On the pathway to The Pathway

Reader - we need to talk, you and I. 

We need to have a heart-to-heart, find out what we have in common, see if we can't cheer each other along the road a little. 

I'm 63 and waiting for assessment for ADHD, which I am confident will show up with me at the appointment. As would Autism, if they only had the resources to check for that too. Still - it's a start. 

Although I'm a not-yet-card-carrying Neurodivergent, I have of course done extensive research and hours of overthinking about how on earth I missed realising for so long. After all, I was a Special School teacher with a noticeable affinity for the Autistic pupils. 

I regularly had screaming fits triggered by sounds nobody else could hear, when I was tiny.
When I was 3 after someone said, "What a cloudburst!" I sobbed in terror for half an hour as I waited for the bits of cloud to hit.

I have tickertape synaesthesia (didn't even realise that until a decade ago) and prosopagnosia (face blindness) which is sometimes not too bad and sometimes can mean I'm not sure whether I've seen my own daughter or not.

All my life I've been able to hear several thoughts at once, like piano chords. 
I have incredibly sensitive hearing. I blurt out and have to bite back my interruptions - not always successfully.

I've had so many different hobbies I can't remember them all and - the clincher - even though I used to be a carer and cleaner (and a very good one) my own house is a complete tip and I have lived with the guilt of being 'a bad housewife' for almost fifty years.

But the realisation of what is going on with me has opened my eyes to my own hidden bias. In spite of years of training and working with Autistic children and children with ADHD, it never occurred to me that they were my tribe. Why?

Well - I was sociable! Funny! The Life and soul! Empathetic! So - how could I be... Autistic?

I am still cringing at the realisation of how far I unwittingly bought into the stereotypes. 

Looking back over 60 years of skilled masking has been jaw-droppingly shocking. And also liberating. 

I now know I WASN'T a naughty little girl who was always having tantrums. I was permanently on sensory overload in a noisy, crowded house with a hoover and a washing machine and a television which was so loud I couldn't get to sleep. It was only when my teenage daughters berated me for shouting upstairs from the kitchen to join in their conversations in the bedroom that I realised just how sensitive my hearing was.

Every day I take a few minutes to think back over some aspect of my life which never made sense. Last month I had a revelation about friendships. I suddenly realised that when I was at Uni and we went to the Disco (which I hated because of the noise but recognised its importance as a social event), that moment when someone said, "I'm going to the loo, you coming?" was NOT about whether or not I needed a wee (I rarely did) but was a signal to go off and gossip, share lipstick, compare snogs (I never had any, it seemed a bit unhygienic) and generally bond as friends. I never went, never did the bonding, and never quite got why I always felt like such an outsider. I cringe to think how stand-offish I must have seemed. But then, I'm assuming I came across as just as normal to others as I did to myself. I guess that probably wasn't the case. They perhaps weren't surprised I always offered to look after the bags. I'll never know now.

And although if you'd asked me five years ago I would have denied having a literal mind (I speak four languages! I write poetry! I LOVE metaphors!!) I now keep getting flashbacks to my angry rants after dates: "Why do people say 'See you later!' when they DON'T MEAN IT!" 
More cringing.

I've done a lot of cringing in the last year but I'd say it's mostly positive cringing. And there have been some amazingly heartening breakthroughs. Just today I found the phrase Anticipatory Grief which I've had my entire life. I remember when I was about 7 I saw an old man and a dog and burst into tears as I realised that one of them would die first and leave the other. I'm so uber-empathetic that sometimes I feel as if I'm emoting for the whole world. I cry at broken trees. I weep for littered beaches. As for war... it's too terrible to go there too often, although I do watch the news out of a perceived duty to be informed.

I'd love you to join me on my journey as I randomly unpack my 60+ years of baggage. I'd love to hear about yours. 

Let's do this together.