Some mornings I'll wake up and already know how my day is going to play out. Before I've even checked the time to make sure my dogs haven't woken up too early for breakfast, I can tell my bucket is already close to overflowing. I've come to expect it, but not necessarily because I'd done something to cause the fullness the day before. Sometimes, it just fills up on its own for no real reason. I find myself often trying to figure it out in the few hours I've given myself every morning to get my shit together before the rest of the world wakes up.

I have multiple chronic illnesses, which I'm becoming more and more suspicious are the result of the decades of unknowingly also having ADHD. This means my body and brain are both working against me at all times. Sometimes, they like to surprise me with entirely new forms of suffering I didn't know were possible, but for the most part, I know what to expect. Those expectations are rarely ever good though. I am always struggling. With fatigue, with pain, with dysautonomia, with executive dysfunction, with emotional dysregulation. It's always there in some capacity.

From my understanding, most people start a regular day with a reasonably empty bucket. They'll definitely have some remaining load from the previous day: the general stresses of life, maybe some physical pain from exercise, and the condensation of lingering issues they've recently worked through. I'm not suggesting no one else has problems, but they do have a bucket that gets emptied as they sleep, making room for everything they have to handle the next day. I do not.

When the small and normally insignificant daily life things start happening to me and my bucket is already filled with everything that comes along with chronic illness and neurological difference, those small things have nowhere to go. They end up in a puddle on the floor. Everyone else who couldn't see how full my bucket was assumes I've just gone and kicked it over on purpose. Even people who know about my constantly full bucket act surprised when they get splashed.

They only ever see the spill. They have no idea how I'd already been carefully managing what goes into the bucket to avoid the spill. They also don't understand that the spill rarely ever creates room either. I have to spend energy I don't really have mopping it all back into the bucket, putting me close to overflowing again. I can put up signs about wet floors and everything, but it changes nothing about the capacity of my bucket.

As they say in my home country of New Zealand: bucket's fucked, cunt.

I'm not sharing this so you'll feel sorry for me. That's not my intention behind this rant. I'm telling you because I want to publicly reframe it for accountability purposes. Even on those days I know my bucket is even closer to overflow than usual, I still get up. I still make an attempt to be productive in whatever small way I can manage that day. Even if no one else can appreciate the effort involved in doing this and the risk it poses, I'm still here carrying my bucket, spills and all.

I want to be proud of that. I AM proud of that. You can't take that away from me and my fucked bucket.