Re-finding my own languages: neurodivergent self-expression

photo by s.r.

There is so much I want to write about, today, right now, it's so hard to have to type words and make sense when there are so many thoughts swimming and swirling around in my brain. I'm trying to learn how to stop putting the brakes on and just... go. Fly my thoughts like kites without editing, or needing them to make sense, or all the things that have been drilled into me as the "right way" since I was a little kid.

That makes me think: School crushes our spirits. Then in my brain the first thing that happens after I write a statement like that is:

I go to the opposite. My thoughts immediately start making disclaimers. Not all spirits. Not just school crushes spirits.

And then the hole poking arguments come in. Just because school was bad for you it wasn't bad for everyone. It's actually not true that school crushed your spirit. If you had been better behaved or lived up to your potential then maybe your spirit wouldn't have gotten crushed.

Then the blame. Actually it's your fault that school was bad for you. You probably crushed your own spirit.

I feel like that inner back and forth is based in compliance and individualism, the years of growing up where I was one way and school/society needed me to be another way, and if I wasn't that way it was my fault. When you get in trouble for asking questions, not being able to sit still, or stop talking, or seeing things differently- constantly being redirected and corrected- no wonder whenever I have a though I immediately try to change that thought. It's what I was taught. It has been my lesson- day in and day out- not that, this. It's what created my sense of something being "wrong" with me (that, for me, has never had a satisfactory explanation- I'm just "wrong" without clear reason). How else am I supposed to feel when I am so often met with not that, this?

The kind of thought process I'm talking about becomes automatic, like breathing.

This is what has been so confusing for me in trying to understand my experience of life- the constant paradox of what is spoken and unspoken and how assumptions are true at certain times but not at other times. How sometimes saying or thinking things like "School crushes our spirits" make sense and are allowed, but other times they aren't. It was what was so hard for me about my old therapist- we'd spend all this time getting to a place, and then she would walk it back and plant seeds of doubt and I would feel so confused by what was even the point of it all.

Trying to make sense and be understood is one of the hardest things for me. I have to slow myself down and consolidate in ways that feel restrictive and unpleasant but I have also had so many conversations where people get the confused distant or bored look on their faces and don't understand what I'm talking about. It's why I don't talk that much. It's easier for me to just...not.

Putting things together in a coherent way for other people when I write or talk- that process isn't easy for me. I like to follow my own thoughts and when I have to govern myself it's like eating food without seasoning. It's interesting to think about what my actual communication style would be like without all the social training. It's something I'm want to do with my writing and podcasting- creating something that makes sense to the people it makes sense to and being willing for it to not measure up or pass muster.

Who am I trying to make sense to? And why? And if I start speaking my own language and writing with my own rules then my community will find me, and understand me. The thing I keep thinking about is: all of it is made up. All of what we do is an idea that caught on. We write in paragraphs because someone made up rules about writing.

But it's funny, paragraphs can be hard for me.

Sometimes I want things to be sentence by sentence.

Because I read really fast, separate thoughts can be easier for me to take in.

Spaces between each sentence make room for my thoughts even though I don't read any slower.

It makes sense that we would consolidate when everything was handwritten, and what if whole books were collections of sentences? They would be so long! What if writing style is not only the voice of writing but the actual way things are written?

(And now I feel like I have to gather it all together and try to fit it and make sense when the more I think about it that's not even necessary. I want my writing to be ongoing, and the whole point of writing things in a certain way like an essay is having a beginning, middle, and end. It's the completion, which is fine but also sometimes there's room for doing things outside the formula.)

The thing that seems like is coming back to my life right now is my enjoyment of my own brain and being. I can remember being a little kid and feeling enamored with myself. I felt strong in my body, creative and wild in my mind, I loved to talk out loud and chatter away, and my intensity was a pleasurable experience no matter if I was happy, mad, or sad- I was fully in it. I didn't see anything wrong with my experience of the world until the world told me who I was and how I worked is not how things are done around here.

I feel so sad when I remember the hot shame of being told I was too much...

being laughed at because I was out of sync,

realizing that my strong body wasn't something to be proud of,

dumbing myself down so I wouldn't look like a know it all.

I'm re-finding my own language: neurodivergent self-expression. Resurrecting the little kid who was delighted by who she was. Inviting her back in to my life, filling my almost 54 year old spirit with what was here before school and society crushed what it couldn't make sense of. I'm going back to making things up, finding pleasure in the way I operate, and not worrying so much about making sense. I am the sensing itself.