well THAT makes sense

hey y'all.

 

it's been a minute. a lot has changed but nothing has changed but everything has changed.

 

if you came to visit me, most everything would look the same. some of the furniture has been rearranged, the mullet is magnificent.

what you might not notice right away is the lack of doom piles, the dishes being actually done, the floors vacuumed, laundry kept up. a creative space cleaned and organized and used.

around thanksgiving sometime things started to slowly shift. first- i jumped on tiktok. i know. an old person on a young app. 

 

HOWEVER. it is amazing. in small doses. the small doses is the key. i went to hard and burned out in three months.

 

HOWEVER, PART II, it did teach me things.

 

first, it taught me to just put videos out there, who cares. like a visual twitter. that was cool. a nice barrier breaker for me.

 

THEN. holy shit then. then therapy tiktok, mental health tiktok, adhd tiktok and autism tiktok hit me like a tidal wave, throw in some deconstructing around evangelicals and purity culture and it was like a slow motion machine finally putting all the pieces together.

 

i raised an ADHD and an autism. two boys. because only boys have autism and ahdh, right?

 

FUNNY THING ABOUT THAT.

 

now that doctors are starting to actually care a tiny bit about women and actually consider we might have something more than the vapors, guess what?

 

what are the adhd symptoms in girls?  chatty, day dreamer, withdrawn, hyper focus, sounds exactly like every single report card all through school.

 

what are the autism signs in a girl? difficulty with social interaction, eye contact, stimming, passionate about restricted interests.

it was like watching my whole childhood click into place. thrown in a few comorbidity like ARFID and RSD sprinkle across some extremely toxic purity culture, some extreme evangelical beliefs.

WHEW.

the hardest part of my childhood was never understanding why.

WHY am i so difficult? why am i so bad? why am i so broken?

 

my whole childhood- too sensitive, cries too much, never paying attention, talking too much, doing other kids school work so they could be done and play, being a picky eater, being TERRIFIED of teachers, principals, authority. problems with bosses, friends, coworkers, partners. 

 

it just all lit up across the board.

 

and it solved the WHY.

 

because that's the way i am. that's who i am.

 

i'm not too sensitive. i have sensory issues.

i'm not a picky eater. i have a food sensitivity.

i'm not too difficult about clothes. materials and cuts drive me insane.

i'm not too weird. my brain literally functions differently.

 

i'm not the weird girl. i'm the girl with autism and adhd who literally thinks, functions, EXISTS differently than others.

 

waking up is different for me. thinking is different for me (doesn't everyone have an internal voice (or many) narrating everything all the time?). food is different for me. ONE, just ONE yuk feeling and i'm done. sorry. my body goes into hard reset mode. one piece of chicken vein? one bad bite of steak? one wilted piece of lettuce? just one weird thing and i'm DONE. that's why eating out is such a pain in the ass. that's why travel is so terrifying. and food is SO IMPORTANT in other cultures and i could exist on pasta with butter and parmesan cheese. i'm not going to go somewhere and either a) starve, b) insult everyone, c) BOTH.

 

probably C.

 

it makes me annoyed that i raised one of each. i went to doctors and therapists and specialists for YEARS. we did every therapy and behavioral modification and no one thought to check the source??

i spent YEARS. absolutely YEARS just gutting myself, sick beyond sick that i somehow caused my son's autism. the mmr vaccine. stress during pregnancy. stress during breast feeding. domestic violence home. i spent YEARS sick and just absolutely gutted that i had somehow unintentionally made my son's life so much more difficult.

 

well, i did. but not by anything i did.

irony is a funny bitch.

like learning how when people try to offend me or backhandedly insult me and i take that as a compliment (because autism) and then they think i'm some kind of cold hard badass.

 

no, i just literally didn't understand that you were trying to insult me.

you said it was "interesting" and i like interesting things.

 

i never understood why everyone thought i was such a badass. of all the things i overthought in conversations over the years, those never occurred to me.

 

fucking irony.

SO WHAT?

WHO CARES?

YOU OBVIOUSLY MADE IT THIS FAR, HOW BAD CAN IT BE?

 

first of all, fuck all the way off.

 

try that again with a little grace and kindness:

 

what impact does that make going forward? who does care? you made it this far...what worked and didn't work or could work better?

THANK YOU FOR ASKING.

so what? knowing is half the battle. GI Joe taught me that. knowing means YOU KNOW. you can drive the car down the street with a rattle forever or you could figure out what the rattle is. can it be fixed? parts of it. some can be made to work better. some can be worked around. some parts you don't even need and you can just let them make noise and not worry about it.

 

now i have another filter to run things through: did they really mean that? or autism? did they really ignore you? or object impermanence. is that a trauma bomb story? are you really mad? or are you reacting to the last time this happened and you're worried about the outcome?

so what, is that i've been able to sit and meditate and review memories and my childhood and friendships and understand SO MUCH of my life.

 

i wasn't a difficult child. i wasn't stubborn. i wasn't being intentionally annoying when it took FOREVER to shop for school clothes. i wasn't being rude when i spoke my mind. i went back over all the hurtful language, all the insults, all the bullying and harassment. does it make it hurt less? in a way. i was different. teenagers are assholes. we didn't even have names for that type of different back then. it makes sense which makes it hurt less. i was different. i am different. i can't be mad at people for not knowing what i didn't even know. i can be mad at them for being jerks and picking on kids that are different. but i also know that i choose different people now for a reason. i know what to look for. i know what terrible people act like. i know the things they say. i know to avoid them. people have been telling on themselves for a LONG, LONG times. makes it much easier to weed through the noise.

so. i guess thanks? keep being awful? it lets me know i want absolutely nothing the fuck to do with you? thanks for saving me time? i do appreciate efficiency.

but throw a kid obsessed with honesty and transparency and logic and research and facts into an evangelical world? no wonder i "rebelled" against church. organized religion is illogical to me. there were too many questions that couldn't (or wouldn't) be answered.

 

and then i was a baby raising a baby. order and logic and control were mine to create and maintain. and i did that. then i had an autism kiddo. and even more order and logic were needed. DONE AND DONE.

 

then one kid left, then the other. then people went away. then work went away.

there's still a LOT of work i have to do around parenting and ADHD/autism. what can i give myself more grace for, what makes more sense now looking back, how can i use the knowledge to rebuild and repair going forward?

but when you're alone, with no structure, no one else to maintain any semblance of "acceptable" for...things start to look a little different.

when you don't realize half the reason the order and logic and control worked was because YOU NEED THEM AS WELL.

 

doing things for my kids for so many years kept me going.

now i need to learn to do that for me. I HAVE THE TOOLS. good lord do i have the tools.

 

so what, is i have is a new understanding of how to move in the world. what i need. what structure and interaction and understanding works best for me. now i understand why some jobs barely last a few months and others can straggle along a little longer.

 

a regular schedule of tasks to keep me organized and structured? forms due specific days? specific check in times? specific goals and expectations? YES PLEASE. subterfuge, double talk, obfuscation, illogical/repetitive/duplicate (ie: multiple data systems) tasks, vague deadlines (when you get to it)? i'll go insane.

 

people who say what they mean, what they need, in a respectful and intellectual manner? WE'RE GOING TO GET ALONG FINE.

toxic masculinity? backhanded compliments? nuance? condescension? micro aggression? WE GONNA BEEF.

so who cares?

 

that's exactly right. WHO. CARES? who are the people who will understand without demanding diagnosis, a through inspection and debate of my symptoms? who will believe me and provide accommodation and understanding without being forced to? who will accept these pieces of me as just that, pieces of me instead of as things to "tolerate" or "deal with" or be forced to endure as the cost of me. who is willing to understand that it affects the way i communicate, the way i travel, the way i interact, the type of events i enjoy, why i'll be so "stubborn" on some items. who is willing to understand the ways it helps make me work better and celebrate that?

 

it's the same as mental health. who won't roll their eyes when you say things like ADHD and autism? who won't sigh when you say mental health, self care, self awareness. who will support you when you say SENSORY OVERLOAD and not tell you to just get over it. who won't take a vulnerable moment and abuse you with it?

 

who cares is VERY important.

 

you made it this far...

 

see above. i raised it. i know it. i had a system in place. that system fell apart. now i'm NOT doing great. i'm a month away from losing my apartment. i'm unemployed. i'm single.

 

I'M NOT MANAGING THINGS WELL CURRENTLY THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

 

all the structure- get up, go to work, take care of the kids, make dinner, bed time, weekend chores, weeknight practices, rinse and repeat.

 

that worked GREAT.

 

it was stressful. money was always tight. kids were always kids. but i had STRUCTURE.

 

probably not surprising to anyone else, but it turns out imposed structure is very good for me.

 

i've been trying since october to set a routine for myself at home: get up at 7. make coffee and breakfast. shower. meditation, yoga, chores...

and then i realize it doesn't matter and there's no REASON to do any of that and there's no AFTER that and there's nothing next...and it just...

well, it's after noon, i made a cup of coffee, put on a bra, and started writing this. none of the other stuff.

 

when you're home alone during a pandemic, going out could literally kill you, IF you had the money to go out. when you have ONE small space, no outside space, no reason to leave even if you wanted to or had the money to...

 

shit gets weird yo.

 

you think you can tiktok.

 

you can't.

but i know, going forward, i need people, i need structure, i need routine and predictability. i need to be aware that i'm going to have VERY strong preferences on things for probably very logical reasons but i have to understand compromise. i need to be aware that people do communicate differently and not everyone has the same thought processes and conclusions i do.

i need a job that provides creativity, structure, and someone else to be the responsible one (schedule setter). i need coworkers and managers and bosses that clearly and honestly communicate. i need space and ability to be my creative whirlwind self with someone to reign me in and keep me in check.

like therapy- my therapists always commented that i had everything figured out. cool thanks. i've been thinking on loop about it for the last 900 hours. BUT. am i on the right track? am i coming to the healthiest and best conclusions? are there perspectives or reasons i'm not taking into consideration? before i wander 900 hours down this track, i want to make sure i didn't take a fork off into NOPE, THAT'S NOT THE BEST WAY.

i don't want to be the boss. i'm not a boss bitch. i don't want to file the forms and the taxes and the licensing and the responsible. i WILL organize the shit out of everything, keep everything up to date, come up with a million ideas and suggestions and ways to get things done in the best and most logical manner. wind me up and let me go. but keep checking the fence lines while i wander please.

i think i'm learning that life doesn't come with a user manual, but we CAN collect ones we find along the way. we can collect the tools and the suggested repairs and the maintenance tips and the annual service reminders and collect them all into our own reference guide.

mine is a tattered community cookbook looking thing with coffee stains, post it flags, notes written in the margins, paragraphs scratched out, loosely bound together with a spiral that's been a little stretched out over the years. it's been carried around in many a satchel and tossed in the back seat and forgotten in unpacked boxes.