Yes, I’m writing more about my brain and how I’ve thought it was broken for most of my life. When I was talking to my autistic friend (endless gratitude to her for making me realize that I miiiiiight be on the spectrum) about my childhood, I used the phrase, “felt like an alien”. She said that was exactly how she felt as a child and so many autistic people felt the same way. I also said that I always felt as if I was never given the manual for humanning. I really thought everyone else got some kind of instruction on how to be a human being.
“Turn to page 54 for complete instructions as to how to interact with humans at a party.” “And here on page 90, we see how to make small talk when you’re picking up your medicine.”
What I really wanted was David Attenborough to guide me through human life as if he was watching a rare species of, say, wild cat and describing their daily life to people who have never seen them before. I could have really used someone telling me how to be human before I was released into the general public. I used to joke that I was raised by wolves, but it was not really a joke. What I mean is that my parents had no idea what life in America was like, so they weren’t able to guide me. More to the point, they had no desire to integrate themselves into American culture, so they had no interest in teaching me about it.
It was the perfect storm of several negative things that made it so my entry into American society (school) scarred me. 1. I wsa a weirdo. I just was. Now I know there’s a reason for it, but back then, I just thought I was a sad and broken human being who should not have been born. And I was deeply depressed by the time I was seven. 2. My parents had no interest in American society and passed that down to me. We did not watch TV or go to movies or listen to the radio. I like to the apocryphal story of how the first pop song I heard was Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant in 1983 when I was 12. That’s pretty late in life, but it was indicative of how little my family cared about such things.
My parents were very conservative/traditional, which meant I was raised with a lot of restrictive ideas. I’m talking religious rather than politically, but I would not be surprised if the latter was true as well.
3. Kids are vicious. That’s just in general, but especially towards those who didn’t fit in. Which I most emphatically did not. I got picked on all the time, and it made me hate myself more. As I was walking home from school when I wsa seven or eight, there was an older girl (probably fifteen or so) who would make fun of me every time I walked by her. It didn’t occur to me to go a different way or to tell someone, so I just bore it as best I could. I would tense my body and just try to hurry by her, but I could hear her voice as I crossed her path. One day, as she was heckling me, I burst into tears. Her demeanor changed instantly, and she told me how pretty my hair was.
I wished I had learned something positive from that interaction, but I just felt ashamed and weak.
Later, when I was in high school, there was a girl who picked on me every day in homeroom. I would try to ignore her because I was told that was what worked*, but she ignored my ignoring of her. One day, I snapped. I grabbed her by the back of her hair and yanked her head back–hard. I wanted to snap her neck, if I were to be honest. Fortunately, I did not do it, but that’s what the rage in me was telling me to do. I told her to leave me the fuck alone. She stuttered that I was making a fool of myself. I told her she was and let go.
She did not bother me after that, but I still did not learn the important lesson–that might makes right. I’m joking, but I’m not. The lesson I should have learned was that standing up for myself was not forbidden–and, indeed, it might actually ameliorate the situation. Then again, it might make it worse, but at that point, there was no way my self-esteem could have gotten any worse.
So, basically, family life, my own brain, and my environment came together to conspire against me. It would have taken a stronger will than the one I had in order to flourish in that hot stew of negativity. In fact, I’m amazed that I’m still alive, if I’m to be completely honest.
(Though I don’t really know if it’s worth it. I came back from the dead (twice!) for this bullshit?)
I try to be kind with myself, but it’s hard not to feel as if I’ve wasted my whole life. My last therapist said when I was in my late twenties (and talking about how I’hd wasted my life) that if I didn’t do something about it, I would be saying the same thing decades later. She put it much more elgeantly and carefully than that, but that’s what it boiled down to.
And she’s right. Here I am nearly double the years later, and I feel just as rueful/ashamed that I haven’t done much of anything with my life.
I still think I need to fix my brain because my god. It works so hard against me. For example, taxes. They were due today. I started thinking about them in January when I got my W-2 (I think? W-something). I could have done it then because my taxes are really simple, but did I? Of course I did not. I have never met a deadline that I did not like to push until it almost broke. I have been like this since I was kid, and it’s caused me endless amounts of frustration. During my thirties, I managed to mostly make my peace with it because I knew that I would actually meet the deadline even if it was at the last minute.
Here’s how my brain goes, though. In January, I told myself I could do my taxes then. I did not do them and rationalized that I had three-and-a-half months to get them done. I thought about them fleetingly throughout February and March. Then, two weeks ago or so, the thought that I had to do them settled in the back of my brain and would not leave. I decided that I would do them last weekend (Aprill 12th). Then Monday. Then yesterday (Tuesday), I just forced myself to do them. It took roughly thirty minutes, including electronically submitting them.
Thirty minutes. I could have done it in January and been done with it. Or not cared about it until this weekend/yesterday and then just do them then without the mental weight. Instead, I have the worst of both worlds in which I procrastinate until the last minute while I still lowkey worry about it the whole time.
I am trying to not be too hard on myself because I actually met the deadline, but it would have been nice to do it with much less worry.
*Utter bullshit, by the way. As is most advice around bullying at that time.