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smokingbootWork 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!
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!
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