It's funny I am mostly TMI. At least in my personal life. (At most jobs I am pretty resolute about not googling co-workers, never talking about politics/religion/sex. One of the things I like about work is that you mix with all kinds of people and you don't talk about anything that could potentially interfere with the work... I mean that is the idea anyhow, and I like that. I also like jobs that are demanding enough that there is little room for socializing. Anyhoo...)
So I usually attempt to tell new people in my life about my shortcomings, but I am such an odd bird, especially in a small city like STL, that most people don't listen to me. Or can't. I'm coming to the conclusion that I might be too complex.
Since the Solar Deity sees fit to have me keep waking up in this incarnation every morning I have to just keep trying, and I guess it is time to publish this thing again.
Also, I am going to take down this blog soon, and everything I have on Google. You will still be able to get it on Gumroad, and I will eventually set up a Wordpress site, but I am done with Google for my personal stuff. I am not happy about them using it for AI and also I had problem with one of my blogs (I have about 25 I think) and I cannot get any response from them at all.
Okay so, I posted this on my facebook and now I am posting it here.
******
Have you ever used a tool- or something-
that had damage? It was great, but you had to allow for the damage. Maybe you had to hold it differently, or it
took a minute to get it started.
Maybe it was something rare. It couldn't easily be replaced, or it could
do things that other tools (or cars or whatever) couldn't do. But you had to adjust for it.
I am trying to describe something about me
that I can never seem to communicate to people.
Because if you have this tool and you DON'T realise that it has this
issue, you might think it is broken.
This tool is not broken. I am damaged.
I also am not like the majority of people. No one was looking for autism or ADHD in
girls like me when I was younger, and I don't present like others. I do have PTSD too, from being raped and
strangled, and growing up with caretakers that were mentally ill. I also have the abandonment and daddy issues
with men (and did not grow up with them at all, so a lot of things other women
find normal I do not, and a lot of things other women do not know I understand
very well).
There is also a part of me that will always
be that little kid that is constantly being dropped in new situations,
especially in the middle of personal trauma.
Having to listen to the most painful things about your life being
discussed openly and also being the reason that you had to go stay with people
that you didn't know and mostly didn't like. People who often also had
religious agendas and sometime creepy ones. (Those were rare thank god.)
The things about me that make me so
adaptable and so resilient and so familiar are also the same things that trip
me up. Processes and routines are always
new to me. I have to drill myself over
and over again not to get mixed up doing simple things that most people learn
and never think about again. I think
this might be an ND trait, just based on reading memes and comments on these
sites, but it could also be my incredible power as a child to shut out my
environment and everything about me and do things on autopilot to the extent
that I would not remember doing them.
I learn differently from other people, and
while I can master some things very quickly, there are others that I have to
program in over and over. My short-term
memory for new environments is amazing. But I will forget whatever the last
environment was very quickly.
I have gone to jobs where it was my
responsibility to deactivate the alarm, and everytime the alarm code changed I
had make sure to bring it with me, because sometimes I cannot remember it. Or remember it fast enough. And this happens with the things I use the
most.
I could never remember Sean's cell
number. I called him everyday. Often multiple times. I knew him for 12 years before I got a cell
phone- he had one right away, when they were called something else- and I would
call his home number when I couldn't remember his cell. In 21 years this
probably happened about 15 times. But it always would happen in clumps - when I
was most stressed out, when something was happening where I felt under attack.
I can also be a ditz. I have eaten oatmeal for breakfast every
single day (except those donuts recently lol) for about 5 years. Until a few months ago, when I made a
concerted effort, when the microwave would ding, I would open the cupboard to
get a bowl.. for the oatmeal.. that was in the microwave in a bowl... It drove
me nuts too, and also I am not a morning person.
Mornings were, and still are, the hardest
times for me. A lot of my childhood was
waking up to unhappiness or fighting or in some strange environment. Many many mornings as a kid I did not want to
get out of bed. And if my day started with someone yelling at me it never got
better. Especially if it was some
stranger's house. And especially if I
was really trying (and a lot of times I wasn't).
I struggle with these things, and another
thing- in new environments I will make mistakes. I have to constantly fight this and it was
years of therapy after my breakdown to understand it, but like I always say "understanding
a problem doesn't always mean you can fix it." There are two main
components to this- the first is that a lot of these people that we (my sister
and I) had do go stay with were "do-gooders". They were doing it to make themselves look
good. They didn't really care about
us.
Do-gooders like to look good and they love
to hear themselves talk. So if you made
a mistake and asked for help they loved to show you the right way to do
it. And I had a double issue with men-
if I made a mistake they would pay attention to me. Yes, sometimes it meant getting in trouble
but it was still attention.
And finally, I have tunnel vision, and it
is also exacerbated by stress and new situations. I was also humiliated a lot as a child and
also as a way too young girl sexually involved with older, often dangerous,
men. If someone, male or female, is
standing behind me and is pointing at things and is irritated or impatient,
part of me is probably struggling with that "stupid worthless
kid/girl" feeling that comes up.
The tunnel vision thing and thing with
processes is also present in my mentally ill family member, and other members
of my family that didn't have diagnoses.
Walking around, angry and arguing or crying and upset, looking for
something that they were holding in their hand.
Absentmindedly doing a process and messing it up, like punching in the
wrong phone number or code.
Most people only see the damage or the
dynamism. They only see the person that
can command a room or an army, be familiar in any situation and relate to
almost any person OR the person who cannot seem to see what is right in front
of them, suddenly forgets or messes up the simplest process that they do
everyday, or gets really tongue tied or awkward talking to someone either
really important or completely unimportant.
I'm not broken, but I am really
complex. I had problems in LA, too, but
there were so many more people like me, and there were just more people
period. And I also don't want the life
most people want, and the things that most people want don't seem satisfying to
me.
I'm not broken, I am damaged. I could
organize, train, and lead an army, but let someone else handle the codes. You can trust me with all of your money and
stuff, to follow your wishes and do things the way you want it done, but if
that includes a step by step process and sequence I may have to (probably will
have to) write it down and refer it even if I do it every single day.
I imagine this is TLDR and I know a lot of
people are probably sick of this PSA every few years, but I have to keep saying
it everytime I meet new people and get in a new situation, because even with
all the people like me that I found on the internet (mostly young uns with
pages about being ND), it's always new... like the psychic thing actually, I
tell people but - especially if they don't believe in it- I have to prove
it. It doesn't matter what I have done
in the past, each person has to experience it or see it (or not see it) for
themselves.
Anyhow, thanks for reading.
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