Mac & Please is a blog about macaroni and cheese. Why? The short version is: no reason. The long version can be found in my first post, here, but it essentially amounts to “no reason.” Does there really have to be a why when it comes to mac & cheese, though?
Anyway, I’m Kristen, and I love mac & cheese. I am a queer, chronically ill/disabled, neurodivergent writer, artist, and cat lady. I write some books that have nothing to do with mac & cheese. I currently own no fewer than 19 web domains for projects that I am doing or might potentially do someday (cf. neurodivergent). I like crafts, tarot, medical marijuana, hot sauce, walking around my apartment in the dark, pictures of space, weird small museums, true crime shows, crossword puzzles, videos of baked goods rising in the oven, iced coffee, and Fiona Apple. I don’t like cilantro, pointless social conventions, alarm clocks, unexpectedly encountering photos of snakes on the internet, voicemails, Red Bull, ableism, or jump scares.
In 2022, I was diagnosed with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH), a serious, progressive, chronic lung and heart condition that changed my life in countless ways. Aside from the physical stuff (ie, nearly dying; needing to be on oxygen 24/7; taking 16+ pills per day plus having a life-sustaining–aka ambulatory life support–medication infusion pump permanently attached to my body), this sudden and dramatic alteration in the way I thought my life would go also had the super-unexpected effect of rendering me incapable of functioning on an emotional and mental level. I’ve been in therapy since I was 25 years old and got labels like anxiety! depression! OCD tendencies! giftedness! etc, none of which ever entirely, solely fit, but all the while I’d been white-knuckling through life despite massive social and communication difficulties, sensory overwhelm, mood swings, inability to focus alternating with extreme periods of hyperfocus, extreme “disconnection” from my body and its needs, etc. For years, I was just telling myself to suck it up and get over it (and then inevitably needing to lie quietly in a dark room for an hour after something as seemingly minor as grocery shopping). After my PAH diagnosis, though, I couldn’t do that anymore. It was like a switch flipped in my brain. After some self-inquiry, internet research, listening to about a zillion podcasts, and–most importantly–finding a new therapist, I came to the conclusion, and eventual diagnosis at age 39, that I’m autistic with ADHD and cPTSD.
All of that is to say, in the space of about a year and a half, I’ve had to radically reframe my entire life, and it has been very illuminating, to say the least. I am still learning about autism and ADHD, and PAH as well, so I’m not an expert other than in my own experience, but what I’ve learned already is pretty wild. My brain finally makes sense to me, and identifying ways to accommodate myself mentally and physically–something I used to do exactly never–is now something that I am trying to take great care to do. That includes things like reorganizing my refrigerator so that all perishables are stored in the door where I can see them, allowing myself to rest when I need to, stimming, saying no to things I don’t want to do but also saying yes to things I was always hesitant to do for fear of outing myself as some kind of weirdo. (Everyone knew anyway, is the funny part.) Finally, I am getting to know my actual self, rather than pretending to be a collection of selves that I thought I was supposed to be. Life is short. Start the mac & cheese blog. I think that’s how the saying goes?
Much more to come.