The Big A

[smokingboot]

Work is hard right now.

The counselling doesn't help; it is ostensibly about the PTSD but there's much more than that. It tires me. R is not here so I locked up early and left house lights on throughout the night. It may make me feel safe but ruins my sleep pattern. Maybe watching a zombie movie was a mistake, but it was The Dead Don't Die after all, Hollywood's own solution to insomnia. Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, zombies, space craft, katanas... I do not understand why this thing was so p*ss poor. My suspicion is that it aimed for the Shaun of the Dead market. What it actually hit is beyond me, and I'm a Swinton/Driver fan big time.

Autism came up yesterday. A spurious diagnosis long long ago, not even a diagnosis really, more a... well, I don't know what to call it. An opinion? I ignored it then, because it felt like an excuse for my failures and deficiencies. I couldn't bear the idea that someone might say 'OMG! Of course! That explains why she's so [insert derogatory comment]' no, no, if I'm an arse then it's my issue, and if someone else is an arse it's their issue, and if we all get it wrong then we are all arses together. Or am I harsh?

The test of harshness; would I apply this to other people's judgement?

No, I'd advocate a bit of give and mercy. So yeah, harshness, Dad style. In allowing myself no excuses...but there it is again; excuses. These aren't excuses, they are reasons. But I have been taught to treat them as excuses, to dismiss them. After all, I have adapted very successfully for over 50 years. Now I can afford to look at things differently because it's not about survival. The snow is outside, I am warm within, the house is full of light and life and happiness. I can afford to be gentle, to be kind even to me.

She brought it up yesterday, hinting and sniffing around the subject. I told her I stim, I have done all my remembered life, I don't do it around people nor do I need to; again, adaption. And after the hints became a bit laboured I asked her straight out. 'Do you think I am autistic?'

She paused, and talked very gently about how to her eye I showed certain attributes, how people could be neurotypical in several areas and neuroatypical in others. She talked about the spectrum no longer being seen as a line, but as a circle you can shade in. And all of it is OK, brings me closer to understanding my own patterns of obsession and art and focus. I don't know if I should explore it further, perhaps it's just enough to know that there's a reason for being the way I am. To me it feels like those writers who lose themselves in analysing the art of writing. If you stare at how you do a thing for too long, you disconnect yourself from the doing of it; chattering about your tools defers creation. The point of knowing how to ride a horse is first and foremost to ride a horse.

So my neurodiversity or place on the spectrum or whatever phrase properly describes it, can sit there and be a driving force for creativity or lunacy or supersensitivity or whatever. Some gifts come in cruddy wrapping, but there's still a present in there somewhere.

**

Meanwhile, there is a zoom tonight with this group about the proposals for local, er, I don't know, improvements and development. My problem is that I am so exhausted, I'm not going to stay awake into early evening, Maybe I need to go sleep by the fire for a while. Maybe the night lights didn't improve my sleep. You're never alone with hypervigilance!

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Well, I'm not your therapist or even a therapist, and it could be argued that I don't even know you all that well.

BUT autism is not a word I would ever think of in connection with you, self-stim or no self-stim.

(And yeah—telling stories could be the ultimate in self-stim! 😊. Most people don't. Most people don't even have original fantasies, their imaginations being such feeble organs, they're only capable of producing predigested cultural tropes. )

D, you are empathetic to an extreme. Not just in your writing. I felt it throughout the two days the three of us spent so intensely together, and I am very good at picking that kind of stuff up. I had to learn psychiatric diagnostic parameters in nursing school: People who are on "the spectrum" tend to be characterized by a lack of cognitive empathy.

Certainly, you are neuro-atypical. Aren't all creative people? And certainly, if you don't learn certain tricks, you have to obsess in order to do your creative work. (I've had two reasonably successful writerly pals of mine lecture me incessantly on that subject: You have to learn how to do it even when you're not feeling it. Otherwise, you'll never get anywhere with it no matter how talented you are.)

You are still a relative newcomer to the place where you are living. Your roots are still in shallow ground. And R is away. And you had a truly awful experience of being attacked. Of course, you feel uneasy alone in a dark house, save for cats.

My guess is that your editing skills are excellent even when you're not feeling the process. Could it be that you're having a tough time with it because you still have the visceral memory of writing the words? I'm a great editor, but I have the hardest time editing my own stuff! It gets easier after a certain amount of time has passed so that I don't actually remember writing it.

Joan Didion puts unedited manuscripts in her freezer for up to a year before she pulls them out for editing.

That's right. Her freezer. 😊

[smokingboot]

There is so much kindness and wisdom in what you have written, I don't know where to begin in thanking you.

Empathy is really easy with you and R. As you've mentioned before, it's like we've all known each other for a long time, even though we can't have done... But somehow we have. Somehow it feels like years, decades of warmth and familiarity. I trust that feeling. And your words hearten me from start to finish. I feel better having read them; they feel true and strong and I am keeping them.

I didn't know about Joan Didion's habit. I may adopt it.

Thank you Patrizia XXX

[mallorys_camera]

xxxooo

[velrist]

I'm not sure it matters what label it has put upon it but you don't feel autistic to me, you're just this delightfully bonkers person who I have an infinite amount of time for.

Anxiety is horrible and I can understand the need for lights and reassurance when you're alone especially after what you have been through. I get that way sometimes and I haven't experienced the trauma you have. Mine appears to be being overtired or my hormones being extra special.

Is anyone we know completely neurotypical? We know too many creators of wonderful things and people with beautiful hearts and minds and I don't think a single one of them is typical.

I also think we need the rough edges to give depth to ourselves, the one thing in life I would truly hate is to feel 'normal' how many interesting experiences would I have missed out on because I made normal life choices? How many amazing people would not be part of our lives? I like your cruddy wrapping paper, it makes the gift inside it perfect.

xx

[smokingboot]

This is a beautiful post, full of wisdom and loveliness. I will read it many times over. You warm my heart, thank you.

I am very lucky to have you as a friend. XXXX