Stardardly, any piece of writing that includes continuation in the title, would be a follow on from a previous article, but this one cannot be. It cannot be, because self-awareness came after – but before pressing publish on the first article, and with new insight, came a different ending to the piece, and I just couldn’t change the last one in the way that I wanted to, that allowed full respect for everyone involved, including myself. Heavy start done, now to what happened, and I will bring some of the details from the previous unpublished article into this one.
There was 10 days – I know, right – just 10 days, between meeting a pleasant human being that I purchased a musical instrument from (my child wanted, and of course, I made happen), and when I penned the first words to get the rattling thoughts out of my head. There’s no secret that I’m autistic, but flippen hell, it would have been nice to get notification as to how my neurodiverse brain was going to process those 10 days. But for me, this was the beginning of a journey, in what I suspect, and now hopeful for, will become my journey to fall in love with me. But right here lies the problem.
I have referenced a journey, but to be honest, I’m not good at journeys. I don’t like surprises either. I’m so much better if I know the end result. In the irrefutable words of a very wise human, I like to “future-proof”. This applies to potential friendships, my cooking with a thermomix, my health, my child, situations, my death – you get the picture. This need to know the end, the direction, what’s likely to happen, is so inherent in EVERY thought and behaviour, that it literally creates one of the many conditions I have been diagnosed with – Generalised Anxiety Disorder. And as I read the paragraph from the original post, it started with “The full story hasn’t been written yet, and it’s definitely not the end … “, it’s actually comedic how definitive it was. But sadly, it also set up 10 days of unfortunately, unhealthy behaviours from me to another person, and a couple of weeks of borderline toxic thinking.
But for a topic about falling in love with me, self respect, self awareness, seems a little discordant to be talking about my toxic thinking – how did it get here?
The issue that became glaringly obvious to my delightfully overthinking brain, when I realised that big emotions might possibly put a crack in my cold impenetrable heart, is that I actually have no skills in this area. And this is where it got dark and heavy – I actually had gotten so used to future-proofing interactions with any humans, I didn’t stop to allow the other person to show me who they were – I projected onto them who I needed them to be. This feels safe for me. There’s no unpredictability. I know how it’s going to turn out. I know, and can take time to investigate what emotions are likely. I don’t have to be grounded in the now, because dammit, who really likes that slow and steady journey of self care and knowledge?! (Shhh … don’t answer yet!)
From the original post:
But this journey started way more than 10 days ago – this has been the journey of a lifetime. See, growing up, I wasn’t the child that knew myself. I was however, the child that became exceptional at masking who I was and what I thought and felt, so that I fit into this neurotypical world. Second oldest of 5 kids, in a pretty shitty family dynamic, with a physically, psychologically and sexually abusive father, and a disabled uncle that lived with us that was also sexually abusive, a scarily schizophrenic uncle that also smoked heavily and my Mum, that tolerated it all, but was unable to protect us.
While it’s not a trauma I hide, and the perpetrator has since passed away, the sexual abuse of me when I was 15 years old, 30 years before receiving my Autism diagnosis, has had, in the simplest of terms, the most significant impact on my lifetime mental well-being and ultimate view of myself.
But then there is also the world view of “2 failed marriages”, 10 years in a church cult, a survivor of domestic violence and single parent with multiple disabilities – which all sounds a bit dramatic, right? It is. However, thanks to one persons vulnerability, and some exceptional writing by an amazing author (and possibly my need to always be learning more), I may have stumbled on a new thought – DESPITE all of this ‘baggage’, I still have every right to love and be loved. (And don’t even bother with the DUH! – I know it’s basic – but it’s still a new concept for me!)
3 years ago, I read a book that gave me permission to re-evaluate my friendships every month, and boot out the toxic ones. While one of my dear friends still laughs at how clinical this is (and let’s be honest, autistic), it really does serve me well in seeing unhealthy patterns of behaviour. What it doesn’t do however, is open up opportunities to let new people into my world.”
More often than not, along with our Neuro-Diversity Diagnosis, we get given the encouragement that we have a ‘superpower’ (I’ve always suspected that this is because to get diagnosis in the first place, it’s based on a deficiency model). My superpower would have to be the capacity to over-think! Ok – call it reflective or critical thinking, if you need to, however one of the reactions to the childhood trauma, and then the domestic violence, was to create safe systems. As more recent research has shown, other increasing responses to early life trauma is emotional dysregulation and Alexithymia. Understanding that I have limited capacity to label or process my emotions effectively, is it any wonder that I have attached heavily to a book that lists out 30 toxic behaviours, and encourages us to review our friendships monthly? What it doesn’t do, and maybe I need to find another book for this purpose (or write my own), is 30 self care strategies, or ways to light up my own dopamine receptors!
So, the awakening over 10 days felt a little brutal, but it did give me some insight and allowed me to be even more vulnerable with a few of my closest friends. From someone else’s words “I think the attraction of candour is that someone might really know you”. Powerful words, and yet so intimate – just imagine if that someone was myself?!
And the final paragraph from the original post … “But what is definitely coming back is my willingness to let people in. It’s hard, and I’m not a straight up fan of being vulnerable, but in the last 10 days, I’ve realised that I’ve still got a life to live, and I want to be on this journey to rediscover me!
Doing Life Differently 