Aug.09 - Blaugust Day 9 - Hey you'll never guess what I'm still on about

It's Blaugust so I'm going to write something, but I'm still integrating the autism stuff, and maybe that's getting boring for people, I dunno. But you're at my blog, so I mean...shrug - you're free to leave, lol.

It's just. It's wild. It's all just wild.

It's wonderful that Jupiter (youngest child, autistic) is home from college, because they're basically a Jedi at this stuff. I'm still in the place of having to keep wading in to information, then getting pulled out to sea by a riptide of emotion from realizing how resonant everything is, realizing the vast number of things I do and feel that I never talk about because I'm ashamed of them are actually autistic things, realizing how much grief I have that this was never figured out - and then I get out of the water as fast as I can and I try to go regulate myself. Been doing a lot of watercolor organizing. Nothing like organizing six gazillion tubes of watercolor when you're trying to regulate six gazillion gallon-jugs of emotion sloshing around. Highly recommend.

That part about the number of things I didn't realize were autistic - Jupiter and I talked about that a lot tonight. Jupes had a lot of love and support in childhood, in ways that we didn't even realize were helping their autism. If I'd had a compass for parenting, it would have had "Everything that happened to me, all the ways I felt," for South. And every time I held that compass to figure out which way to go as a mom? I went North. As hard North as I possibly could. For every question, the answer was, "Do the opposite".

I made sure they always felt safe and secure, or as much as I could possibly make them. I didn't tease them in hurtful ways, I never laughed at their expense - and god fucking(!) help the person who did that in front of me under the guise of "the kid won't get it". If they were confused or hurt, I didn't tell them how oversensitive they were. I made sure they knew they had a right to their feelings, even if that included anger, even (especially) if that anger was directed at me. The Northerly love is unconditional, baby. No conditions. None. You are mine. You live in my heart. Planted like a great oak, roots going down into forever. There is no removing that. I hold you. That's all there is to it.

Making sure they always felt they had access to social safety (in me or their dad) meant, for one, that every joke said in their presence that they didn't get, I explained. My friends thought this weird. I did it anyway. I didn't laugh at them for not knowing, or talk over them like they couldn't hear me. Even in a group of adults, if someone made a joke or comment they kids didn't get, I'd stop and explain as if they were, oh I don't know, actual small and thoughtful human beings capable of understanding snark or puns or double entendres. If the comment was an adult one, I explained it later, away from the crowd, so the kids wouldn't feel embarrassed, and edited the explanation appropriately.

They were people (one assumes they still are), and it was important to me that they felt that. Inexperienced little souls in brand-new meat sacks, full of wonder and wanting to learn. I demanded that their environment respect that. I made sure they never felt stupid or looked down on by their family, and I made it extremely clear that if they found something confounding, there was never EVER a penalty for asking about it. They never had to hide that they didn't understand something.

By accident, holding only that compass, I became the parent I'd needed when I was a kid.

Also totally by accident, this happened to be an especially good environment for an autistic kid.

Which means that Jupiter's autistic traits were noted and worked with as simply a part of them. So when they were learning about their autistic identity, they were able to slowly unmask, and feel safe. They weren't gripped with fear and panic that unmasking would mean terrible consequences. Like everyone they love suddenly looking at them and going, "Oh wait, THAT'S who you are? Yeah I'm out."

In my childhood, love was conditional. Whole swathes of emotion (especially anger directed at the main parent) were not allowed, and bullying happened at home and school. Which meant that masking was literally how I survived. It was useful. I wouldn't say I thrived. I went to 8 schools in 9 years, I was a mess. Try walking into 6th grade a month late, dressed like Punky Brewster (I still love bandanas). Survival was my only option.

So now I'm reading about autism and realizing that roughly 70% of what I had previously considered Just My Personality is actually masking. This is disorienting at best. Masking isn't lying about myself, it's just...how to say this...it's like...knowing very young that the you that is you, was absolutely both too much and not enough. Oh and also? You are weird. Very weird. You know this. You know this from feedback. You came into the world going, "HELLO, WORLD! :D" Face bright and shining like the sun. And the world was like, "Oh my god. You seriously need to stop that. Right now. Oh ffs, now you're crying? Okay, you're also too sensitive. You're going to need to stop that too."

So unmasking, now? After five decades? It's a little precarious. It's a little freaky.

Jupiter, wise child that they are (my friend Jaime has been saying for years, "I want to be Jupiter when I grow up"), gave me a pep talk tonight. "You take it slooooowly," they said. You unmask slowly, you integrate all of this slowly. You can't do it all in 48 hours. But embracing it and accepting yourself is such a gift.

And while I can't do it in 48 hours, there is some very good stuff happening in just this short period of time. I feel like a whole part of myself inside has woken up. A fierce, compassionate part, for myself. Oh I have that part for the kids, for loved ones. I can pull out the sword for them. I have to find it, I mean, give me a minute, my sword is kind of buried under bad puns and OOOO LOOK AT THE LICHEN and a stack of granola bars. But it's there.

But the sword for me? Yeah I don't have one of those.

But wait! Here it is. Suddenly, I see it.

There is this whole list of stuff about myself that I have just felt bad about, for ages. I realize that this blog post is personal, so maybe it will seem surprising to say: I can't talk about the things on that list. It's not because they're terrible, it isn't like, "No. 1: Inexplicably steals candy from small children at every opportunity." It's like, stuff that I have always secretly thought everyone else struggled with when they were young but then learned to do skillfully, all these things (mostly social stuff) that others have mastery at, whereas I am 51 and still struggling. I am nowhere near mastery level at this list of things. I was bad at all of them as a kid, and I have gotten maybe the tiniest bit better as an adult.

And it turns out that this list of stuff is what a lot of autistic people struggle with (and ADHD folks, which, we already knew this.) When I told Jupiter this, they said, "Yeah, it's like everyone else is driving a sports car and you're on a bicycle with a broken chain." Apparently I'm not alone. And maybe I'm not broken. I mean, my chain is. But not me. (This metaphor might be broken.)

Which means in just 48 hours, the revolutionary thought has been spilling over me like cool, refreshing water on a blistering hot and miserable day: Maybe I don't have to feel bad about any of these things.

That's it. That's the whole thought. Just twelve lovely words.

It's intoxicating.

And it makes me feel...what's that feeling....is it...fierceness? Am I feeling....self protective? Whoah.

Okay, well. This post is long enough. I have seven minutes to get this posted before, I don't know, the Blaugust gods descend upon me and, do, well, basically nothing since this entire thing is completely voluntary and there are no Blaugust gods. I mean. Probably. Who am I to say.

(!) = I might start cursing more.