Yeah, I’m back for part three of my musing on mindfulness. Here’s part two in which I talked about, well, I’m not really sure what. I think I had more side notes tahn I did actual post. That’s just the way I roll, though. I make no apologies for it. I will footnote you all. day. long. I have footnoted footnotes before, and I will do it again.
That’s a word I love, by the way. Footnote. Side note, too.
Back to mindfulness. When I started researching the negative sides of mediattion, I expected to find nothing. I thought it was just me because people seemed to be universally positive about it. “It calms my mind!” “It makes me see the world in such a different way!” “It eases my anxiety!” “It connects me with the world!”
I know that there are proselytizers for anything and everything. I know that. I have lived that. I am careful not to do that myself because I can tip into that way too easily. And, I’ll be honest. The more praise something gets, the more suspicious I am of it. Not because I think it’s going to be trash, but because I know it won’t live up to the hype.
There is only one movie that I ever ended up really liking after being skeptical about it before going to see it and that was The Royal Tenenbaums. I don’t like many of the actors in it, and I did not have hope. Much to my surprise, I really liked it. Other than that, though, I am pretty accurate as to what I’m going to (not) like.
I really wish I had known I was neuroatypical earlier in my life. It would have made things so much easier. Things fell into place once a friend gently suggested that I take online autism test. The irony is that I knew my brother was autistic several decades ago beacuse he exhibited classic autistic traits–no eye contact, did not like being touched, very into techie things (there’s a picture of him gumming an alarm clock when he was a baby, and my mom told me he took it apart around the same time), had to do things his way, and basically stimmed (before it was a known thing).
A few months before my medical crisis, I was talking to my brother, and I casually said something like, “Because of you being on the spectrum–” He stopped me and asked me what I meant by that. I scrambled and backed up, but in the end, I told him what I meant. We’re pretty open with each other, and I did not want to lie to him.
A few weeks later, he called me to tell me that he had looked up autism and it really helped him. i felt bad that I hadn’t told him before beacuse I thought it was obvious and because he knew his older son had it–and his son was a lot like him.
It’s funny to me that he had no idea that he was autistic and needed me to tell him whereas I also had no idea that I might be and needed a friend to suggest I check it out. I thought I might have ADHD, but I never in a million years dreamed I might be autistic as well. Why? Well, mostly beccause of how autism is portrayed in society. What is emphasized when autism is mentioned? Male, stimming, can’t look you in the eye, can’t empathize with other people, low-to-no emotions.