Anybody who knows me at all knows I’m horrendous at self-care. I’m excellent at tending to the needs of everyone around me, but when it comes to myself? I’m awful at it. Boundaries are really hard for me given that I am the child of an alcoholic and was a parentified child (which, if you don’t know, means I raised my siblings at a young age). A few days ago, one of my siblings was really, really sick, and I got the “my baby is sick!” feels most of the day and was a disaster, emotionally. They’re all right, to be clear. But it did require a trip to urgent care and a lot of keeping an eye on them while they recovered. I have no regrets about taking the time to ensure they were all right.
That said, over maybe the last year or so, I’ve been on this quest to address some things in my life that really needed addressing. I wasn’t being a good steward of my time and energy, for sure, and I was constantly hopping around based on what I perceived the needs of people around me were. Not even necessarily what their needs actually were, but what I thought they needed. This habit is common for abuse victims who went through what I did, so it’s hardly a surprise I have these traits since anticipating the needs of your abuser is one of those things that helps you survive something like that. However, it’s not exactly helpful after that situation is over.
Looking hard at that as well as really starting to grapple with what my ADHD means to me and how it affects me as well as discovering I’m autistic was a bit of a wake-up call. Not that I had really been trying to hide from those things, but as I’ve studied what those things really mean for a person, I’ve begun to work on setting up my life and my processes to account for those needs. Prior to that, I was trying to jam myself into the neurotypical box and wondering why it wasn’t working. Nothing against neurotypical folks, of course, but it was like trying to run an Apple program on a PC. They just don’t talk to each other, and it’ll never work without running a bunch of emulation software that eats up all the RAM.
Since really examining those things and starting to take steps to re-structure my life, I’ve found I’m happier, feel more free, and definitely am finding things that work more effectively for me. Rather than organizing and trying to exist like a neurotypical, I can (and am) exploring what my needs actually are rather than hating myself for having them and trying to pretend I don’t.
That’s what led me to deciding to put together the Neurodivergent Publishing Conference, which I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here yet. But yes, I’m on the council (that’s what we call ourselves) of a conference for neurodivergent writers, editors, and publishing experts. The goal is to share tools, techniques and ideas that are helpful for us and to create a warm, welcoming space for other neurodivergents. Which, honestly, is incredibly exciting. We’ve been making some excellent progress on that front, and made some wonderful contacts.
I’ve also found that, through this process (and my realizing I’m non-binary), my relationships are changing. Prior to all of this, I was always afraid to be friends with women. I had female friends sometimes during high school, but I always felt like I fit better with the men. I’ve realized that it ultimately came down to communication and interests. None of this is a negative referendum about women, of course. Not at all. But the women around me communicated differently than I do. They were “guess” culture whereas I’m “ask” culture, and a lot of the time that created confusion, hurt feelings, and stress. At this point in my life I’m almost aggressively “ask” culture and go out of my way to ignore the way people behave when I do it. That isn’t to say I’m mean, but I absolutely need information, and if I’m not allowed to ask for a thing, I can’t be sure I’ll get it. That’s a product of my neurodivergence, I think.
I’ve also realized that the problem isn’t “women” as a gender. It’s the culture difference. Women who are askers, like me, and I get along famously so long as we have similar interests. That was another problem I struggled with in female relationships (or, honestly, any relationships). A lot of my formative years were spent not finding many women whose interests weren’t boys, hair, makeup, and other such things because when I was in high school, that’s what the pressure was on us to like. I don’t judge them for conforming to societal expectations, and I’d never say someone’s not allowed to like what they like, but I didn’t give a crap about any of those things. I wanted to talk about fantasy novels, writing, meteorology, horses, farming, and Gargoyles.
Yes, I’m dating myself, I started high school in 1998. Shush.
What does all this mean? I don’t know for sure. I’m kind of just doing a brain dump here. I can say that being more authentic to myself has really changed my life for the better, though. And the more honest I am about who I am and what I need, the happier I’ve become. Learning boundaries and learning my needs has radically changed my life for the better. Sure, I’m still poor and disabled, but my brain makes way more of the happy chemicals.
