fully tell you why.

And I’m doing it anyway.

Not because I feel ready. Not because everything is lined up. But because somewhere in me, underneath the blaaahhh and the fatigue and the 48-hour pharmaceutical nap, there is still something that says yes when it sees a hard thing worth doing.

I think that’s the faith part. The part that moves before the feelings catch up.

Still in progress…

All Is Well,— Ashlee

Follow the 100 miles journey at @shopillboss on Instagram, TikTok, and Threads. If you want to donate to the American Cancer Society in my name: gofund.me/01d35e697

If you enjoyed this or any other post, feel free to fuel my fire by buying me a coffee. Any contributions are more than appreciated.