Returning to the original flow
On not being "Her" anymore
Welcome to “(Not Always) Neurosparkly Monday Musings & Meanderings”, where I explore something coming up in my recent experience as an AuDHDer and chronic illness warrior recovering from trauma. Please note that in this essay, I am writing specifically about healing from illness that has not been found to have a physical cause.
If I were totally authentic, I would, as an AuDHDer, be pretty rude by conventional social standards.
I’d be saying things such as, “I’ve had enough of talking now.” or “I feel we’re just talking for the sake of talking now, can we stop?” or “What were you just saying? I totally zoned out,” or simply shutting my eyes and drifting into my own world at regular intervals.
I’d be moving when others are still. I’d do about half the activities that it’s considered normal to do. I’d be humming and sharing random facts that have no apparent bearing on the conversation but which my neurocomplex mind sees as intimately connected.
Even with partners, to say and do these things is still enormously hard to do.
A fascinating perspective on healing is that the healing process requires moving away from the constructed self, the one we developed to survive and get our needs met, and into our true self.
The core idea behind this is that the symptoms (physical or mental) that we experience “stand in” for the parts of ourselves that want to come back online, which have been blocked from existing safely in our lives and which our system has therefore decided are “dangerous”. This is something that has started to resonate with me more and more.
In the case of chronic fatigue, which I’ve been living with for thirteen years, vital life force energy is redirected to keeping aspects of ourselves hidden. These are the parts that we got the message were not safe to show. Eventually, this turns against us and we lose energy to do the things we want to do in our lives.
As a fan of Internal Family Systems, or parts work, I don’t believe there is “one true essential self”, as in one unitary way of expressing ourselves. We are all multiple: in me, for example, I recognise parts that express through silliness and humour and others that are deadly serious at all times and cannot take a joke; disciplined, conscientious parts and hedonistic, don’t-give-a-**k parts. Plus countless others.
But I do resonate with the idea that the multiplicitous “me” who originally came into this world is someone I’d like to reacquaint myself with. I believe that the expressions native to “little” me were a natural impulse from my soul, or psyche, or whatever you want to call it, and that most of them were socialised and shamed out of her.
I have noticed that when I feel the most well is when I am operating very much like that little girl did, before all the abuse, bullying and emotional mis-attunement.
Over the past week, I’ve reconnected with this way of being, which is natural, spontaneous, creative, joyful and in flow with all my feelings.
Sam Miller of the Mindful Gardener, who healed from extremely severe bedbound ME/CFS as well as a host of other ailments using mind-body approaches, talks about how she had to learn to stop “being Her,” “Her” being the constructed or false self.
Recently, I’ve hit a pivotal point where being Her has become more and more intolerable. The activities that appear to trigger flares of chronic fatigue usually involve socialising and being “on”. As well as the inevitable lower threshold for stimulation that comes with AuDHD, I’ve begun to wonder if my symptoms also point towards a struggle with inauthenticity.
I still find it impossible to be around human beings, however beloved, for any length of time in a completely authentic way, even the tiny handful I can be relatively unmasked with. I’m not even sure it’s realistic to do so.