On 2024 and Deep Sleep

A new era has begun

I don’t know where to start and I don’t know what’s next.

The good news is that I have been gone in a large part to my creativity coming back. I am focused on building my TikTok and YouTube this year, striving for consistency over explosion. Caring about the content I make over emulating others. Just being myself. If no one wants to listen, I’ll say it anyway.

Last year I got everything I wished for and more. I got everything I always deserved.

Pragmatically, it was financial supports from the provincial and federal government. Designated PWD which helps me in many ways including subsidizing things like medical and dental care. Something once impossible.

Life related, I received witness. Validation that, for me, could only come through black and white writing in official documents proving and confirming I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t a lazy, weak, whining shadow of a person who preferred isolation because I’m miserable and judgemental.

Through the oddness of the internet and people willing to share the depths of their own assessments, I saw how incredibly lucky I was in this maelstrom. My clinician went over and above what I have seen in terms of other people’s experiences.

Had anything gone slightly differently, I know I would not have been satisfied. Other testings in my area only perform one measure with interviews. For me, that wasn’t enough. I wanted to be dragged and scoured. Ripped apart, my insides picked through because I needed to know everything possible.

And I got it. It was the mental autopsy I was praying for, for the death I felt inside.

I wonder if my clinician is just that thorough or if my case needed that psychometric depth. The person who did my assessment was the most perfect person for me. Perfect in every way from voice tone, demeanour, office style, responses, procedure, communication, forethought, invitations. Unbelievably professional, serious but warm. It felt like they knew the gravity of what we were doing. Whether that’s a projected feeling or something I picked up on-it existed.

It is SO ME that I got someone who left no stone unturned (with over 26 psychometric testings and 5 hrs worth of clinical interviews). So there is no doubt. This is the end. There is no more mystery. I know it all. And it feels like now, no one can hurt me.

My diagnoses stitched me up and brought me back to life. It brought me a concept I always had problem conceptualizing: Closure.

I also received Time. More hours at my new job. A job I have kept for 2 years this month—teaching Jiu Jitsu. The longest job I’ve ever held. The only place where I have to curb how much I talk. The only time I chatter.

Though I’m no longer adrift, fog is still here.

I hate the pain that is embedded in the reality that life keeps going no matter how yours stopped. It’s been a year since I took a leave of absence from the warehouse job because I could not stand-physically-and keep my eyes open. 365 days ago I had severe burn out and felt doomed. I didn’t know then that that was the precipice of change. I had been pushed beyond my limits my entire life when I took my therapists advice and stopped working to just sleep. I still showed up to teach Jiu Jitsu, but I have no memory of it.

Sometimes I get a notification on my phone: Apps slated for Deep Sleep. Shortly after my Leave of Absence, my assessment appointment came through on a cancellation.

Deep Sleep was about to arrive.

It doesn’t matter how much on paper and real life has changed. I still haven’t caught up to what happened to me. What kind of story is this? Maybe this chapter of 2024 is Recovery. Maybe it’s Grief. What’s good is I am no longer frozen to my bed; I want to be there when I am tired. Which is a lot, frankly. It is a soul tired now.

I don’t think I will ever be an advocate in a socio-political way for Autism. I have seen the tireless work others do online for it and I am so appreciative for the things they tackle. But for now, and maybe forever, all I can give is parts of my experience as I listen long and deeply to those in the community who I resonate with and were here long before I realize I was a part of it.

All my life I felt I was never doing enough. But that was not what was actually happening. All I ever did was everything I could possibly do. I’ve done literally everything I could, for decades. And now,

It’s time to Rest.