Bleeding all over the place and so what!

I am 57 this year. I still haven't learned to be fully independent. Why? Because as humans we are actually not built for this. As neurodivergent people we often instinctively get this at a nervous system level, but because of the double empathy problem - made worse by stigma, we end up disconnected, isolated and without a community. Our nervous systems spend a lot of time in fight, flight, freeze, fawn and finding people who make us feel safe is too often too hard. I know who I feel safe with and as soon as I am in that person's presence physically or virtually, I can feel my nervous system thanking me. I feel safer.

In many cultures we see villages raising children, we see a very different understanding and expression of what it means to be family and community. In our Western capitalist culture however we are too often sold a lie, that the need for others to help you, others to help you regulate, others helping to meet your needs is somehow wrong, weak, a sign that you lack resilience. We are told we should grow out of certain support and build resilience, so we no longer need it and can 'stand on our own two feet'. What a load of old shit that belief is, excuse my French.

Many (often neurotypical people) might see my need as a neurodivergent person for safe people, to help me turn the volume down on my emotions and intrusive thoughts, as the need for further therapy - because they may feel I still have issues due to not being able to do that on my own. The issues I have is that neurotypical thinking is a mystery to me! As Claire from Neuro By Nature Therapy pointed out so brilliantly recently in a Facebook post, the internal critic we can have in our heads as neurodivergent individuals is often neurotypical. I have genuinely not thought about this before but realised how true this is! An example of that voice is "You should be able to do this on your own by now." In other words "It's about time you became more neurotypical". And this is why we get so exhausted as neurodivergent people - pressure to conform, comply and get in line. Rather than embrace the authentic neurodivergent self, that may need a lot of help from other neurokin, we absorb ableism and stigma, which leads to us getting all our corners knocked off as we force ourselves into innappropriate therapy, relationships, situations, jobs, ways of being, etc, that are not the right fit for us and our differences.

We need more acceptance in society around the different ways neurodivergent people regulate themselves and stop trying to force them into neurotypical ways of being, thinking and feeling. The expectation (often subliminal) to conform, comply and shape shift is so unbelievably damaging. We are often not free to regulate and just be who we truly are, because of societal expectations and this is especially true for the most marginalised neurodivergent people in society, who are masking on so many more levels than we can never appreciate when we are privileged, white, straight and middle class, we can forget how much simpler it is for us and the cost no way near as high.

Masking has meant me denying myself support, suppressing my distress, even masking my executive functioning challenges too. I passed, I hid my true internal experiences and I paid the price. I fawned and ended up bullied and mistreated by people (who said they loved me). Love is not about words - it's actions and their actions were not love but quite the opposite. I appeased people and spent so much time and energy worrying about what they thought of me that I wasn't able to be myself. Fawning meant I never embraced the truth but hid behind a lie to stay safe.

As I creep (although it often feels like a race I never agreed to enter) towards 60, I feel much freer to be myself, but for years I was berated for calling and messaging people when I was struggling - told I was bleeding all over the place, that I was burdening people with my stuff. This would often lead to me experiencing suicidal thoughts, as I just believed that I was bad, that I was too much for people and clearly incapable of being normal - so therefore didn't deserve to live. The person (a church leader I might add) who told me that I was a burden has no idea about how his words still go round and round in my head and how hard I have had to work to come to a place of understanding that he was wrong on so many levels. Autistic people have been seen as a burden since the 1940s and there are many who would like to make sure we don't exist (Trump, the orange buffoon, being just one). Autistic people are not a burden, we have every right to be here, to have needs like any other human being - even if our needs are different, they are valid. We have the right to regulate how we need to.

Boundaries with others are hard, they often feeli impossible and this can be because we are so used to being more concerned about other people's feelings than our own wellbeing. I spent years putting other people's needs first - people who on many occassions were awful to me! Well no more. I now speak up, put up the boundaires that suit the situation - sometimes it's a wall, sometimes its a door. A wall is final - that person is not safe whatsoever and I need to protect myself from them. A door is something we close but sometimes open - when we are ok and feel safe to. There are some people who I want in my life but recogise the door sometimes stays shut for a while, either because of where I am at or because of that person's behaviour.

"No" is enough - we do not need to say sorry. If I dont like something or agree or if I don't want to do something then I say "No". This can get reactions I know but I now care so much less about those reactions than I used to when I would always give in to people's reactions. Yesterday a lady in a conference said to me that "we are all a bit of everything anyway" just after I had spoken about how we are not all a bit autistic or ADHD , etc. Ilooked at her and said "No we are not". By saying this to me she was basically saying that I don't exist and that my different needs don't exist. But I do exist. My differences are real and so are my needs - they are not the same as other people's and they are certainly not the same as neurotypical people's needs!

I do absolutley understand that unmasking can make autistic people very unsafe - some more than others. Code switching is about survival for so many autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people. There are many environments that are not safe for me as an autistic person, but as a priviledged white person I won't ever appreciate how for many the colour of their skin makes many environments a threat because they are seen as a threat by too many.

So with all that in mind I will do the following:

1. When I am dysregulated I will seek out and call or message the safe people who help me change the volume of the thoughts and feelings that I am struggling to deal with.

   
   

2. I will seek out and be with the safe people who help with things like body doubling, and feel no shame that certain things are impossible for me without that support.

   
   

3. I will stim. I will sway and rock. I will tap and nibble. I will bite my nails and pick my fingers. I will stim in whatever way helps me and express myself in whatever ways I want to as a neurodivergent person.

   
   

4. I will avoid people and places wherever possible that cause me harm. I will listen to my nervous system that often knows when someone is safe or not.

   
   

5. I will unapologetically be ME! Autistic (PDA) and ADHD. I am not ashamed of this or what this means in a world that sometimes even seeks to eliminate- me by saying we are all the same.