I just want new socks.
I feel too disconnected. Too much dissociation. Definitely not enough emotion. This bizarre illogical crying phenomenon... I dislike it intensely. It should not be happening. I must have control over my physiological functions during reactions to situations that would see crying, a symptom of emotion, as inappropriate and highly irrational. One cannot manage a dialogue, never mind a rational conversation, while attempting to conceal the physical manifestations of crying, including tears and mucus and a cracking voice. Illogical, as it doesn't propel the dialogue successfully and only leads to frustration and to pauses in the conversation.
My only explanation is my severe postictal post seizure state and momentary transient global amnesia. My amygdala may be overwhelmingly over processed. I have been meditating and lightly exercising all day. Since the sun has been shining and the temperature has been cool but comfortable, I have taken brisk walks that have appeared to release a bit of tension from both my body and my mind. I have done my best to move through the thick brain fog triggered by this current fibromyalgia flare.
Currently I have no desire to speak to anyone except family via telephone or physically at length, unless it is urgent, at which point I will switch over to Cheerful Me. Most of my communication comes in the form of internet writing and occasional video chat, which especially allows me to break when needed, which my chat companions understand completely.
As I have grown older, I finally learned to embrace the subtle traits of obvious autism, to finally stop pretending since childhood that I was so dutiful and easy going and always ready for a wide smile. I did it all to protect my sensory experience. I looked directly at people because I was mimicking, because I knew it was what they wanted. I didn't like it but I had no idea why; I only knew that intense melting shutdown sensory overload could not be shown lest I be frowned upon. I didn't want the grown-ups to dislike me. I had to act normal! I had to act people!
I was thirty-three years old before I got it. Looking back on my childhood and what I can even remember, I see that inner frustration. Something was not right. I was acting. I was several Joannas because the autistic Joanna was afraid to be. Realizing that was so liberating and freeing and relieving that I became her, and left the childhood me behind. I changed. It was like a very colorful alternating butterfly. I let myself be the me I hid even from myself. And I adore myself as this experience.
And even now, I am told that by having these discoveries I have both deliberately and unwittingly medicalized my life. That I am only about my disabilities, particularly autism, without focus on other parts of my life. Which is so very unbelievably untrue, false, slightly insulting. However, it can be easy to see such points of view when reading my blog entries. I tend to explore new things intensely for years at a time. Sometimes it really can take four or five years before I switch around. I know it seems farfetched and ridiculous and filled with excuses to be excuses. To become excuses.
They call it Autistic Burnout, living a life trying to play the social norm while pushing down autistic traits and denying and ignoring autistic impulses. When your entire brain is begging to act one way and the world needs you to be a different way, it leads to burning out. I have nearly given up trying to explain what it is like to spend over thirty years not knowing how or why the psychological exhaustion happens just from being and doing whatever people ask. As a child I was told I couldn't just read the books in a person's home, that I had to talk, that I couldn't lie down and sleep on their couch because I needed to socialize. I should make friends outside my mind. I should talk about what I felt inside with words. The idea of making friends my own age caused cold sweats. I bonded with adults because most of them didn't care about my oddities. With some I even let the hidden me slip out just a bit. They had no idea it was autism. They chalked it up to brain damage and cerebral palsy. I recall someone once making awful remarks about autistics and institutions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in tiny towns, autism was a dark fear, literally a silent thief. I didn't know the word. I didn't know it was me. I was just Weird.
Now that I understand why, I am getting pushback and resistance and denial. I never acted like this before. My response is because I never knew what it meant and thus made myself play the part of the normal-ish girl. I completely hid all the autism because I was already a Changeling. Now, with friends, with solidarity, with empathy from dozens of neurodivergent folk in multiple groups, I feel belonged. I can let out the autism to play, to talk and ramble, to simply BE. Existence.
The sad part is that many neurotypical people still want to push it all away separate from us, because when they meet late adult-diagnosed autistics, there is an incredible hard disbelief that we are not just inventing these "new" selves just because of autistics on the Internet, because of trends and conditioning and being convinced and following leaders and being susceptible. "Are you so sure," they say with odd authority, "that you're not just making it worse by thinking about it? You didn't even talk about it until you were diagnosed and you met all these people online. Are you sure your so called friends aren't leading you on?" Which, truly, could be said of any medical condition unless it is extremely obvious.
They sometimes call it Med School Student Syndrome. I call it Finally Coming Home After Years Of Hiding.
I do indeed have OCD and ADHD Primarily Inattentive. That is absolutely not a reason why I have made autism a thing for me. The reasons are many, some private and emotional, and include thirty years of pretend play-acting. And to actually realize those implications at the age of thirty-five is like a stolen breath during a fall, and realizing there are wings never used until that moment.
Being doubted just because I belong to communities of similar folk feels very bizarre and filled with heavy derealization, which has become my default fallback protective method when challenged. It is why I rarely discuss autism outside specific social media forums. Autism really is a strange alien thing to neurotypical people. No wonder it isn't understood well. It's too huge from the outside. But it's so cozy and comfy from the inside.
I almost had a point. I think it was socks. I still want New Socks. They are the most comfortable feeling. Like kittens surrounding my feet. It's okay. The drawer full of old socks can waot a whole month. I am learning to control most symptoms of my OCD this way. Just wait. Just. Wait. They will be there in stores next month. And even if they are not, even if they vanish, different socks with the sorame kitteny sensation will be around and they will be just as wonderful.
Just wait. New socks will come later. Just wait.
That is my point. If I can wait this long to find the rest of me, I have plenty of time to wait for small things.
My only explanation is my severe postictal post seizure state and momentary transient global amnesia. My amygdala may be overwhelmingly over processed. I have been meditating and lightly exercising all day. Since the sun has been shining and the temperature has been cool but comfortable, I have taken brisk walks that have appeared to release a bit of tension from both my body and my mind. I have done my best to move through the thick brain fog triggered by this current fibromyalgia flare.
Currently I have no desire to speak to anyone except family via telephone or physically at length, unless it is urgent, at which point I will switch over to Cheerful Me. Most of my communication comes in the form of internet writing and occasional video chat, which especially allows me to break when needed, which my chat companions understand completely.
As I have grown older, I finally learned to embrace the subtle traits of obvious autism, to finally stop pretending since childhood that I was so dutiful and easy going and always ready for a wide smile. I did it all to protect my sensory experience. I looked directly at people because I was mimicking, because I knew it was what they wanted. I didn't like it but I had no idea why; I only knew that intense melting shutdown sensory overload could not be shown lest I be frowned upon. I didn't want the grown-ups to dislike me. I had to act normal! I had to act people!
I was thirty-three years old before I got it. Looking back on my childhood and what I can even remember, I see that inner frustration. Something was not right. I was acting. I was several Joannas because the autistic Joanna was afraid to be. Realizing that was so liberating and freeing and relieving that I became her, and left the childhood me behind. I changed. It was like a very colorful alternating butterfly. I let myself be the me I hid even from myself. And I adore myself as this experience.
And even now, I am told that by having these discoveries I have both deliberately and unwittingly medicalized my life. That I am only about my disabilities, particularly autism, without focus on other parts of my life. Which is so very unbelievably untrue, false, slightly insulting. However, it can be easy to see such points of view when reading my blog entries. I tend to explore new things intensely for years at a time. Sometimes it really can take four or five years before I switch around. I know it seems farfetched and ridiculous and filled with excuses to be excuses. To become excuses.
They call it Autistic Burnout, living a life trying to play the social norm while pushing down autistic traits and denying and ignoring autistic impulses. When your entire brain is begging to act one way and the world needs you to be a different way, it leads to burning out. I have nearly given up trying to explain what it is like to spend over thirty years not knowing how or why the psychological exhaustion happens just from being and doing whatever people ask. As a child I was told I couldn't just read the books in a person's home, that I had to talk, that I couldn't lie down and sleep on their couch because I needed to socialize. I should make friends outside my mind. I should talk about what I felt inside with words. The idea of making friends my own age caused cold sweats. I bonded with adults because most of them didn't care about my oddities. With some I even let the hidden me slip out just a bit. They had no idea it was autism. They chalked it up to brain damage and cerebral palsy. I recall someone once making awful remarks about autistics and institutions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially in tiny towns, autism was a dark fear, literally a silent thief. I didn't know the word. I didn't know it was me. I was just Weird.
Now that I understand why, I am getting pushback and resistance and denial. I never acted like this before. My response is because I never knew what it meant and thus made myself play the part of the normal-ish girl. I completely hid all the autism because I was already a Changeling. Now, with friends, with solidarity, with empathy from dozens of neurodivergent folk in multiple groups, I feel belonged. I can let out the autism to play, to talk and ramble, to simply BE. Existence.
The sad part is that many neurotypical people still want to push it all away separate from us, because when they meet late adult-diagnosed autistics, there is an incredible hard disbelief that we are not just inventing these "new" selves just because of autistics on the Internet, because of trends and conditioning and being convinced and following leaders and being susceptible. "Are you so sure," they say with odd authority, "that you're not just making it worse by thinking about it? You didn't even talk about it until you were diagnosed and you met all these people online. Are you sure your so called friends aren't leading you on?" Which, truly, could be said of any medical condition unless it is extremely obvious.
They sometimes call it Med School Student Syndrome. I call it Finally Coming Home After Years Of Hiding.
I do indeed have OCD and ADHD Primarily Inattentive. That is absolutely not a reason why I have made autism a thing for me. The reasons are many, some private and emotional, and include thirty years of pretend play-acting. And to actually realize those implications at the age of thirty-five is like a stolen breath during a fall, and realizing there are wings never used until that moment.
Being doubted just because I belong to communities of similar folk feels very bizarre and filled with heavy derealization, which has become my default fallback protective method when challenged. It is why I rarely discuss autism outside specific social media forums. Autism really is a strange alien thing to neurotypical people. No wonder it isn't understood well. It's too huge from the outside. But it's so cozy and comfy from the inside.
I almost had a point. I think it was socks. I still want New Socks. They are the most comfortable feeling. Like kittens surrounding my feet. It's okay. The drawer full of old socks can waot a whole month. I am learning to control most symptoms of my OCD this way. Just wait. Just. Wait. They will be there in stores next month. And even if they are not, even if they vanish, different socks with the sorame kitteny sensation will be around and they will be just as wonderful.
Just wait. New socks will come later. Just wait.
That is my point. If I can wait this long to find the rest of me, I have plenty of time to wait for small things.