T Clearwater has their say … finally! I mean Māēhnow-Pemātesenon Yōhpeh, Pōsōh is having their say.
Clearwater is a student at Madison College in the School of Journalism. Their affiliation is Menominee.
Natives are some of the most discriminated against groups in America with the Ho-chunk (Hochungra, Winneabago) being the only tribe in Wisconsin with no reserved land. No land for themselves. Plaques and declarations that open many meetings is it for them.
Knowing they have no land to call home on what was once the only place you knew as home is a constant for Clearwater. Many people just like them struggle with mental health, with the root cause being historical trauma.
“I don’t correlate it specifically to my Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), although it’s definitely intertwined,” Clearwater said. So, it isn’t at all surprising that Clearwater has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), they added.
“Part of the reason my schedule is so booked out is because my ADHD has been a menace lately and I keep zoning out/disassociating or hyper fixating on other things when I need to be doing schoolwork,” wrote Clearwater in an email.
Clearwater later continued, writing “ADHD is something that can be triggered by stress.” Clearwater’s current diagnosis is now dual, with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) added.
These illnesses also compound especially when interacting with others who are typically not knowledgeable about it.
“People don’t have patience with me nor really ever have and don’t understand that sometimes my brain doesn’t filter out inside and outside thoughts,” Clearwater said.
For example, as Clearwater is processing things, sometimes negative or subconscious associations happen. Clearwater has trained themselves to “not stay in my head,” but this is often exasperated by stress or being distressed. It is exhausting.
ADHD can make PTSD or C-PTSD worse. ADHD fluctuates.
“The best way I can usually explain it is like when a pipe or tube slowly gets clogged and then something causes it to release and we have a flood of dopamine. We get really energized,” said Clearwater, who calls this “the zoomies.”
Dopamine is a chemical in all of our bodies that makes us generally feel good. The water released can be murky or clear, as in clear thinking or random thoughts strung together.
“Both conditions can make you dissociate, and that happened to me during my exam,” Clearwater said. When depressed, ruminations happen on negative things or associations. More can be learned on this from a Psychiatry.org article, “Rumination: A Cycle of Negative Thinking.”