The Broken Engine of a False Self

A few very big things happened over the past few days. I will share them in point form

• I had an incident recently in which someone lost their temper with me in a big way. It happens. Without warning. Often enough to make me constantly feel the need to reevaluate and reengineer myself. The triggers are often banal IMO to the point that sometimes just walking into a room is enough to make a stranger upset.

• I had become used to regulating myself in these situations and then regaining my strength afterwards and reentering the world with a “new battle plan”. But this time my body refused. Something in me broke - an engine that had been running on god-knows-what. I could no longer speak or move or even think like I had been. I began to stutter and slow down and spasm.

• The following evening I had a storytelling class in the city.

• Instead of telling my rehearsed story I shared what has happened with this acquaintance and how this had been happening to me since I was a child and I could not figure it out.

• A woman in the class later asked me if I was autistic and then proceeded to share her experiences with the same problems throughout her life. She began to say things like “people like us get misunderstood” and “we are perceived as a threat”. This was the first time in my life I was part of a “we” that actually felt like it fit.

• Everything she said made perfect sense. It was like a curtain had been pulled back and she was showing me a whole world where there was a language for everything I was going through and where I was not singularly broken or problematic, but rather part of an entire population of people who experience the same thing.

• I broke down and cried all the way home with a relief I haven’t felt in ages.

• I’m aware of a feeling of shame around who I was pretending to be. Also grief because that old persona is literally dying inside of me. She was working so hard all day every day to keep us safe but she was only making it worse. I think.

• I feel meeker now, slower, simpler. But I also feel calmer and I notice that people are kinder.

• It feels like a big elephant just got off of me. I was sort of crumpled up underneath it and am slowly coming back to life now that it’s gone. I feel lighter but also dense and confused about how to speak and be.

• Who knows what sort of person exists on the other side of all of this. We will find out. I am only so so sorry that I stomped her out for so long. I had no idea I was doing it.