One thing I recognized recently in my psychologist is that there was never a time where they pushed me to consider or do anything. Everything has been timed to my clock. I didn’t realize this dynamic was happening until the last few days where new thoughts have been brewing: acceptance of my new reality in how I pace my life.
I inadvertently learned during 2020 that my life needed slowness. Quiet. I was so intensely grieved by not being able to train Jiu Jitsu due to restrictions and the cloud of doom over everyday life that it wasn’t until we were expected to “go back” to the world as we once knew it, that I suddenly could not. I agonized over what was wrong with me. I had always had this pit in my tummy about dealing with the public at work. Forced to return, my anxiety was at alarming levels. At first I thought it was about Covid itself, but the more I was required to arrive for shifts and not be sequestered away with my headphones, a voice started to say to me: “this is not about Covid”. It didn’t have the fear flavour of contracting an illness, it was something else. It was familiar.
Prior to the world being put on hold, I worked at least 3 jobs to make ends barely meet for many years. If I wasn’t trying to balance that, I was quitting or getting fired on this merry-go-round of job hell. Stability was not in my dictionary. That was for people who could, I don’t know, do things? It wasn’t for lack of trying but no matter what, I would bother someone, make a misstep, not see a big picture, misinterpret cues or completely miss inferred direction. This was work, this was life. I was a gig worker and I couldn’t do anything else without losing the job in under a year, time and time again.
The world and its logical demands pushed me from day one. All the things I never wanted to do was demanded of me from a young age. Going to school, having to socialize, be outside, tearing myself away from investigating something in nature because the bell rang to do times-tables. Literally everything I could think of in the outside world from the home my parents did everything to accommodate me, was like eating glass. When I talked about how ‘everything was difficult’, it’s not always pragmatically.
There was difficulty in me understanding why imposed routines existed, why I needed to be included, why my own interests or daydreamy nature was always interrupted by other people’s to-do lists. In this, nothing felt safe. Because as soon as I settled, I would be ripped from it. It takes a lot of time and energy for me to feel comfortable in anything. The back and forth tasks of school drained me deeply. It was only natural as I aged to become a malcontent. My brain and body was constantly agitated. If you can’t transition with ease daily, you’re going to get fucked.
It made no sense to me, making minimum wage, that I was required to show up and cut glass at 7 am when the orders didn’t go out for sometimes weeks. If I can get my days worth of work done in 5 hours and not 8, why the fuck am I here getting the life sucked out of me from noise, overhead lighting and navigating co worker interactions? People took 1/2 hour “15 minute” breaks. Why am I required to stay til we are, on paper, obligated to clock out. It’s inefficient and just for show.
As I have observed many coworkers in the past, it seems they enjoy mingling. To me, lunch is over rated. Yes, I absolutely believe in breaks (more breaks than normal actually), that’s not what I’m implying, to “wOrK hArDeR”. But it was like they enjoyed talking to each other—immediately. One person was hired along with me and they just sunk right in. Me, I stopped trying to promote conversations after a week. Fuck it. Better they know me now cause I don’t have the time to bother to pretend to care about small talk. I just try to be nice and not so brusque so I don’t get immediately fired.
I have had a few co worker convos that stick in my memory, but it’s more like an artefact than a precious recollection of friends I made along the way. I have always had the notion that work is meant to be for work, and anything outside of that is irrelevant and leans on my ability to perform to my potential. Turns out, this offends people deeply, to not be “a team player”.
But it’s not on my time. My level of social anxiety is unhinged. I am constantly managing it daily, even now in my blessing of a job at the gym. Even with people I see day in, day out, I am nervous, always trying to observe my surrounding, understand the pulse of the environment, look for solutions if needed, always trying to improve. With the gym, I have advantages. I have a lot of skill and enjoying sharing my knowledge. I enjoy teaching children and their direct ways of being human—I relate. I work part time and can now give myself excess time to prepare classes on paper, mentally prepare, try to soothe anxieties before stepping on the mat by enacting my own routines that fortify how things go to go well.
My pace in life is about control. If I can control my pace, I can settle. I can feel safer. I will get external stressors of course, but if I manage my pace daily on a limited time table from others, I will be able to deal with unexpected things a bit better than if I was getting tossed around, only given 20 minutes to transition to another thing. I can’t do it. I never could. I forced myself because I thought that’s what everyone did, but it’s not true. People don’t feel the burden of transition as much as I do. The handling of these transitions are crucial to my regulated state, so in the end I can do a good job that’s demanded or expected of me.
My psychologist has probably prompted a number of topics that flew over my head, or that I wasn’t ready for. I feel like they are with me now, second captain to my navigation in my official acknowledgment as an Autistic person. Past clinicians were determined on pushing me into their methodology rather than having me wrap their methodology around, like a comforting blanket. The difference in approach is stark and absolutely central on respecting how my processing works.
For the entirety of my life, I was never ready and that did a lot of damage. But to be able to see this now, again, I hate myself less because I wasn’t being a difficult asshole.
I just needed time.