Good Morning

Both my grandchildren have been diagnosed as neuro divergent & so have other relatives received an adult diagnosis in the last couple of years. A while back on you tube I was watching about coping strategies that neuros use to make life easier. I was surprised that I naturally use some of these hacks. One of the most enlightening one for me is to do studying or appointments in the morning, so that you are not putting yourself on hold all day waiting to complete just that one task. At least the hacks aren’t medication & are free.
Roberta

Continued:

Well, I’m still on the phone after asking Gemini(using the phone). So, neurodivergence is what I thought it is:

Not a diagnosis, but an umbrella term for different combinations of diagnoses. For one person, it means ADHD + Autism, for another, it is ADHD alone, for another, ADHD + dyslexia. For another- Tourette Syndrom, etc.

* Some people consider OCD to be a neurodivergence (there’s a narrower and broader consideration of what constitutes neurodivergence).

And a person can consider themselves neurodivergent without having been diagnosed with anything, because of ADHD or Autism traits.

1 in 5 or 1 in 7 people are considered neurodivergent.

Personally, I was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome (and OCD), and I fit ADD or ADHD traits), so I am definitely entitled to the term neurodivergent. For some reason, one more term doesn’t make me feel any more special or unique than I felt before 😶

Personally, I believe that most people who consider themselves (or are considered) neurodivergent are not born that way, or are not that way in that first cell (zygote)

It’s our experiences in our early years that have a whole lot to do with who we become.

I mean, if we have parents who didn’t give a sh** about what we feel and who gave us no privacy.. we become different from who we would have if we had parents who did give a sh** and who gave us breathing room to be.. neuro-typical.

The parenting we receive- or don’t receive- if it’s very divergent from the wishful-typical, is it a wonder that we become neurodivergent?

What thinks Robi?

🤔 Anita

Dear Robi: I hope you are still visiting with your girlfriend in the nicer city (Oct 20-___) I am rooting for the 2 of u to make a life together, to help each other and make it work.

🤞💛🌷Anita

Dear Robi 🙂

Good to read back from you this Monday morning!

I read this part: “I told her about the way I get overwhelmed and how sometimes when she opens up about something heavy or emotional.. I don’t seem to have access to my feelings. I seem to shutdown my feelings and feel numb instead. A few times it happened that she was breaking down and I had no reaction at all.. I felt numb”,

I’ll be surprized if I didn’t mention it to you before, but when another person gets emotional in front of me in real- life (and it happened last only yesterday), expressing deep hurt, frustration, disappointment, etc., I get very uncomfortable and I want to get away ASAP. I feel anxious and I can’t wait for the other person to stop talking. I can’t feel present with the person and yet I know it won’t be right to walk away too quickly.

Maybe you shut down emotionally more effectively than I do, and you don’t feel anxious, only numb? (I am jealous, ha-ha)

I know that I react this way because I grew up with a highly volatile, emotional mother who overwhelmed the young me with her intense and unpredictable emotions while my own emotions (sadness, fear) were never acknowledged by her or by anyone.

Back to your post: “But also guilty for not knowing how to react and what to say”-

I’m getting better at replacing guilt with empathy for the child-me who reacted like any child would react to an un-attuned mother who is overwhelming the capacity of a child to carry hers (or anyone’s) intense, unfiltered emotions.

“She then asked me if I had no empathy, or if I don’t care at all”-

When the parent does not understand that it’s harmful to not filter the expression of their emotions in front of a child, the child’s empathy shuts down because empathy for the out-of-control parent is scary or it hurts too much!

Gemini: “When a child grows up in a home with high volatility and with an emotionally un-attuned parent, the child’s nervous system is constantly pushed past its capacity… A child’s developing brain relies on ‘co- regulation’, meaning they need a calm adult to help them process and calm down from big feelings. When the parent is the source of the chaos and llack attunement, the child has no one to help them regulate…

“Faced with emotional intensity they cannot escape or fix, the child’s nervous system resorts to the ‘freeze’ or ‘fawn’ response. When fight or flight aren’t option, dissociation and shutdown become the safest defense mechanisms…

“The subconscious logic is simple: ‘If my parent’s intense emotions are dangerous, unpredictable or overwhelming, then all intense emotions are dangerous’. “-

Using my phone, I accidently pressed the wrong key and lost Gemini. I’ll be back to you in the next post.

Dear Robi (late Mon night):

Sometimes, like tonight, I wonder if in my earlier posts today, I stopped talking about your mother (combining your two parents into one) and talked instead about my mother. She’s been such a negatively central figure in my life, that I tend to see her everywhere.

The image in regard to you that got imprinted in my mind is you minimizing the computer screen when either one of your parents entered the storage room (not really your room), anytime they wanted to.

The image got imprinted in my mind because that’s what happened to me, only there were no computers back then, when I was a child and teenager. What was Minimized was Me (M & M.. ha-ha) while I took on the needed job of Maximizing the Fantasy of Me.

Another thing that stuck is what you shared recently- that growing up, you imagined being important, as in superior to others in your small town.

My daydreaming (extensive, hours long at any time, intoxicating) about becoming rich and famous were much needed. How could I have survived feeling so small, too small without big, very big dreams?

Problem is that real-life is nothing like those daydreams, and because of that big gap, my low self-esteem, sustained only by the fantastic daydreaming, sunk even lower and lower when met with reality.

The very thing that helps children survive a very difficult childhood can be a disservice in adulthood.

It really is not going to happen- the actualization of my daydreams- but it’s okay, I get to experience the real thing nonetheless: maximizing the computer screen, so to speak, and saying this is me. Right here, in this post, authentic, honest.. important-enough, yes 🙂

Anita

Dear Robi:

What you wrote in the last paragraph is so sweet. It feels special reading it. Yes, the grandiose dreams did have a purpose: to protect me from completely drowning in the ‘You’re a Nobody” maternal message. Daydreaming of being an international movie star gave me hope of being a Somebody one bright day.

It makes sense that you need to rest and distract yourself after returning to your parents’ home, on top of having a cold.

Do you think it’s a good idea to promise yourself that once you move out from their home, this time, you will never again return to living with them?

I wonder if such a promise will make it easier for you to survive however long you will still be living there.

I didn’t know that your parents regularly put you through Blaming Sessions (BS 🙂)

You and I have a lot in common: my mother had regularly put me through BS.

No wonder that at times, when your girlfriend gets emotional, your 🧠 expects BS. I suppose your parents got emotional (upset, hurt, whatever), and next.. a BS.

I understand feeling guilty about not feeling empathy when your gf got emotional. But it’s not that you’re not an empathetic person, it’s that understandably you Freeze, and empathy gets frozen.

It’s like PTSD-BS type..?

Using my phone, I’ll continue a bit later.

Dear Robi:

“Never again living with my parents” as a tattoo made me smile 🙂 Too boring for a tattoo, says I, a waste of ink even though I agree with the message. I’m not surprized the tattoo thought crossed your mind before reading my tattoo reference in my 2nd message simply because I think of you as a person who thinks a lot, like me.

“An obese bird trying to fly.”- 2nd 🙂, ha-ha. I don’t think there’s such a thing as an obese bird, not in the wild, anyway (I did come across obese baked chickens)

Tiptoeing Robi with occasional relaxed walks and sprints.. and flying-in your dreams- feels like a heavy car going through snow, or an obese bird trying to fly. Hmm.. 🤔

Tiptoeing so to avoid being heard or seen, like minimizing the computer screen..?

Flying would make you too visible, too seen?

A 3rd 🙂 when you reminded me of your “fanciest of sunglasses”. And a 4th 🙂 when reading about you looking at cars, and then at even more cars. I think that you’re a creative, funny writer!

Reading about you needing to preserve your energy.. I forgot to charge my phone and it’s running out of energy, so I’ll charge it and get back 2 U.