Invisible

Neuro-divergency is often ignored by both the person who is neuro-divergent and/or the people around that person. I've spoken before about how different people in my life have treated me over the years and how separate I've always felt.

In the interests of (fairly) full disclosure, I had to take several months off from work because of stress-related issues, and discovered several things about myself.

One, I was re-diagnosed yet again, and this time it actually makes sense. The diagnosis is, of course, ADHD and Autism. I think I already knew that, but it's nice to have it validated by a diagnosis. One of the diagnosis criteria tests scored me as 199 out of 163. That's a big number

Of course, being almost 62, I have spent years creating strategies and habits in order to present normal to the world; however, not a lot of people are willing to believe I'm not like them. They believe I just need to pull out of myself and get it together. 

Nope.

Here's a blog post from an adult on the spectrum about the true meaning of "high-functioning". She got it spot-on.

https://autisticempath.com/dont-call-me-high-functioning/

This is partly why going back to church has been so hard for me to do. The expectations of the other sinners can become both obnoxious and frightening. Having to sit outside the sanctuary just to be able to concentrate on the sermon, well that looks anti-social. 

The Church, especially Evangelicals, expect everyone to participate and don't understand the one person out of a hundred who can't do crowds, is sensitive to loud noise and needs something to keep their hands busy in order to listen better. My mother drew pictures, I crochet.

My Christianity has always, and will continue to be, about service. It's just that the older I get, the less I want to get stuck in any ministry that will wear me out emotionally. Lately, that's basically everything.

Anyhow, back to self-discovery.

Two, I spent a lot of time in both group and individual therapy. It is there that I realized that I don't actually have to live up to everyone else's expectations. I have been a people-pleaser all my life, going all the way back to trying to get my mother to actually love me.

And there's the rub - my mother, from going through my own issues and memory lane, was probably neuro-divergent. I can see that she probably never had the opportunity to learn some of the tools I have, and had a difficult time "fitting in" the same way I do. 

However, this doesn't mean she shouldn't have tried a little harder. 

That sounds petty, but the fact is, I was still the birth-control pill she forgot one morning. I was still "nervous jervis". I was still like my crazy grandmother. My brother and I were still the extra kids she never should have had.

I tried so very hard not to treat my children the way I was treated. I was not a perfect mother, I had my moments, as I'm sure my children will tell you. But I made a very conscious effort to love my children unconditionally. And none of them were mistakes - any mistakes were my own.

Three, I am creative, passionate and loving. A neuro-divergent diagnosis does not negate these qualities; they are a large part of who I am as a whole person. I am also abrupt, bossy, highly sensitive and a small-picture person. That is also me.

I y'am what I y'am, and that's all that I y'am.

Four, my neuro-divergence isn't an excuse, but it's also not an apology. I'm done people-pleasing, especially at work, now that I'm back.

I have put a lot of myself into my job, and even though I don't react the same way to situations as someone else might, it doesn't mean I don't care about my work, care that it's done accurately and to the best of my ability. I care about our population, I care that we have the resources to serve that community.

But my job is not your job, and I'm done doing your job for you. I'm done being the office mom (except when it comes to wiping down the front counter and changing the date stamp - that's the OCD)

I'm done.

Five, my children still love me. My daughters especially have been my support for the past 5 months. And I hope my sons know how much I love them, will always love all of them until my dying day.

That's pretty much all. I'm still struggling to make ends meet after being on extended disability, which barely covered the bills for a couple of months. But God is faithful, even when I'm hiding out at home on a Sunday morning.

Here's a verse to ponder:

2 Timothy 2:13

If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who he is.

God will always love me and take care of me.

On the Edge of Normal

I haven't posted here for awhile. Normal is just beyond my reach most of the time and when I get to where I think I'm able to put down some words, normal scoots away again and I'm stuck with nothing to say.

Or too much to say.

I was laid off in December, and believe me, that is no easy thing for a woman in her 50's. Four months before that I had to give my car back to the bank because the job I had paid poverty wages and I could barely pay my rent. A few months before that I ended a toxic relationship that was sucking me dry emotionally and is only just resolving itself this month. Not a good year for me.

My mental illness keeps me from seeing things the way normal people see them. Which can be a good thing a lot of the time. The problem is that normal people run the world, want me to pay my bills, want me to work for a living, want me to say and do the normal things. I struggle to find activities that allow me to do the normal stuff while still being me. 

Daunting. Scary. Infuriating. 

My dream for a long time has been to open a daycare. I like kids. I'm good with kids. They don't care that I'd rather watch cartoons with them than sit behind a computer doing soul-sucking busy work. They're happy with glue and glitter, the same way I am. They like to eat macaroni out of a box and don't care if we play all day instead of doing something the world deems productive. They're easy.

I know some of you are horrified. Children? Easy? Yes. They don't judge, they just get on with it. I love 2-5 year olds. They delight me. 

So, is working from home doing the things I love the great lie we've been told by Facebook? 

The normal people want me to pay them money so I can do what I love. I want to do what I love and get paid for it. I don't want to make a million bucks, I just want to pay all my bills on time every month. And I want to love on babies. I'm a good grandma because I love being grandma so much. That makes me happy, it fills my soul with joy and helps me face the normal world. I have a t-shirt that says, "I used to be a people person, then people ruined it." That doesn't mean children. They make it worthwhile. 

For those of you who love me, agápē, I am honored. For those of you who know me from way back when or from church or other places now, please be patient with me. For those of you who know me only through this blog, I say welcome to my world but don't get lost. 

For everyone else, well, is there anyone else out there who feels like they're on the edge of normal?

Throws glitter

Life and Death and Life Again

The death of my mother two days before Christmas has left me with much to say but no real way to say it. I meant what I said when I said I wasn't going to grieve much when she went. It was time for her to go and we knew it was coming.

Still, the circumstances contrived to make it just that much more ... I don't know. Stupid is the wrong word but I can't really think of a different one. It was a Saturday and I was getting ready to blog about how it was exactly four years ago that day that David died. And then my sister called.

And I couldn't write one single word.

Two days later at Christmas dinner, the consensus among my brothers and me was that we were surprised she didn't die on Christmas Day, therefore ruining one last Christmas for us. She used to do that, pull some dramatic trick just to make sure no one was happy on the happiest day of the year. She used to have the Christmas tree down and all the decorations put away by noon, too.

You're shocked, I know. In some ways, it was a great relief to know she was finally gone, finally unable to affect us negatively in person. Unfortunately, her legacy is that she negatively affects us even in death, by the way she raised us and how we had to deal with her nonsense over the years.

Now we have no parents. My dad died 11 years ago January, and frankly, while not a perfect father in any sense, I miss him more than I'll ever miss my mother. 

But dealing with the death of my mother isn't a good thing. In my head, or rather, in other people's heads, I'm supposed to be heart-broken at the loss of a parent and apparently unable to be happy ever again. 

At least, that's what one church lady was telling me. This church lady is sweet and sincere. I didn't have the heart to tell her how relieved I was I never had to deal with my mother again. 

Here's my mother's legacy to me: I was the birth control pill she forgot one morning. I was going to be fat just like her when I got older. She pitied the man I married. When I got pregnant with my oldest, she wanted to know why I did that to her. She wrote a scathing letter before my wedding, telling me how awful I was and that I was only getting married to have a father for my child. And then she showed up at the wedding.

Yeah.

And the ultimate legacy, she passed down her mental illness to me. Not just to me, to all of us. We have all dealt with it as best as we could, hopefully better than she did. 

Here's the thing, though: I have no doubt in my mind that she's with the Lord. Despite her emotional abuse, her attitude of victimhood, her absolute certainty that nothing was ever her fault; she loved God. And He loved her.

Just as He loves me. 

I just wish I could remember some of the good things and describe them here. 

That's Just Mom

Mental illness is difficult to understand.
I understand that I am who I have always been. I understand that as I get older, my physical body changes and sometimes that affects my ability to deal with the mental illness. I understand that circumstances don't help.

Mental illness takes its toll.
In general, I am more highly sensitive to changes around me. It could be noise levels. It could be other peoples' reactions to me in any given situation. It could be an abrupt change in my schedule or even someone trying to surprise me. Sometimes it just happens and there's no warning. 

Not even the people who love me (and there are few enough of those) can bring me out of my own head as I struggle to deal with the overwhelming the feelings of guilt, resentment, anger, sadness, heartache and emotional pain that come when I feel as if nothing ever works right for me. I don't think it's their fault.

Mental illness is deceiving.
"You don't look sick." "That's just mom." "Why can't you just let it go?" "Drama queen." "You can learn how to deal with things." That last statement implies I have some control over the darkness. I don't.

Mental illness does not mean I'm stupid.
High-functioning. Genius. Explosion in a paint box. I've been called all these things. But intelligence and common sense don't seem to mesh well inside the bubble of my mental illness. I can't seem to pull the trigger that brings all the knowledge together with all the experience and shoots out a normal person. 

I've heard it described as being inside a glass tube where you can see the normality but you can't break through to touch it.

Mental illness is physically debilitating.
Not once in awhile. Not even once a week. It's every day. It's in the morning when I force myself to get ready for work, and then force myself to actually go, then force myself to do the work, then force myself to deal with the drive home and then force myself to eat and force myself to stay awake until it's time for bed. 

It's the weekend when I have nothing to do, no schedule to keep to that forces me to deal with the outside world. I do my laundry because I know I need clean underpants. I eat, sometimes. I take lots of naps. I go to church because that's where I need to be.

Mental illness sometimes keeps me from God.
I go to church because I know I need to be there, and I bring my grandchildren because that's when I get to spend time with them and they get to be in a place where they learn about a God who loves them. I know He loves me, too, it's just that even when I'm there, even when I know the Holy Spirit is poured out, even when the pastor preaches straight at me, I just can't seem to get past whatever it is that keeps me from experiencing what everyone else seems to get automatically. 

It's like I'm the only one who doesn't get it. It's like that for everything.

Mental illness keeps me alone.
I live inside my head and that scares the hell out of me, because no matter what I do, or say or think or feel, it'll never be good enough. Not for me, not for God, not for my kids, not for anyone. Inside or outside my head, there is always chaos. 

Even when I know the truth, know that there is an Almighty God who is love, and who loves me and made me who I am, the mental illness is a barrier, a sinkhole, a mire of self-recrimination that keeps me inside and doesn't let me go.

It is a darkness that is always there.

Mental illness is a legacy.
My mother is dying. She turned 90 this year but has been in and out of the hospital for a month, two brain surgeries and my sister has brought her home to die because there's nothing more to be done.

All I could do was go say goodbye to a woman who has never been happy. Unfortunately, I think I only saw a reflection of myself in 30 years time. We have always known that the mental illness is hereditary. 

I hope and pray that my children don't end up suffering through everything I have. I hope I did a better job as a mother, no matter the mistakes I made. I pray every day for my children who have rejected God. Personally, I can't not believe in Him. 

I have mourned my mother all my life. I don't know if I'll grieve when she's gone because she'll finally be free. 

Mental illness is what it is.
I started off by saying I accept that this is who I am. What I want my words to do is help other people get a sense of it. It probably won't work. It probably shouldn't matter as much as I think it does. The reality is that wherever I go, whatever I do, it is there and it is me. 

If you know me, you'll try to understand. If you love me, you'll try to be patient. If you need me, I can only give you as much as I can. It is what it is.