Some thoughts on my thoughts

I had a panic attack today. I’ve never had one before. It hurt my chest. I felt sick. I cried. And all the time I knew what was happening. I knew I was having a panic attack, and my brain, rather than telling my already fraught nervous system to calm the fuck down, just watched me cry like some deranged voyeur and did nothing to help. Not one thing.

It’s hard for me to live in the moment, even a moment as terrifying as that one, when I am weirdly and constantly aware of what is really, truly happening to me. I don’t process; I don’t remember, I just observe. Observe my own life as it falls apart around me, while saying, ‘I knew that was going to happen’. It’s not helpful, it’s hindsight before the fact, but with all the same shoulder shrugging, ‘oh well, better luck next time’ hindsight usually brings.

Now, I can only assume my panic attack was caused as my nervous system reacted to my being made redundant from a job I have held for over fifteen years. That, to me, and probably to you, seemed like a perfectly good, maybe even sensible, reaction to such a cataclysmic life-altering event. And ok I could have avoided it if I sat with my emotions for a while, but that’s the point I’m trying to make here. I can’t. So, instead of dealing with what is very obviously an emotional response to my grief at losing my job, my brain tried to tell me to carry on as normal. Be normal. Do normal things. Smile. And my nervous system was having none of it. So I had a panic attack.

Why am I like this? I have an idea. Well, frankly, I have so many ideas that many of you will probably moan that I am placing the blame everywhere but on myself. And you know what? For this day at least, I bloody well am. The way I am programmed to react to the world is exactly that — programming. I did not do it to myself. I am a product of my environment and of my late in life diagnosis of neurodiversity.

I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD and if I’m laying it all out for you, dyslexia. And what that means, in reality, is all my life I have been told to, and have worked hard to, ‘fit in’ to ‘be normal’. Whatever the fuck that means. And while a large part of me understands I am different, there is still that persistent nagging voice in my head telling me I am overreacting, that it’s not that bad really, that it could be worse. Best to shut up and not worry about it. Don’t even think about it. It’s fine, everything’s fine. In a way, this would be fine. I mean, yes, it would be a terrible denial of the person I actually am, but it would be a singular, navigable viewpoint. Instead, what’s happening inside my head is the knowledge and understanding that I see and react to the world differently from many, if not most, something I have no problems with. It’s completely natural, but I live in active denial of this already understood knowledge. And so, I am forever in two minds. If I had my way, which I’ll agree is an odd thing to say about one’s own thought process, I’d turn off that voice encouraging me to be normal, to alter who I am in order to be perceived as a functional member of society, but I can’t. It’s in too deep and so I must deal with it forever. Like an irritating piece of last night’s dinner wedged steadfastly between my back teeth, despite the fact I flossed and brushed my teeth twice. Not only is it that endlessly and sometimes painfully annoying, it’s also incredibly damaging.

All my formative years spent learning how I ought to behave did nothing but teach me to ignore the needs of my own body. To think about how I should be seen to react instead of simply reacting. Be that good or bad, be it laughing or crying. The fundamental problem with this questioning of my every behaviour is that I don’t actually know how to be myself. I know how to be a person who merely looks like me, and walks and talks like me, but who isn’t in all honestly actually me. Ultimately, this disconnect from self caused me to watch myself have a minor panic attack in my car in a supermarket car park, rather than allowing me to deal with my possibly inconvenient underlying fears and emotions. I deny myself so I can look fine to others. I tell them I’m fine; I look fine and so no tough questions need to be either asked or answered.

So what I’m saying, I think, is this; question why you ask neurodivergent people to curb their behaviours. Are you asking them to stop a stim because it’s making you feel uncomfortable, and the comfort of you and other ‘normal’ people is more important than that of us ND’s, or are they actually in danger of hurting themselves or others through their actions? Because if it’s the first option, if the sight of someone happily hand flapping, shouting, or sadly rocking to self sooth makes you feel uncomfortable, so uncomfortable you force that person to become less of a person, then I’m sorry, but that says more about you than you’d probably like to acknowledge. But I’m happy to tell you with great certainty that you are the problem, not me. Also, if you have any neurodivergent friends, and you do. I’m telling you now, you do. We’re bloody everywhere. Check up on them, because they are probably not fine. Years of being told their emotions are the wrong kind of emotions means they won’t tell you when it all goes to shit.