mamabeatnik

[mamabeatnik]

Burnt To a Crisp

This year has taught me so many new things. 

Most of the time, it hasn’t been enjoyable at all. To be honest, i am exhausted & depleted. I’m reaching a point where it seems i just can’t fit any more lessons or conscious effort into my body and brain and i’m just a constantly boiling pot, ready to spill over. 

With that comes wishful thinking. 

Wondering what an environment that makes space for my struggles and reminds me that i’m doing great, it’s ok to cry, here let me hold you, i love you looks like. One that doesn’t seem to attach my value to financial solvency or the amount of times they’ve been allowed to get away with zero accountability for their actions. One that doesn’t refuse to acknowledge my two disability diagnoses at the top of the year. That is mindful of their own lack of growth and willing to work through things and have difficult conversations with me, instead of with everyone else. 

Most of all, though, i would love to have not been completely misrepresented in my requests and communication to people who already don’t know the full story, and choose to ignore red flags for the sake of blissful ignorance. 

And this is a bare minimum request, right? Venting vs shit-talking - it’s a fine line. And only those who are interested in proper conflict resolution and personal growth seem to want to pay attention to that line. 

And while i cannot control the lines that others draw based on what little info they have, i can grab my crayon and draw my own lines. 

Line 1: what in the hell would an environment in which i can fully embrace my Autism diagnosis look like? 

For starters, i need to dissolve any resentment that comes from realizing i and i alone have to answer this question and sustain that environment by myself. There had been hopes at some point that i might have a support system to lean on, but that, so far, has been a delusion. I apparently am advocating, validating, forgiving, supporting, building, sustaining, and learning all for myself BY myself for now. While working, while getting a degree, while trying to thrive somewhere...less than understanding.

This comes as zero surprise, since that’s kind of been the pattern of my life, but at a certain point, a girl has got to win one once in awhile (see elements of personal responsibility in choosing environments, former post)!

But the perk of having to create that myself while fending off what seems to be an unwillingness to offer support and understanding means - 

a) i already know the environment that’s unsustainable and the one i DON’T want, and 

b) i get to call the shots. All of them, and reject what isn’t beneficial.  

So that brings me back to the line i must draw. Or rather, the series of lines. 

The Ideal Environment I’m Willing to Accept Only SLIGHT Compromises On: 

There must be empathy and curiosity surrounding the unique way my brain works or doesn’t work. I cannot be responsible for educating someone on what I need 100% of the time, and this won’t be an unfair request for someone that loves me and wants to grow together.  I am an Autistic person - everything i do, say, and think is through that lens, and if there’s unwillingness to even learn about how i work, there will only be confusion, resentment, and misunderstanding. There most certainly cannot be denial or an unwillingness to participate in that aspect of the partnership. 

I will automatically receive the trust and understanding that unless i’m very cautious with my energy and my levels of busyness, i will burn the fuck out, and it will be a very long time with a lot of quiet days in bed in order for me to recover. I am not doing this on purpose. I am not taking financial advantage. I do not want to just “stay at home and be taken care of”. Autistic burn-out is no fucking joke and it is NOT the same burn-out that someone who is not autistic experiences - not even close.  And -  it can last for YEARS. This has been one of the HARDEST things to accept about myself this year - that i simply cannot force myself to do things i don’t have the capacity to do. The result often leads to major depression, health issues, dropping out of school or quitting a job, for months to years. I cannot control this. I can only fine-tune and maintain the levels of productivity that are acceptable and keep me from crashing and burning. And altho it doesn’t have to be the case, this will look and seem like willful laziness to someone who does not care to understand. 

Respect. Respect for my emotions, my concerns, my struggles, and my choices. I will rarely ever be made to feel like I cannot make mistakes or have bad days that could lead to social disparaging or betrayal. I also cannot be in an environment that taps out of empathy very quickly, which would mean the others involved aren’t self-absorbed and can self-examine and self-correct and take ACCOUNTABILITY. I won’t ever be made to feel like i’m not an adult, or that i’m a failure, or that i’m faking it. There will also need to be an understanding of complex PTSD/trauma present in all parties, and a recognition of the havoc those wreak on your brain and emotions. 

Ideal? Yes. 

Impossible? No. 

Whenever i feel that my list is too big or too much to ask of any one person or environment, I remember all of the things that have been asked of me my entire life. By people, by environments…

Especially the things i was asked to do as a child. Especially the empathy required of me to SURVIVE. And how, despite it meaning that i had no childhood, I did the things that were asked of me for people i loved. To protect the people i loved. To help them. Because sometimes, it's not all about you.

And while i can have resentment over the fact that due to my autism, my upbringing, and my abuse background, i seem to be stuck on a never-ending path of playing catch-up for all the societal things others my age have already perfected, i don’t have to. I can look at the things i excel at that they are still slowly learning - conflict resolution, speaking up for myself, setting boundaries, willingness to self-examine and grow, a readiness to learn how NOT to be. 

A flawless intuition and ability to spot problems and solve them. A desire to always be learning. 

I LIKE my autism. It’s not unreasonable to expect that someone else would, too. Which is very encouraging to think about, because I could use some support. This ol' gal is very tired and worn out, and it's only 34 out.

[mamabeatnik]

Separation of Church & Fate

This year apparently has been about learning self-validation. 

I started school this year, and turns out - I’m not dumb and i’m really good at time management, unlike what i was telling myself. 

I was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD (combined type) at the very start of the year, and it turns out those are fuckin REAL and so are the issues they bring to my life. I’m not just a lazy asshole, like i was telling myself.

It’s also been about recognizing old patterns and navigating the essential inner growth. 

Why do i feel these things about myself? Why is my self-confidence destroyed this year? I KNOW i’m not bad, or dumb, or manipulative, and that i am always putting effort into growth within relationships and myself. I like to ask questions because i’m genuinely curious and i want to know what people think and i like to solve problems in ways that benefit everyone. 

So where am i getting this negative self feed-back loop? And why was it missing for a few years but suddenly has come back full-strength?

Turns out that the negative thought patterns i allowed to creep in are not actually my sentiments at all. They’re the reflections of very difficult years in harsh environments built up over time, strengthened by the perceived notions of people who have no fucking clue what’s actually going on. My inner awful dialogue wasn’t something i struggled with as a kid, until the church came along. This would be partially a product of simply being a child, but also being an AUTISTIC child. Most children are who they are, they like who they are, and they don’t realize that there’s anything wrong with them until someone doesn’t like them or misunderstands them. Essentially, all children are taught to be self-conscious and learn that they are ‘weird’ or ‘bad’ or ‘dumb” from social peers and triggered adults and the cycle starts there.

This is true tenfold for autistic children. 

Up until the point I was introduced into a society that isn’t built to include me, i had no frame of reference to believe that i was any better or worse than anyone else. I was ME. I liked being me, until i encountered a religious environment that told me i must acknowledge that i’m a bad person in order to participate and get any social ‘perks’ with my club membership (my father also told me i was 'stupid', an 'idiot', and 'dumb' on a daily basis but that's a story for another time).

This seemed arbitrary. Listening to someone preach love and forgiveness every Sunday while also casting hellish aspersions on non-club members, sanctioning domestic abuse and violence, subjugating their female members, and publicly flogging and banishing members who didn’t adhere to the exact script - none of it made sense. It sure seemed everyone was getting away with something, but because they’d stamped God’s name on it, it wasn’t hypocritical. 

My blood would boil, my blood pressure would rise, and I would daydream about stabbing myself in the neck with my pen, listening to these men preach on and on and on. Which didn’t seem constructive or conducive to personal growth. I wanted to get rid of that part of me that spent the mornings in the pew viscerally angry. Because, as i was being told, the problem was ME. 

I started asking genuine questions because i was confused how such GOOD people could be so hypocritical and lack so much self-awareness. Why would these men tell my mom she had to stay with a man who pushed her down stairs and beat her children and why would they say God wants it? Why would they take it upon themselves to discipline grown adults like they were children and treat children like livestock to “train”. Why would there be a spiritual entity that wants any of this? 

These aren’t ground-breaking questions that should shake the very foundations of a sturdy, well-built religious faith that’s predicated on genuine love and forgiveness. If we were truly involved in the spiritual practice this cult claimed we were, there would be inclusiveness. Kindness. 

Support. 

Grey areas. 

Honest and difficult conversations. 

The ability to share your experiences and have them be received with curiosity and understanding. 

There would be space for mistakes, apologies, and proper conflict resolution. 

Turns out, this was too ideal and not the environment in which i found myself. I quickly learned that asking tough questions and trying to have a dialogue relegated me to the status of “questionable” and “dangerous” - even if I took accountability and apologized. I didn’t understand that. 

Years later, i realized i’d already been marked as dangerous by this community when i was 8. And while it sounds too self-victimizing to be true - it was simply because I shared some info and asked a question. 

My father’s anger was ramping up. He had started taking it out on my mom in physical abuse form, and if i stepped in, it was my turn. Being a problem solver, i figured sharing this info with some older girls at the church might yield positive results. Perhaps their dad could say something to mine. What actually happened was difficult to process. 

The girls went to their mother, who went to my mother. I was pulled aside and reprimanded by this other woman for sharing personal family info and instructed never to do it again. She had dragged my mother over with her and lectured both of us on…something - probably encouraging us to get our feminine tongues under control. Years later, this woman’s husband would recommend that my beaten mother skip the divorce she so badly needed on the premise that God likes faithful and submissive wives. But that's another story.

So this is where I learned that my naturally questioning and problem-spotting brain was THE problem. If you see something suspicious, you will get swatted. If you ask questions, you will be banished. If you speak up for yourself, you will be punished. It doesn’t matter how obvious the problem is, how kindly you try to say it - it doesn’t matter if you’re not contributing to the dialogue in a way that sweeps things under the rug and bolsters the bullshit. 

I had assumed this was only an issue within church structure. Once i left, the pattern seemed to resolve itself. A non-religious social hierarchy built on the same non-friction and passive double-standard principles didn’t seem like it should exist. 

Unfortunately, au contraire. 

This year was about learning that people everywhere feel attacked when you suggest something in the social structure is off and try to have a dialogue about it. In a less aggressive sense, this situation mimicked the one from my childhood - misrepresentation, misunderstanding, an entire group of people telling me i was wrong and insecure, and several others clinging to the idea that i tried to control their lives.

(lol - why are they pretending i have that much power)

The difference this time was that i'm now an adult. I have endless experience being treated this way for asking questions.

i also now know that people - esp women - on the spectrum are treated socially poorly bc they're easy targets due to our trusting nature and our communication disability and inability to understand or be passive aggressive. So we are labeled confrontational and aggressive. Dramatic and rude. This time around, I can observe it from a more secure vantage point. i don't have to let it rule my life or destroy my self-confidence. Or convince me that my intentions are bad or my perspective invalid. I can simply remove this dynamic from my life altogether. I can stand up and leave that pew behind.

What surprised me wasn't that i was encountering these accusations of being dangerous again. What surprised me was that it was a social structure of people in their 30s, who should know better. What surprised me was that the church structure i'd worked so hard to leave behind exists alive and well, but on a social level.

Certain social groups it turns out, can  also be built on rules and certain ways of doing things. None of this is the more ‘correct’ way, it’s just become whatever is easy and more acceptable by a majority. There’s even a game element to it - and as long as you play by the rules and don’t upset anyone - even if their behavior has negatively impacted you - you have a club membership! Don’t rock the boat! Please be sensitive to others but the minute you ask them to be sensitive of you, it could end poorly for you and only you! If you have a mental breakdown because of years of hiding an unknown disability, you will be accused of trying to take advantage of someone financially! You're not a partner! You suck! This social construct hates consequences, but we definitely have some for YOU!

This provides a nice set-up for people that lack self-awareness or good intentions - or have yet to sort through their negative patterns of behavior. People who aren’t BAD per se, but also aren’t trying to grow or take accountability. Charismatic people who charm the pants off friends but gaslight and stonewall their partner behind closed doors. People who haven’t learned conflict resolution. People who don’t understand boundaries. People who are blind to the fact that most of society functions around using your friends to get the attention and validation you want rather than learning to get it from yourself. And these don’t make them bad people. No one is perfect, and we all have blind spots and struggles. 

The distinction lies in whether or not they’re willing to accept responsibility and pay attention when someone shares negative feedback or says “hey…i think we have a problem.”  The only bad person is someone who makes a mistake and does not apologize or learn from it, but chooses defensiveness and projection instead (at the end of the day, that will affect THEM negatively the most). No one likes to hear they’re wrong or fucking it up, but it’s a necessary part of being a human if we want to grow and improve. It’s a personal pattern to break. Humans are here to communicate and help each other.

Reliving an experience adjacent to my church upbringing as an adult has been eye-opening.  This year, i realized this is where my personal responsibility to breaking this pattern as an Autistic person comes in. Because of the autism, I will be dealing with this in some form for the rest of my life. The pattern contains many things - my participation, my willingness to trust that most people have good intentions and want to be better and will listen when someone speaks up, my effort to fit in with everyone else, my desire for connection. In certain environments, these expectations will be true. Recreating my experience as a child of witnessing fishy behavior, boundaries being crossed, and trying to step in for someone that was not my responsibility was my fault. I willingly chose to do this. That's my shit to work through.

And while it is not up to me to accept the blame for how people respond or their behavior, my responsibility, in order to avoid putting myself in these witch-hunt situations, is to learn how to recognize in which environments asking questions and solving problems is accepted, and to pursue relationships within those. Because, based on how my brain works and my communication style, no matter how much responsibility I take for my side of the street, other people will find some sort of problem with how I am.

However, I can complain about how i’m being treated for speaking up for myself all i want, but if i truly want growth and a healthy environment, i’ll stop choosing social spaces that label me as insecure and controlling, and i’ll stop choosing people who play the victim and misrepresent me and gossip.

If i am in a place where i cannot open dialogues with people and learn and grow with them, then i must seize the opportunity to trust myself, my intuition, and my emotions. Time to practice the self-validation that i have struggled so much with over the years and learn the warning signs of this particular pattern, so that i don't have to play this game again. i can validate my own experiences. I can seek environments where deconstruction of social norms is encouraged, and where my question-asking brain isn't THE problem.

Because if all it takes is one person challenging the "way it's always been" to topple a social or religious structure and wreak havoc, then what was that foundation built on? Certainly something that was already false and unsustainable to begin with. If the structure of whatever i'm questioning is truly sound, it shouldn't result in defensiveness and fear and gossip. It should add to foundations and be embraced as another unique nail that holds it up.

In a sense, I'm grateful to be confronted with this strange dynamic again. These experiences teach me how NOT to be. I don't want to live my life unable to take responsibility and unable to embrace different points of view. That's where we lose growth and accountability and stay the same. That's how we are adults with a child's conflict resolution skills. That's how we tell ourselves that our point of view is THE one and we harm and ignore the others.

Be respectful. Speak up for yourself. Ask questions. Point out problems. And if people don't like it, that's their problem.

[mamabeatnik]

God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God that demands these things. Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things - unless you want to know God. They work on you, not him. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

[mamabeatnik]

hauled wood this afternoon after a rather long morning spent in a bit of turmoil....treating myself right tonight. 

[mamabeatnik]

God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lives with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing, and demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God which demands these things. Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things - unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on him. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to loook at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk

[mamabeatnik]

first day off, fall 2013

[mamabeatnik]

the great american desert, minnesota, summer 2013

[mamabeatnik]

insomnia, summer 2010

[mamabeatnik]

feels good to finally have a day i can devote to creativity, even if it only means pickling things and making sun tea...

[mamabeatnik]

Whatever you do, do something else.

claire fontaine

[mamabeatnik]

how we spend our days is of course, how we spend our lives. what we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. a schedule defends from chaos and whim. it is a net for catching days. it is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. a schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern. ...there is no shortage of good days. it is good lives that are hard to come by.a life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. the life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. the life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. who could call a day spent reading a good day? but a life spent reading - that is a good life.

annie dillard, the writing life

[mamabeatnik]

chattanooga aquarium, summer 2010

[mamabeatnik]

through the looking glass, chattanooga aquarium, summer 2010

[mamabeatnik]

...simpilicity, patience, compassion: these three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

lao-tzu

[mamabeatnik]

the neighbors i used to have, summer 2012

[mamabeatnik]

blue ridge parkway, summer 2012

[mamabeatnik]

here and now.

summer 2010