this was originally published on february 5, 2026 as a video on my youtube channel. see video below.
over the holidays, i got run over by a combination of severe sinusitis and really bad back pain.
it’s made me feel incredibly fragile.
it triggered my biggest fear for this project, which is that my body won’t be strong enough to handle everything that i throw at it.
i’m finally realizing that i just can’t take the abuse that i used to put myself through. but my adhd brain hasn’t caught up yet.
when i was young, it wasn’t that much of a problem, but now it’s really starting to be one. when the adhd hyperfocus hits, i feel totally invincible. i don’t feel anything that’s happening in my body.
i’ll throw myself into a project and time will just go by and i will not eat and i will not drink and i won’t pee… i won’t feel anything.
and then i’ll come out of that hyperfocus and i’ll be like, “oh, my body hurts. i haven’t moved in so long.”
sometimes if i’ve ignored the “check engine” lights that my body throws at me long enough, my body ends up shuting down, whether that means i get sick or i injure myself or i burn out psychologically.
and this is not a random anxiety that i have. this has happened before. i have a track record of doing this to myself.
the last big shut down was a few years before covid.
i’d gotten deep into this environmental cause, i wanted to grow my own food and have a homestead… so we moved out of the city, we bought a house in the middle of nowhere, and i decided that i wanted to be a homesteader.
and it wasn’t like a little gardening. i had chickens and goats and fruit trees and i was milking and i was making cheese and i was bushwhacking in the forest so i could fence the goats in. and i totally ignored my body’s limits.
i’d been a pretty sedentary city girl up until then. after a while, i got a disc injury and we eventually had to move back into the city and overhaul our entire lifestyle just so that i could heal and undo the damage that i’d done to myself.
at the beginning of this music project, i did it again.
i was totally into learning guitar and i was practicing not 10 minutes a day, not half an hour a day, but like hours each day.
because that’s what i do. i get into something and i do it for hours every day.
the progress i was seeing was really good, so it was motivating me, but my body was not happy about it. i ended up getting tendonitis on my elbow and then on my wrist.
i had to stop playing guitar.
to this day, i still can’t play the guitar, which is quite sad because i loved it.
(this sad story does have a silver lining though. now i’m playing drums and i am very much enjoying it. i’m being careful this time, hopefully this time it will last.)
anyway, now i have this fear around my voice.
when the sinusitis hit, i could hardly talk. my vocal cords were really swollen and i couldn’t sing at all. it took me maybe three or four weeks before i could sing properly, and even then, my voice still feels fragile today.
i have this nightmare that i’ve built this beautiful project around this music and that it’s starting to work out, that people are listening, but that i can’t sing these songs anymore. that would be the most awful thing to happen.
some days i’m really whiny about it.
i’m like, “waaa, i wish i were younger. i wish i were stronger. look at all those young people playing guitar for hours.”
but most days (when i’m well-rested, at least) i’m more accepting of these limits. i have to accept that i can’t do everything. i can’t ignore my body for so long and expect it to work well.
so i’ve been working on doing the work that i need to do to keep my voice and to stay in shape vocally, but also physically and mentally getting the rest that i need. like last week, for example, we had a rehearsal planned and i was still healing from the sinusitis. i didn’t want to look stupid in front of the other band members. i wanted to sing really well because that’s what i like to do and i don’t like to look weak.
but i was like, “okay, what’s the point of singing well today if in a year from now you can’t sing at all?”
so i forced myself to warm up really well.
(i always feel so stupid doing those warm-up exercises in front of everybody. “neigh neigh neigh!” i look like a madwoman, but i did them!)
and then i sang really badly the whole rehearsal. i told them, “i can’t sing well. i can’t force my voice today, otherwise i might hurt myself.” and they were really understanding and really nice about it.
i’m always afraid of what people are going to say, but the real issue is generally me.
i’m the one not accepting my weaknesses, everybody around me is okay with them.
it’s made me reflect on all the other things that i can’t do.
for example, i can’t headbang. i was at this concert the other day where these young guys were playing really well on stage and they were moving their heads fairly violently and playing guitar at the same time. i immediately thought, “i can’t do that.” and felt really bad. but then i was like, “okay, i have other things that i can bring to the table.” i mean, sure, maybe i can train to headbang. (not sure, maybe. i’ll ask my physical therapist next time i see him.) but in the meantime, i have to be reasonable.
and it’s hard. it’s really hard.
so that’s what i’m working on these days: being okay with reality.
(which sounds stupid when i say it like that. it’s important to be okay with reality. duh.)
i’m working on being okay that if i’m not jumping on stage, it’s okay.
i’m accepting that i have to take care of my body and that taking care of my body and my voice is not being weak, it’s being reasonable. it’s just me being proactive so that i can do this as long as i want to. it’s actually giving myself a gift; it’s giving my future self a gift.
i’m working on treating my voice like an instrument that i have to care for and not just, you know, throw around any which way. it’s not ridiculous or stupid that i do that, but it’s actually the only proper way to do it. i’m pretty sure opera singers don’t just sing with no warm-up.
also, i’m working on accepting my adhd with a little more kindness. i was only diagnosed recently and i’m starting to figure out that i have good days and bad days. i’m being more accepting of the fact that some days i’ll just pour out like three songs in one day and then the next day i have to spend most of the day in bed because i’m exhausted and i have no motivation to do anything. and that’s just how it is.
i’m a work in progress. (aren’t we all?)