Falling Well
Yesterday was bumpy.
I thought I heard a rattle in one of the bird cages. Cath didn’t hear it the way I did. A little later, she went downstairs, and I heard her say, “Oh… you were right.” I briefly considered adding that sentence to my calendar. Recurring. Annual reminder.
Butter (kākāriki) had tangled her foot in one of her toys and was hanging upside down. Weirdly calm. No panic. No noise. Just… stuck.
Cath jumped in right away to help her. She called me for help, and I tried to move as fast as I could from the second story. Note: I don’t move fast anymore. It’s a sloppy medium at best. Thanks, hEDS. Rubber-band joints make me more like Stretch Armstrong than Superman.
She asked me to grab Lily, a hyper, curious, two-year-old cockapoo, while she tried to free Butter. Would you believe we never rehearsed this?
The layout worked against us. Lily was trying to get close. A big chair was behind Cath. Butter’s cage was in front of her. There wasn’t a clean path for anyone to move without becoming part of the problem.
At some point, Lily darted in front, and I moved fast. Faster than I should have. I bent down to grab her, lost my balance, and fell backward.
I fell well.
That part matters.
Without thinking, I turned about forty-five degrees to my right, rolled across my thigh and up my side, and tucked my head so I wouldn’t hit it. I curled in such a way that my body automatically rocked forward again, trying to help me get back up.
Pure body memory. Habit. Years of martial arts training quietly kicked in with a skill I hadn’t practiced in 10 years. The last time was when I showed my son how to do it during his martial arts special interest phase.
My first impulse was to pop back up and keep going. Not because it was wise, but because a part of me had already decided I was going to do whatever was needed to help Cath and Butter. That part of me is loyal. Brave. And occasionally not great at consulting my joints first. I struggled to get on my feet.
Cath told me to stay down.
And then something interesting happened.
Lily came to me. No chasing. No wrestling. She came over as if she wanted to see if I was okay. I held onto her while Cath continued working, and Butter was freed.
Mission accomplished, just not the way I pictured it.
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Afterward, I quietly went upstairs to lie down. I was upset, almost angry, and I took time to process, so I didn’t turn my experience into a story about how I failed or how I should be different than I am.
What I landed on was this: I wasn’t angry at anyone. I was angry at the situation. It was unique and fast. No clear instructions. Competing priorities. A small animal in danger, a dog reacting, two people trying to coordinate in a cramped space, and a body with limits that doesn’t care about urgency.
That kind of moment is hard for a lot of AuDHD adults. When there’s no obvious “right move,” effort becomes the default. You don’t slow down to plan, you speed up to solve.
Lying in bed, I focused on breathing. On noticing soreness without tensing against it. I didn’t want to pile on a second injury by adding a shame story: this sucked, I sucked, how embarrassing, how wrong it was to expect anything of myself.
Not because it didn’t hurt, but because shame never makes pain easier to carry.
The lesson I took from it was simple and specific.
Get onto the floor. Call Lily over. Eliminate the risk of falling before anything else.
Sometimes “falling well” is less about how you hit the ground, and more about what you do once you’re there.
Thanks for being you,
Brian
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