I'm writing here because I don't know how to start again or where to write.
Recovery as it turns out is a long and winding road.......in my case there is no road, just woodland to forge a path through.
So here I am feeling incredibly vulnerable and scared. I don't know how to be in real life or the forum. I am feeling a strange distance with my close irl peeps and I guess on here as well. It is not anyone else but me and my brain, my very insecure and confused brain.
Last night I had a very therapeutic call with the helpline here. I am so grateful to have this service when I need it. I needed putting back together in a big way. Therapy has been confusing and somewhat disorientating of late.
So my reflections go somewhat like this. A change in diagnosis or being newly diagnosed is much bigger than I ever anticipated. It's a bit like learning to walk and talk again. It takes so much time to honestly digest the things you need to learn about how your brain works. It's like looking at everything through a new lens, but everytime you look through that new lens there is more to see. I didn't think I could get much more broken and scattered than I was, but I was wrong.
For so long I've been saying that I need to learn what I can do. I think I am just beginning to understand why it felt this way for the longest time. I know that I will need to understand 'my' brain, not in the terms of a generic diagnosis but how 'I' and my brain work or don't work. I had become obsessed with the main tick boxes of a diagnosis which I would own or disown always creating extra confusion for me about never fitting into boxes and always feeling like the outlier that didn't belong anywhere.
Ive been listening to podcasts from experts and lived experiences. I finally have begun to realise that within any diagnosis the combinations and possibilities of traits are endless. Saying this I am beginning to understand that if I'm ever going to learn to drive this brain I really need to understand and own my particular traits, the ones that create great difficulties and the ones that can be strengths.
It's easy to obsess with 'how to fix oneself' but much harder to learn to live with and work around the behaviours that can't be changed. They will always be there and my behaviour choices will help or exacerbate them.
Who knew self care in every part of your life can make the smallest differences that can help live a better life?? 🤦♀️. I think self sabotage will always be part of my go-to-not-very-helpful-coping-strategies. The trick will be to recognise it and change those behaviours. I have just been on an unhealthy emotional sugary food eating tour over the last few months that I am now correcting. I hope that over time I will get better at recognising it and turning the titanic sooner :face_with_rolling_eyes:. I feel much better for eating healthily again even though my circumstances haven't changed much.
So the vulnerable part is that I know my challenges are very different to many others. I've let that become a great source of comparison and shame. I've spent decades masking and hiding it. I just learned that it is fairly common for us to mask and avoid and hide the real person underneath. For me I am terrified of learning who that person really is. I don't know yet because I've spent so much time hating her and having no respect for her. Society doesn't respect her traits so I learned to disrespect her traits too. It is really hard to find a way to live with traits that are not desired in society, especially when you see all those you love also not respecting them. It is easy to hide rather than be you, it's easier to become a chameleon for me than to learn and stand up for who I am. I am scared because I still struggle to see the light at the end of the tunnel where things will be ok again but I draw strength from those I see or hear about going through it as well.
I have written this as an intentionally vague post because I have come to think that a specific diagnosis isn't the central part, it's how we deal deal with the stigma of having different brains (either through genetics or life experiences where our brains have been changed), and how we then do the living with our specific challenges.
These are just my current thoughts. I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts about how you feel about learning to live honestly with your diagnosis or set of challenges.
