It's called a healing process because it's a process. You have to wear a bandage if it's a flesh wound. A cast if it's a broken bone. Stitches for an operation. A shitload of vapor-rub and a belly full of broth, expectorants, antihistamines, and NSAIDs if it's a cold. You have to do your stretches and your exercises and you have to wait. Navigate. Work with your limitations from a place of self-compassion and just pray that it will all be over soon. That one day you will be better.
Better. Whatever the fuck that means.
It's the same for the other parts. The emotional parts that we as humans have learned to unsee. The hippocampus and amygdala sitting with the prefrontal cortex at the round table, hashing out negotiations for internal peace. Deliberating. Navigating. Sleeping a lot, or not at all.
There's a big gaping gash inside me. Not the bloody guts and bones kind. The therapy kind. I've been doing A.R.T. to mend broken pathways and retrain my brain away from debilitating behaviors. I've removed a crutch, one of my biggest addictions, and find myself yet again struggling to reformulate my life; doing it with a very authentic, very present version of myself. Me under the microscope. Me, a little dot in a vast landscape. Me, a molecule in a giant universe. Me, right here, dealing with me.
Me. Whatever the fuck that means.
But the unknown offers objectivity, and as I sit with this raw me, this raw her, I see more truths.
I see the person who, trauma or not, has always struggled with making human connections. I see the listener, the absorber, the mimic, the fawner, who has done all she could to pretend to fit in. I see the kind, caring, compassionate, off-the-charts-empathic space-holder who navigates conversations with a formulaic rhythm developed over years of observation and experiments. The person who once believed she could handle big social events when really it was just easier when she was drunk. I see the baby, the girl, the woman, the androgynous human being, who wants connections but is so easily overwhelmed. I see me with the animals, the friends with no expectations other than peace and presence in that very moment.
I'm fairly certain the person I am looking at is neurodivergent.
I've been trying for years to heal this part of me. The part that can't easily connect. Perhaps this was the purpose of the cocoon I created, that fantasy side of human connections that replaced what was missing, even when what was missing was the connection itself.
Does a diagnosis matter? I don't know. In some ways it feels like coming home after a long journey. Seeing the familiar comforts with fresh eyes. I see this part of me so clearly, now. It's not something that needs repair. It's who I am.
It's who I am and (omfg) the thought of no longer pushing myself to feel comfortable with crowds and group conversations brings tears of relief. It absolves me of the negative concept of perfectionism and calls it instead a heightened appreciation of details. My interests and passions are no longer neurotic obsessions, they are my pursuit of deep interests through actions that align with the patterns of my unique neurology. And, my god, it explains why life is so fucking hard when I go too many hours without my best friend to bring me back down from of the perceived chaos I encounter every day.
What I once called limitations I can now call gifts from a place of ultimate self-compassion. I can stop praying that one day it will all be better (whatever the fuck that means).
Does a diagnoses matter? Probably. Clarity helps. Resources help. And maybe, just maybe, we can get that little boy certified so that we can go everywhere together for as long as we both shall live.
All pictures and words copyright Anna Horvitz (me) and cannot be used without my consent.
This post was written with a cat on my lap.
