Knowing about my neurodivergence has given me the key to what I've been looking for...basically my whole life. I've always known that there was something wrong; why did I feel so awful all the time? Why did nothing ever work out? Why did everything I ever tried end in heartbreak and tragedy? And most importantly, how do I change it?
And I did feel horrible. I mean, I knew that I felt bad, but I didn't even know how bad until I felt something different to compare it to.
That's what all of it has been about. The searching, the studying, the journeying, the questioning, the mysticism and asceticism, the writing on this blog: everything was a quest to find an explanation for and a solution to my suffering.
I don't know why simply understanding what it is makes such an enormous difference. But it does. I mean, there is the fact that it enables me to get the right pharmaceutical aid to get my neurotransmitters properly balanced--and that alone is huge. But it's not all of it. Somehow, knowing what it is has made me able to come to terms with it. To find...well...not peace, exactly, but balance...perspective. I feel centered. It's like I've been surrounded by dementors all my life, and have finally learned to summon a patronus. Only it's not exactly a happy thought that does it: it's more like Sirius in Azkaban--it's the knowledge of the truth, even if it's not particularly wonderful, rather than some pleasant memory.
Now, also, I find it much easier to comprehend other people's communication. I am still not, and never will be, adept at it. It still takes effort and reflection; but I can get it. Unfortunately, now that I am more able to see in that way, I can see more clearly all the times in the past when I hurt other people without meaning to. Especially in dealing with girls. I mean, there are enough problems with communication between normal men and women. But with this added factor, it's been an absolute disaster. So many hurt feelings, when I never intended to be hurtful; I just always said the wrong thing, or said it in the wrong way. And the worst part is that so often, what I was trying to say was exactly what she was wanting to hear, only I'm not able to say it in a way that she can hear it. And vice-versa. She'll be trying to tell me something important through hints, and suggestions, and inferences, and other indirect means, as girls do, and I'll be utterly clueless.
But in all cases, I never wanted to hurt anyone. I'm thinking back, and I honestly cannot remember a time when I intentionally said something for the express purpose of hurting someone. No, wait, there's one; during the divorce. But even that was coming from a place of pain and betrayal, not malice.
And I see how living with neurodivergence without realizing it forced me to develop layers of defense mechanisms and coping strategies that were dysfunctional and ineffective. And the longer I went, the more twisted and deeply-embedded they became. Maybe that's where understanding has its effect; in allowing me to unravel all of that and come up with new ways of dealing with things.
But I don't think that's all of it, either. There's something which is hard to articulate. It's like, from the time I was a small child, I was made to feel different; alien; other; unacceptable; unlovable; a freak. Not as much (but still a bit) within my family, but definitely outside it. I don't know how to convey the effect it had. But it left a mark on how I saw myself, and how I felt about myself. Over the years, it became buried under those layers, but the wound was always there. The self-doubt and self-hatred. To oversimplify it, I guess it could be expressed as "Why am I Unlovable?"
Try to imaging how you might feel about yourself if every interaction and relationship, starting in childhood, ended in criticism, judgment, hostility, and rejection. So yeah, I became sensitive, and defensive.
I have had very few genuine human connections in my life, so the ones I do have are extremely precious to me. But it always ends up that those people mean more to me than I do to them. It's not easy for me to make those connections, so once I do, I don't want to let go. But they seldom seem to have a problem with tossing me to the roadside. It's almost impossible for me to communicate with people without grave misunderstanding; so I developed the habit of trying, and trying, and trying, to explain myself. But people always heard something different than what I was wanting to say. I've never had a single relationship of any kind which didn't end up breaking my heart; so I became skittish, and hesitant to open myself up, and eventually just quit altogether.
But now I'm...well, working on it, at least. I haven't really gone back "out there" into the world, and don't know if I ever will. But I've at least started to get involved in some things, in a limited way. I'm kind of done with normal people, though. Only interacting with other freaks and weirdos.
