Spinning Plates

I have studied a lot. I have studied others’ neurodivergent lived experience. I have studied psychological, physiological, and philosophical theories. I have researched how they all intertwine, how the gut bacteria affects the immune system, the mind, and how trauma affects our nervous systems (and therefore all our bodily systems), the impacts of society, and the frustrating expected neuronormativity that shapes us all in various ways. I adore learning.

I am a big believer that awareness and knowledge can bring a lot of healing. It can enable us neurodivergent folk to understand what it means to be neurodivergent. Reading neurodivergent lived experiences, theories, and research for me has brought me validation. It has encouraged me to look at my own way of being and study it, this has brought an abundance of ways that I can start to heal and look after myself.

But you know what? I don’t always have the ability to show myself the level of compassion I give to my clients or the level of compassion I hope my clients will give to themselves. Why?

Shitty shame dust!

I am sitting in bed, able to sit up for the first time in about a week because I have pneumonia. I have had pneumonia a few times in my life and unfortunately, this means that I know I am susceptible to it. This time certainly is hard going.

I was aware in the lead up to this that I was getting run down. I was aware I was experiencing high levels of anxiety. I have really highly interoception responsiveness and I could literally feel my nervous system rattling, buzzing, like it was on fire around my body. I knew I was taking on too much with a charitable project I was passionate about. I was fuelled by injustice, and I felt such a need to keep going with it even though I was aware that it meant I was going into highly uncomfortable areas of this neurotypical world and the effect that was having on me. I was aware that my emotional responsiveness was as busy and active as a tornado. I was dealing with grief in various forms, I was having to make big decisions for the people I love the most. I was acutely aware of the impact of having to go into traumatic environments (hospitals, schools, GP surgeries) and mask my way through neurotypical ignorance, misunderstanding, gaslighting.

All of that knowledge and awareness that I have studied, that I share with my clients, was not being acknowledged because I am still affected, sometimes suffocated by shame. I am not immune to it because I am a therapist.

I grew up in an environment where it was shameful to give up, it was shameful to miss school even if you were incredibly unwell, and it was shameful to give yourself even a small break or an ounce of compassion even if you knew you needed it. I wasn’t shown compassion when I was vulnerable or in need.

‘Too sensitive’, ‘Drama queen’, ‘Looking for attention’, ‘Over the top’, ‘Cry baby’, ‘Too girly’, ‘Too fragile’, ‘Feeble’.

Working hard, being seen to work hard, and pushing yourself beyond the limit was always encouraged. This continued when I entered the corporate world in my previous roles in HR. Punishment in various ways from verbal, physical (shown the door), and non-verbal was active in my life if I dared to show myself any compassion.

‘Selfish’, ‘Lazy’, ‘Arrogant’, ‘Not a team player’, ‘Poor performer’, ‘Self-centred’, ‘Weak’, ‘Work-shy’.

Sometimes I catch myself and I am able to work through that shame dust and give my mindbody what it needs. I have read enough and worked hard to understand where all that shame dust has come from and so I know logically how to shake it off. Sometimes however, it’s all too heavy, and I am shrouded in it and fall back into behaviours of neurodivergent survival in a neurotypical world. I ‘battle’ on, I push it all aside, I berate myself, self-shame and tell myself those same words that others have told me I am. Sometimes, like now, it all meets a head. My immune system is weakened by all that ‘battling on’. I knew I was getting unwell but together with all that shame and the difficulties I have as an autistic cis female in going to the GP (phoning, trying to describe my symptoms, not be gaslit again, sensory trauma.. the list could go..) meant that I didn’t get help or show myself compassion and I am now very unwell.

I am not writing this for readers to go ‘Oh poor Bex’ (sympathy is not comfortable communication for me!) I am writing this for others. To ask you to not beat yourself up for not giving yourself what you need all the time. It is just bloody hard to do it, even with copious amounts of knowledge and awareness. Shame dust is heavy, it can be consuming and sometimes just too embedded to shake off when you most need to. It is shit that we carry so much of it, but the reality is, neurodivergent people usually do carry an abundance of it.

It can also be really hard to even work out what you need, even if you have the headspace to give that to yourself or seek support. When I am overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed! My processing, my monotropic mind, and my synaesthesia can all culminate in an all-consuming merge of mayhem that in that moment, I wouldn’t even know how to get out of.

Like David Gray-Hammond writes, it really is not ok to not be ok! We should not be advocating for us to suffer, or continue to normalise it. I recognise I have a level of embedded internalised ableism. We all do because of the society and systems we are forced to live within. I can’t change any of that simply. Tiny steps. Tiny moments of care and kindness towards oneself in whatever way we need and can.

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates https://youtu.be/g5EyjFYWqtI