Learning to know thyself

I thought I was pretty good at social practices and understood the world pretty well. I also thought that hard work was paying off and that I finally cound a place where to belong. Well, a year ago, my world crashed and all my strategies to navigate the eorld fell apart. Reading back at my previous 2 lonely posts circa 2017, I can see the signs there; still trying to figure out what part of me needed to be fixed.

It took a series of events to triggered the worst time of my life. PTSD flare up with vengeance and the emotional pain was so raw that it became physical. I couldn’t sleep, stop crying, eat or function at all. Then came the suicidal thoughts. They are pretty scary. For a moment suicide seems like the most reasonable thing to do. I had a plan: a rope, my bed frame. Fortunately, I have friends whose mums did so. That fact and being a mother myself ignited my instinct of self-preservation. I was lucky. Very lucky then.

Seeking help wasn’t easy. From having to explain myself to a doctor at the other side of the phone, to not being considered an emergency and being told to hold on for another couple of days before the GP could see me. I was told and I quote: “If you have an emergency while waiting, do call the Samaritans”. In my head read :” if you need to kill yourself in the meantime, call the Samaritans; if still alive, I shall see you on Thursday.” Inside me I also thought, no wonder people go ahead. Fear not, in the end, shaving my precious long locks was the way forward; figuratively killing the old me.

Hello new me. As time passed and one of my dear friends kept me going with hypnotherapy until Citalopram kicked off, the new obession was to be HAPPY. In hindsight, that was a challenge and a half. I didn’t feel happy before the breakdown, so how on earth was I expecting to come out of this dark hole and find happiness? Well, I tried everything people say brings you happiness: Mindfulness, Reiki, sage (yes, big smokey sage) dancing, partying, learning new things (crochet, watercolour, calligraphy), retail therapy and counselling loads of it and all kind. In the end, all I needed was Citalopram and 3 diagnosis: ASD, Dyspraxia and ADHD. Who knew?

I can see why people may worry about labels or being considered disable. First of all, ASD, Dyspraxia and ADHD are learning difficulties not a disability per se. The best way to describe them is under the umbrella of Neurodiversity. This means that we are just different that the majority neurotypical population. With the right support and strategies we can integrate, contribute and thrive as members of society. On this road, I have learnt that being on the spectrum also means that there are not neurodiverse individuals alike. The number of traits one may present will not equally manifest on everyone and also culture will play a big role on shaping the way the individual navigates the world. For instance, I found comfort at moving from a mostly extroverted , cuddly Venezuelan society to the UK. This meant a rest from the continous hugging and almost enforced social gatherings ( people may stop talking to you if you don’t attend the parties they invite you to).

Now, this new understanding of who I really am and how my logic works was a true revelation. I did believe that ASD was mostly a male thing, and me being female, 45 years old and outgoing didn’t fit my understanding of it. However, after trying the third counselling therapist within a year, I realised that the previous 2 were actually ok but crap at explaining to me what I needed to learn. Telling me that I couldn’t be friends with everyone and that I should learn to choose my friends better, infuriated me. Therapsit 3 explained it better: she raised the possibility that I saw things in black and white and that the thing I do is called “masking”. That’s when the penny dropped: to me there are only two types of people in this world: friends or foe. Nothing in between. That meant that when therapist 1 and 2 told me to kot be friends with everyone, I thought ” so I have to be enemies with everyone then? Haha. Again, who knew?

TBC

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Rocky is waiting for his walk

It could be fiction

I’ve just read a story about an english girl who went to live in abroad. I found fascinating that she was as culture shocked as I was when I came to live in England 11 years ago and that I could actually understand what she misses… It means that I am on that half way road of being part venezuelan and part english.

When you live in a foreign country just translating words is not enough. You got to grasp the culture. For instance, I was really homesick during my first year living in London so when people said ‘are you alright?’ I thought they were interested in what was going on in my head. You had to see the confused faces of the shopkeepers with my responses. Then, on another time there was me saying to my future father in law I’ve just met: Are you taking the ‘piece’? Little I knew until that moment that it wasn’t about taking a slice of something but a rather rude expression with a different spelling instead. Luckily they politely laughed it off.

And it is politeness that brings me to another of the lessons I learnt empirically within the British culture. It has taken me a long time to differentiate when people mean what they say and wether is them just being polite. When my son was born, relatives and people said to me: ‘give us a call if you need any help’. I soon discovered that it was just a ‘polite’ thing to say and nothing more. I’ve also learnt the you don’t find things on the floor. The polite and honest thing to do is either leave it untouched so when the owner returns can find the lost item or give it to the nearest authority. To me it was the nicest cultural lesson of all.

The art of writing is not easy, right?

This is my very first post. The aim is that I get use to writing and more importantly, that I find my own voice. After a very close encounter with Turnitin Electronic Detection Service (TEDS), I decided to ask my course tutor, friends and colleagues about their experiences on writing academic papers and essays as it seems clear that my problem is not about referencing but about paraphrasing very closely to the course material.

As much as I felt offended to begin with when I first read the letter, the more I practise and research about the rules of paraphrasing/notetaking, the more I realise that I need to do something about my writing. It seems to be so bad that the official  letter from the senior staff tutor,  suggested that I might have been copying and pasting from a Chinese website. The thing is that: a) all my notes are handwritten so I really took offence with the copy and paste suggestion, b) I work full time, have a young family and barely have time to study the whole coursework as it is to them look for material at obscure Chinese websites and c) yes, I am a foreigner, but is my accent that thick?

I am going to finish this first entry like they do at the Oscars: Thank you Sarah R for inspiring me and filling me with courage to start a blog.  Another big thank you to  ‘El Yayo’ for having a siesta allowing me to write this entry.