I talked to Bryn for a bit this afternoon, and whenever we talk on the phone, it always spurs creativity. The thing that she said to someone else that really resonated with me is “when you tell me to calm down, or shut down and stop talking, it makes me feel like you’re saying my feelings are too big for you.” I’ve spent my whole life feeling unloved because my feelings run so deep….. and I’m so incredibly complicated…… and all the worst other ways you can say that to someone. The general consensus is that I am perfect……….. for someone else.
It never occurred to me to ask other people to get bigger, only to ask myself to get smaller. Once I started just stating my feelings instead of trying to anticipate someone else’s, I started to attract other people to me who could do the same. The others self-selected and went home. I am definitely too much for some people, and that’s okay. They’re free to walk away, and I’m free to choose whether to let them back into my life depending on how likely I think the toxic interactions are to recur.
I demand emotional intimacy because it’s how to speak to me in my love language, if I am speaking in your love language as well. I do not demand anything I am not already trying to give someone else, which is love they can receive. I find out how people recognize love, and I show them that way, rather than speaking in my own tongue. For me, being lost in a pragmatic brain like hers is sort of like being dropped into a foreign country with no passport or language skills. For her, feeling that way seems to start with “how dare you make me feel my feelings” and “how dare you make me talk about my feelings.” We are both interested in learning each other’s inner landscapes, and get frustrated too easily that we don’t understand the customs there. I’m so bummed, but at least it’s not the gut-wrenching pain I used to feel. There’s just an emptiness tinged with nothing, because I have felt my emotions already. I’ve poured so many onto the page and sobbed all the way through it that when I think of her, I only feel tired. I can’t summon up energy one way or the other….. and that’s how I feel today. Tomorrow, it may or may not change. It’s the grief process when you’re letting go of someone who is still alive, and there’s no animosity.
It’s a hard row to hoe when you want someone in your life so much and yet it still isn’t good for me, and better for both of us if we don’t get further entwined while also having all these resentments running underneath. I would rather wait until everything was running smoothly again so that seeing each other in person wouldn’t scare the life out of either one of us. We live far enough apart that there’s only a .00000000000000001% we’d ever run into each other, and I’m very glad about that. If we were to meet, we would both really have to go out of our way. It would not be a one-sided journey. But that’s how you get somewhere in a relationship emotionally, as well. Not only do you have to be willing to walk with someone, you have to compromise on the turns.
I’m dealing with that in my relationships all the time, but particularly with Daniel because we are talking about so much. It’s a lot, and it’s work I’m glad to do. I’m just trying to be more chilled out about everything because Rome wasn’t built in a day…. impulsivity about talking regarding our future comes fast and furious because my autism is making my eyes bug out of my head with insecurity. I am very bad with change. Because of my ADHD, I like change a lot. But changing anything about a routine takes an autistic person a long time to accept.
I can’t remember which kitchen it was, or whether it was at home or pro….. but we moved the spoons and I checked the old place for them first for like three years.
My dad and stepmom moved the silverware drawer, and I think it was even a different house. I still checked the old location the entire time I lived there….. and then called myself a dumbass because I’d wasted time. I needed my brain to get there faster, with no empathy for the fact that my brain is not built to do that.
I understand why neurodivergent people become hoarders and OCD, as well. With OCD, it’s about controlling the absence of things in your environment…. that your iron will for structure and order in your brain is by cleaning and throwing things out so that you only have to manage a few things at a time. It’s a problem when you end up throwing out too much, like mementos. Hoarding is just the other end of the spectrum, creating one’s own order out of one’s own chaos, and if anything is disturbed it wrecks their minds, because now everything is out of order for us and looks fucked up to everyone else.
Yet neurotypicals reward people whose need for control manifests as keeping everything neurotically clean……. until the person is so overbearing that their partners cannot even get them to sit still. The rest of the time, they’re just glad to let the OCD person run the whole house, profiting off of someone else’s illness….. because that person’s illness means everyone’s got a maid but the maid…… who is a family member, not an employee.
Just like people with OCD, hoarders also have to be pulled into a more normal sense of order, but because it is not praised in society, other people want to pull the patient out too fast, without being under their own power. Without the support of therapists or a housekeeper, the hoarding will look worse than it did when you cleaned out the house the year before. If you do not pour a concrete foundation and at least start framing before the big changes begin, the house will fall. You have left someone a thing who has no idea how to operate it. Mental illness and processing disorders don’t seem to be about balance.
Again, it is just as hard to stop someone from obsessively cleaning as it is to stop someone from obsessively hoarding. The difference is in the neurotypical perspective. The problem will always go unnoticed in someone that’s obsessively keeping their house clean, because they don’t see the person cleaning to the point of rubbing their hands raw with cleaning solution rather than body soap. Anything short of that is just a good partner. There’s no problem here.
I have a tendency to hoard things and create my own order, which is why I am strong enough to admit that I need help. Daniel says that he just wants to do all those things, and I’m like, “uh-huh. We’ll be getting a housekeeper before you even have a chance to regret saying that.” A house is something I do not know how to manage by myself, and it is not something I have been able to learn ever. It takes too much energy that neurodivergent people just do not have….. unless they’re the type of neurodivergent that has an iron will structure in remembering the task list it takes to manage the upkeep. Most ADHD/AuDHD/ASD people I know have problems with getting going in the morning taking the same amount of energy every day, because no task is automated or rote.
That’s what executive dysfunction is- the complete inability to prioritize or compartmentalize. It’s why I’ve been so focused on my beautiful girl for so long- my mind won’t let me switch channels, because I haven’t and won’t stop caring for her. She’s already got the key to my heart, and I didn’t ask for it back. She can keep it, because I have other copies. You don’t take back a gift. Full stop. The key is the only thing I’ve got, really, because I tend to write gifts better than I buy them. Having a key to my heart is fairly entertaining and devastating, but you’ll want to hear about it every day.
Just like my readers do.
Stories That Are All True 