If you could switch lives with a famous person for a week, who would it be and why?
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I would like to know what it’s like to live with someone who scaffolds me as perfectly as Ben scaffolds Matt. I don’t want to be famous. I want to be supported. Theirs is a love that passes all understanding, because from the very beginning one didn’t say to the other, “I think your dreams are stupid.” They had a pipe dream as teenagers, but now that’s NOT Matt and Ben to me.
That’s Jason Bourne and Tony Mendez.
Respectfully.
Why do I want to be Matt for a week? I don’t have Ben’s skillset. I am a creative talent who is messy with my head in the clouds. Ben handles all the business, and stands on business with Matt…. and I don’t know but I am guessing that Ben is also reading Casey for filth.
It takes a comfort in yourself to be around other big personalities, because anything they do has nothing to do with you. You just can’t see it if you’re in any way insecure. Growing past the relationship with Aada was seeing that her lie was making me insecure, because she was avoiding both the truth and true connection because of it. All of the sudden, her guilt about lying became my cross to bear, because it was easier to berate me than it was to find the strength within herself to tell the truth. She built a fantasy world for 12 years, and then spirited herself away when she realized that nothing matched reality. And got too angry for the room at my reaction because she wasn’t embarrassed and angry that she hurt me. She was embarrassed she got caught.
But I also have no limits with Aada. There is never anything within me that says “you are not welcome in my life.” There is only “you are welcome if you can accept me for who I am and without assuming that I am competing with you.” She called me a professor, a lecturer who had an answer for everything. Well, first of all I am OLD AF, therefore I have opinions. I don’t have to waffle around. Anyone sounds aggressive to someone who people pleases.
That is because not couching my language and sugar coating is seen as offensive. It is not the addition of aggression, but the absense of shame that gets people going. And of course, I also watch that line obsessively, too…. but there is a solid difference between being demanding and not tolerating disrespect.
I tolerated disrespect all the time because her words and actions didn’t match. We could certainly get together for lunch, she was just busy for 12 years. 🙄 I would think I was an idiot for staying if I hadn’t felt so trapped. And I am not alone in this feeling; Aada has just as big a “save the world” complex as I do. She was not lovebombing me. She was trying to save me. It failed because I was trying to save her at the same time. She couldn’t function with her mojo fucked, or so it seemed to me.
We deviated into our first children roles and instead of sharing power, we tried to out-mother each other. I am not sure that it worked, but as a result she imprinted on me, anyway. So, good or bad, she is mine. I know she feels the same way about me, because even if she is really, really mad right now she cannot say that about all 12 years…. and someone who does reduce 12 years into “good” or “bad” has some stuff to work out, okkkkkk……
What I am saying is that we are both smart enough not to mistake the part for the whole, even if we do not choose to make more memories. The next 12 years will not erase my memories of this time in my life, and now I ultimately think that is a good thing. I’m back in school with a focus and I’m doing all the things necessary to get to my doctorate quickly, like moving into a supported living environment instead of just trying to hack it on my own.
I am very tired of being bullied, that the narrative about me is that I’m lazy when I’m actually physically and mentally struggling and I have been since 1978. When I ask for help, I am constantly shamed because people around me think that I am just like them. I am not. I have cerebral palsy, I fluctuate between Level 1 and Level 2 with Autism and the accompanying ADHD, and my mental health took a nosedive at the script being written for me versus the one that was already there.
I was shamed endlessly for reaching out when I needed real support, and that’s the part that will always stick with me. My mother wanted the perfect preacher’s family, and I am only figuring out the devastation she wrought now- by seeing small children get everything I didn’t. There is no mystery as to why I am angry. I was never protected.
Until I met Aada.
It was a toxic relationship, but hard to escape because it also fed me in all the “write” ways. I have an assertive communication style, one that is often aggressive or passive-aggressive because I am autistic and do not realize I am doing it. Where my superpower is lies in repair. I am ready and open to understanding. The communication gap is neurological, not personal. My therapist and I are working on ways to say things. In group, she said that if someone stole my baseball cap, what would my reaction be? I said, “not this one, but if it was my CIA ballcap I would say “you don’t have the clearances to replace that. That’s mine.” Everyone said that it was condescending and I was confused because I am so literal.
I said, “I am trying to make it clear how rare and special it is.” They said, “then say that.” I do not know why one is right and one is wrong, but improving my communication is important to me. If everyone around me says it’s condescending, then it is.
The common denominator is always me. But I am not a narcissist or a dictator. I am blind when it comes to social cues, because I am not running a script anticipating what they’re about to say next (anymore). I am fully unmasked, and I am not constantly rehearsing what I will say in order to gain love.
Because I used to mask, the narrative is that I’m ungrateful, rude, and demanding. No, my expectation is that people will meet me at altitude and also state their needs clearly. Being assertive is not the same as being aggressive. Being aggressive says, “my needs matter more than yours.” Being assertive says, “my needs matter, and so do yours.” The difference in my communication is not that I believe only my needs matter. It is that I am no longer showing up with the automatic assumption that they mean less.
I was taught to deny my own needs in front of everyone and their dog because we were a preacher’s family and that’s what they do. I earned love by needing nothing, simply learning not to drown.
Now, it’s about keeping my head above water. Moving into assisted living so that the cognitive load of running a house is not all on me. Working on my communication skills so I sound less like “House.”
I sound a lot like House. It’s in my step DNA.
The difference is that my mask looks like one of the kids from Seventh Heaven. But that show, too, was a mask. The actor who played the minister was a pedophile. I would rather be a dick like House.
