This wetting has been sat on the back-burner for quite some time! Hefty, but one I hope you might find yourself relating to, or at the very least, enjoy reading.
No Cure here! I’ve always found myself caught up in-between personal and work commitments. In my life, Housework needs to be done. E-Mails need writing, Projects need completing. Bills need paying, and mouths need feeding, especially when the little one has a penchant for Pasta and Meatballs! Also having to travel to various places via Buses or Trains as well. Between previous homes up and down the country. Or between the NHS BMI scale of what’s classed as Healthy and Overweight!
Whether we may have the energy or capacity to oblige to this all is an entirely different story! But still, needs must.
I’ve always tried to give everything my all, full measure, including this blog!
Easier said than done from the social side of commitments however.
Suppose the majority of us have that compelling urge of belonging within our social needs. Asking; “Where do I fit in all of this fine mess?” Regardless of which Scientific or Religious belief you may have surrounding ourselves and humanity, often as social creatures, we find the like-minded and cliques and groups of those we relate to, additionally through safety and comfort, be it, in or outside of Family. Online or Offline.
My Autism was disclosed to me when asking questions about fitting in when I was 10. How at Primary School – despite similar tastes, sense of humour and the like – there was often that social detachment and disconnect from others. An overwhelming sensation of apathy and burnout, as communication barriers intertwined with processing the innumerable senses, which culminated with a longing desire to simply drift across the playground on my own during breaks, or sit in as much solitude as the Classroom would allow. Not really knowing why, until the above revelation.
Clarity and comfort aside, that sense of belonging and being caught between groups continued into Secondary School. As I masked, many couldn’t work me out. I didn’t tick the right boxes, or could be pigeonholed into one group.
They saw the Glasses and weight and initially presumed intelligence, despite being in-between the top and bottom sets of subjects. Eloquently describing me as a; ‘Fat nerd’ or ‘Fat geek’. But my barriers from Autism, heightened by the three tenants often meant I was met with the usual slurs of ‘Spastic’, and ‘Retard’. Especially when those saw me retreat to the Learning Support Hub for lack of a better place to go. Oh, throw in the word ‘Gay’ for good measure, though (according to my Daughter), this is still a word thrown around the playground these days. Progress! Who’d have thought?
This, coupled alongside one instance of someone labelling the classroom into cliques; “You’re a Goth, you’re an Emo…” got to me and simply remarked; “And you’re just...John.”
‘Just John’, and that celebration of independence within Neurodivergence is a wonderful sentiment. Heck, it’s even encouraged now more than ever these days! However, I still often feel alone within these groups. An outlier amongst outliers and outsider amongst outsiders.
A similar story within Disability Criteria Assessments. Despite Autism being tirelessly proved as a fluctuating condition, I often get the impression that I’m not ‘the right kind of Autism’ amongst others. Do I need to rock backwards and forwards in a corner and flap my hands out of distress? Must I count the toothpicks you’ve tossed across the floor? Or largely self-advocate to beyond overwhelming levels?
As a Diabetic that straddles between Types 1 and 2, do I further elaborate and boast about the inexplicable complications of my Pancreas?
And finally (“I’ll start, so I’ll finish!”), must the additional barrier of being Working Class be masked to avoid discrimination, with the only alternative to shout about it so loud online, until a permanent opportunity pulls me from this quicksand of financial struggle?
No, no, no, no, and also no.
Who I am is not perfect. And sure, I may very well straddle various contradictory cliques, groups and stereotypes, but isn’t being unconsciously multifaceted more interesting? The need to explore and try different things. I mean, sure, my particular fixations are more focused than others. But why should I restrict my taste in music, just because of my age or the clothes that I wear? Why do I feel restricted in my storytelling when desiring to confront social issues head-on in an unflinching depiction? Or an impending sense of “Too late” and “Same old”, when such stories I wish to tell ever come to light?
Where I am’s not perfect either. Sure, the close group of people within Family and Friends who I most relate and feel safe and comfortable with is more than enough. A quality over quantity. Financial struggles are universal, and I reside somewhere better than before. But the pervasive barriers and struggles that wheedle and whittle away at the most are when additional negatively charged scenarios and recollections of becoming displaced love to rear their ugly heads and into mine. All in the while constantly striving to simultaneously make the best out of what I have, who I have, but also aspire, strive and drive towards better, perhaps helping others benefit from what I am trying to do along the way.
These hefty thoughts of identity and self-worth have stemmed from my most recent struggles with Self-Compassion. Taking root from those cited innermost pressures and conflicts.
I’ve struggled a lot with it. Decades, I’d say. A long-term issue lurking insidiously as a hidden tenant within my house. That dark corner that clouds your peripheral vision, and disappears as you turn to confront it. A lot of it stemmed from swallowing that bitter pill of Discrimination, alongside the Anti-Depressants prescribed at the time. The need to mask, and not quite working out if someone is being purposefully mean, or if it’s just “For the bants!”
I ignored it for too long however. Dismissing it as part of the human condition. Quiet desperation. The extreme Self-Deprecation, the incredibly negative self-criticism. A Social Hand Grenade. Social Suicide. The Why Bothers and What’s The Points, only recently wrangling with these demons through Therapy, as it began to greatly impact my nearest and dearest, as well as myself more than ever before, to the point of reaching severe Depressive Episodes, aspiring to delete and pull the plug.
Perpetually caught in-between the tangible and intangible. The wait in between Therapy sessions, and how the mind processes its catharsis. The next Train, and how you’re happy to wait providing you have earphones, but the person next to you loudly and persistently airs their grievances concluding with a half-baked political rant.
The reply to your E-Mail, the food shopping delivery, or for the next cycle of washing to be finished, all in the while, contemplating moments where “What’s next?” shouldn’t be the driver of your train of thought.
“Where’s next?” and ‘halfway’ (if looking forward brings comfort to myself in-between the mindfulness of the present) is the re-framing of question and answer I strive to work on. Getting others to meet me halfway when I feel caught in-between multiple stresses and strains is difficult enough.
Meeting myself halfway amongst it all. That’s still even harder at times…