Breathe It In, Just Follow Me Right To The End: A Rant About Neurodivergence

I cringed when I typed the word "neurodivergence" in the title, because it sounds like a quintessential tumblr epithet, but I digress. Anyway, I'm gonna write about this even though it's not one of those things you're really supposed to talk about. In the vein of my earlier blog posts, I'm not going to try to sound eloquent or pretentious, either. This is some stream of consciousness bullshit.

I thought this would be over by now. I've had a lot of people tell me I'd grow out of everything that's wrong with me, and that everything I won't grow out of can be easily fixed. 

I'm fine with being Sad Forever. I can cope with that. I don't care. I'm past that. It's the fear and instability that I won't tolerate anymore, because it's ruining my life.

I guess maybe I've had it a little too easy, because I never expected to struggle as much as I have. Like any privileged millenial, I found it absurd (and still do, sometimes) that I should have to carry on with my problems, and that no matter how much money or therapy I throw at them, they're still here. Growing up and making it in the Real World meant that I had to learn how to put some effort into solving this shit for myself. I can't have someone do it for me, and I can't always take a pill.

There's nothing that I've put as much work into as my mental health, but it's also the most difficult, taxing journey I've ever been on. No matter how much progress I think I've made, I can't leave the house without anti-anxiety medication (if I can bring myself to leave at all), certain people give me catastrophic panic attacks, I have extreme problems with my interpersonal relationships, I tend to get myself into situations that aren't easy to get out of because I have little self control, I constantly question reality, I have horrifying nightmares of things I've been through and things I've seen, I frequently consider the merits of walking into traffic, and I don't trust anyone, because you can never know for sure what they will do to you. I am always early, I am never late, I avoid certain places and I double-check everything. I don't make eye contact, I constantly overthink everything, and I am terrified that everyone's going to leave me. But I'm not really afraid of anything but myself, and that's the worst. 

No matter how hard I've tried, the things I've mentioned still happen and I'm doing my best to live with them. According to everyone I've spoken to, I'm in control of this, and this can be managed if I Just Try These Techniques. That works pretty well until you have a psychotic episode or you're faced with your absolute worst phobia.

I don't really know what you could say about it, or what I could say about it, that hasn't been said before. I just don't want anyone to ever think that mental illness is any sort of desirable, enigmatic, colorful aspect of someone's personality or that it's anything easy to deal with. 

Though I think that perception is slowly fading. A lot more people nowadays are aware of different mental illnesses, and people are realizing that if it's something they're suffering from, they're not alone. Feeling isolated is unbearable. Although, something I think is far worse is how invalidating people can be when you open up to them about what you're struggling with, something that can be incredibly hard to do.

So I urge you to be kind to people who do make that jump, and to try and understand them. Chances are they are working tirelessly to attain some semblance of sanity, a better quality of life, to maybe just make it through the day. I would give, quite literally, everything I have to not feel this way, and when I'm feeling it I want to be able to talk about it. I want people to be able to understand, not give me the laundry-list of cliched reassurances. Of course it's all in my head, and no, I can't snap out of it. Sure, it could be worse, but does something have to be the absolute worst-case scenario for me to feel shitty about it?

My goal isn't to be happy. That'd just be a positive externality. I'm interested in feeling entirely safe, functional, and stable. I've looked for this in a million different places, jobs, medications, experiences, and perhaps most dangerously, in other people. I know that achieving some sort of real, lasting stability is something that comes from me and me alone. It's probably going to take forever to get there. I haven't seen my last panic attack, and I know that I'm gonna probably ruin something major in my life again at some point. I just have to accept that that's going to happen.

I'm working on breathing, as deep as I can, and remembering everything that truly is, instead of what it might be.