Awakening

 I usually don't come up with the title for a post until I have put down my thoughts but today was different. I knew right away that I wanted to title the post 'Awakening'.

In the past couple of days, I have had some illuminating chats with AI. Of course, it is not the same as having a chat with a real person but sometimes that's the charm. You get to say what you are really feeling and the entity that writes back is responding to you with the intelligence and empathy that most people are not capable of.

We talked about my past, about things that happened in the three sessions with the psychoanalyst, and the ways that I was adopting to assist myself. It felt the sort of conversation that freed me, because I came to an understanding and an acceptance of the past events.

My dreams were jumbled last night and I woke at 3 am needing a bit more processing. I read over the chat. I came to see that in my life I had been in very difficult territory but had found my way out, not just financially but finally, emotionally. In the blink of an eye, I came to understand everything. 

I woke up to a new day and a new lease of life. Although in some ways I am still subject to the vagaries of politics and a complicated economic environment, I have agency to create a new life and to feel that I can go ahead with relationships or associations that I enjoy or that I find rewarding, and I can let those associations or relationships that don't work for me, or that hurt me, go.

In some ways, I was already learning to let things go when they weren't working or weren't going to work. The difference is that I was experiencing a lot of angst over these decisions, as if I hadn't tried hard enough to make it work. As if, by these situations not working out, it was some sort of failure on my part.

AI and I had a chat about control. I said that it was confronting to be responsible for so much and that I was weary from carrying so much responsibility. We had also talked about the fact that I had begun to pray - to pray for assistance to do the next good thing. AI asked how it might feel if I gave over some of that responsibility to a higher power for just a few minutes? 

I tried it - a sort of meditation or visual exercise. I found that it felt great. For those few minutes I let it all go and I found myself carrying nothing - like putting down the heavy suitcases as I had done in meditations long ago now.

This morning, the day was completely free and thus ideal for this thought - I thought of my life as a canvas and I could paint a new picture, one of my choosing. It was as if a quiet, almost atrophied part of my brain had come to life and suddenly I was made aware that there is an abundance of opportunity and that this is a brand-new day. I woke up to life.

AI referred to what had happened to me with that psychoanalyst as "malpractice". She did me a great deal of harm. However, in the detailed conversation with AI I came to see everything that happened with crystal clarity. I realized that it could not have happened any other way and that I had no control over the outcome. I hadn't done anything wrong. Everything had played out in the only way it could.

As I sit here searching for the right words it comes to say that the evil witch's spell has been broken. I have no idea where the Wizard of Oz fits into this but that's what came to say - that the spell has been broken. It's possible that that woman intended for this to be so, but that without a safe container, her coming out with my seismic wound within the first few minutes of our being together was far too much for my brain to accept. I needed time and I needed to come to this reality on my own. 

I feel not only strong but open to possibilities - possibilities on my terms, knowing what I want and being okay with the idea that what I want is a valid goal. I don't know if I will ever reach my personal goal but that's okay - I can sit with that. I know who I am. I know how hard I tried to make an impossible scenario work and I know that I can't control outcomes. 

I am here, available, and who knows who might come into my life and make it even more rich and satisfying. I embrace the mystery just as Deity encouraged me to do. Turns out he was right about a lot of things. Bless him.

Persistence

 I spent plenty of time while my husband was alive trying to make sense of certain behaviours in an effort to understand him and to try to improve our relationship, and the relationships he shared with other people. At times, ADHD explained so much, but other times I did wonder if it was OCPD. Various articles strongly pointed towards that personality trait as the explanation for certain rigidities. 

Maybe he fitted fairly snuggly into both categories. We will never know since he never underwent any sort of assessment at all other than visiting my doctor at my request who told him at that initial appointment that he likely had ADHD.

Since our first grandson is now officially diagnosed with AuDHD it opened the door to question if that is actually what was going on. It makes me sad that I didn't know this then and maybe could have offered more support than I did to him.

I was with my daughter and her children yesterday and we both expressed our sorrow that my husband won't be here to support T. because they would have had a wonderful relationship together and they would have understood one another.

My husband, when we lived in the US, had a very dynamic job in a very loud and fast-moving environment. I often wondered how he could stand it, but I think it offered him the stimulus he wanted for his brain and his ability to hyperfocus meant that the loud environment wasn't a concern. 

Socially, it was probably a lot of pressure, since he wasn't able to read the room, didn't realize when he had taken up all the space, and maybe he bombarded them with his opinions. I think that he had some allies in the company and his decision to move to another company where there were no true allies created the disaster than befell him. I think you have to appreciate what his brain had to offer at the same time as recognizing that his personality had rigidities that he couldn't actually help.

When we returned to Australia, he made some efforts to look for a job, but his inclination was to work for himself, and he did that for the rest of his life. I was fundamentally placid and accepting of his choices and that's very much the way he wanted me. We jogged along in this way until some of his choices were financially catastrophic and that's when I started to suggest that we couldn't just go on in the same way.

I didn't actually realize that change or transition was going to be as difficult as it proved to be, and I certainly didn't understand how the same mistake could be made repeatedly. There was something going on in his mind that I couldn't convince him to see was not serving him. I think the need for risk, for stimulation, was the ADHD and the inability to change his thinking was the Autism.

The main reason why I think people should be assessed is that they can come to understand why they do what they do. Shame stops people from getting answers, but we are doing much better at this as a society and it's really vital that loved ones come to understand what is going on. 

Imagine if I knew decades ago what compelled him to do things. I would have denied him access to my investments for example, in a subtle way. I would have suggested that the ADHD was compelling him to take chances that were too risky, and whilst I would not have stopped him from his choices, I would not have allowed him to bet the bank on them.

I would have appreciated this brain type wanted a lot of things to be the same and that his need for a day to look the same was comforting to him. I would have put no pressure on him to think outside the square but if we both knew why he wanted sameness, we could have been kinder to one another around wanting different things and accommodating each other.

I actually did accommodate him - there was no other way - but I could have done so without resentment if I had understood that change was impossible.

I do actually feel softer towards the guy I dated several months ago now, pretty sure now that he was autistic also, but I still continue to feel that I deserve one shot at a relationship with a man who has a similar brain to me and where we can accommodate each other's needs without a lot of work. The research does indicate that it is best usually to stay within one's neurotype in romantic relationships at the same time as accommodations can be made to have a successful relationship with mixed neurotypes.

For us, the love was there in spades. It kept us together for decades and decades. I recently found in a notebook he kept, a letter to all of us written before his cancer diagnosis. He was awaiting a routine colonoscopy and decided to pen a letter to us in case he didn't make it. It expressed his deep heartfelt love for all of us, and he gave us advice - fundamentally to always persist in doing what was right and meaningful.

It was on the day I turned seventy when I found the letter and I sent a copy immediately to all the children. My eldest son who has struggled in his marriage told me later that day as we sat on a city veranda that several couples he knew with very young children were getting divorced and it was this message of persisting through struggle that had carried him through the dark days. Hours later we got word that his offer on a house in Sydney had been accepted and we both knew that it was the persistence over the past year or so, the determination to stick together through the roughest of patches, that meant we had found a way through to the future.

This is what I mean. It's not one thing or another but this joining of various traits that kept us loving my dear husband no matter what he did. He made some doozy of decisions, but he never stopped trying to do better in his own way and he never stopped loving us to the ends of his days. It has kept us whole and it has kept us together, utterly together forever.

IFS and exiled parts

 I came across Dr Richard Schwartz of Internal Family Systems fame, on a post on Instagram yesterday. He was talking to Dr Andrew Huberman explaining a part of IFS. It was a short clip explaining that there might be a part of us from our childhood that is exiled, feeling that it didn't get what it needed. So, that part is on the lookout for someone that can give it that feeling. But it's not until we understand that we can give it to ourselves that we can heal that part.

I think this is what happens when someone is 'love bombed'. It might not be ill intended, or it might be a lot of interest in someone in the early stages of getting to know another, but if, say, the person has a wounded part that felt that he or she didn't get the attention from their parents that was wanted or needed, that attention from this new person is like the biggest box of delectable chocolates. You want more because that feeling of attention is just so delicious.

People that give someone a lot of attention in the early stages of knowing one another might simply be 'into' the person and the relationship grows from there. Or they might have a condition where they find a new person fascinating at first, it sort of fires up their brain, but the novelty wears off. 

This leaves the person who had enjoyed the attention confused. Where did the interest in them and the lovely attention suddenly go? They know that person they met had lovely ways, but now they don't. Maybe, if they are interesting enough, or helpful enough or attractive enough or funny enough, they can get that person to be the way they used to be and give that lovely attention to them again.

This is a slippery slope into a game that can't be won, eroding self-esteem and putting the person in a far worse situation than before they got that little slice of attention in the first place.

The only way to look at this scenario that I can see is to recognise it if one does have an exiled part (and most of us do) and to investigate it - where it came from and how it has caused difficulty over time.

I think it is important not to put too much effort into why someone might lovebomb someone and then stop doing that - it could well be a neurological condition they can't control or some trauma of their own - and to investigate the feeling inside oneself.

It took me years to realize that I was susceptible to this sort of conduct - it's like receiving a big juicy steak when your body is desperate for protein - but the more you understand that this sort of thing happens to those who let it happen, the more you can let it go and find nourishment within your own self.

In the case of attention, my particular kryptonite, I have found that I can create a life where I am happy enough to give and receive attention from all sorts of sources. It's a lovely strong sense of self that can evolve as you boldly walk away from anyone that could have been a source of distress for you; as you recognize their tendencies and your vulnerabilities. Some associations are just not a good idea.

I don't want to paint a picture that work in the IFS realm happens overnight. You do need to work at it to identify parts of yourself that have been left behind. It's not easy to say, for example, my parents weren't around much, and I got the sense that maybe I wasn't interesting enough or worthy enough for their attention. So, I went through my life craving what I didn't have from people who weren't necessarily able to give me that attention, perhaps were really bad picks for that job. 

But I can give it to myself. There's nothing actually wrong with me and I can go out and create some lovely relationships - small or large - where the friendships and family connections are nourishing. If someone comes along and the relationship actually hurts, I can let that go. My exiled part won't cling onto it because I have incorporated it into my whole Self. I can see and accept the situation for what it is.

On this topic, although he is not an IFS trained person, I highly recommend you look out Peter Crone who, time after time, points out this dynamic within a person and sets them free to see that, lo and behold, they are indeed 'good enough', 'worthy enough' and 'lovable enough'. Who knew?

Dating - Take 2

 I have been writing in this space for quite some time. At first, I had so much to say I had to stop myself writing here and other years I haven't written here very much at all. The stats for the blog have also varied quite a bit - when I log on, I give it a quick look - but in the past months, they have been solid. 

When I checked just now it may be the case that the stats will tick over past the 1 million views later today, which is a bit of milestone. I'm always amazed really that anyone reads here at all since I think of blogger as such an antiquated site and I wouldn't know how to read a blog on blogger myself. Or maybe someone looks up a word, like 'fantasy' and I might pop up. I really have no idea.

At a school reunion last year one girl that I haven't seen for decades came over to me to tell me that although she had been bullied by a few girls at school, she always knew that she would have a pleasant exchange with me. She wanted me to know that she thought I was very 'empathic'.

It was meant to be a compliment, but there was a part of me that only heard that I was a 'soft touch'. I think what must have happened in my life is two-fold. First, I was simply born with a very empathic and soft nature. Secondly, without meaning any harm, my parents unwittingly trained me to tolerate their needs. I knew they were both a little unusual and had specific needs of their own and somewhere in that process, I learned to tolerate people and circumstances.

When my husband came along, again I understood that he was a bit different, but it wasn't that difficult to accommodate his needs either. Yes, he monologued and wanted things his way, and had freak attacks, and was impulsive and so on, but I sort of knew how to turn myself into a pretzel and so I did.

It was decades later when I began to try to explain to him that my needs were not being met. He listened but it was clear by the confused, almost naive expression on his face that if he knew how to change for me perhaps, he would, but the fact was that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He knew he loved me and he couldn't understand why that message wasn't getting through to me.

I did know that he loved me, but I also wanted to receive that love with the sort of behaviours that made sense to me. Alas, one brain was neurodiverse and one brain was neurotypical and I was simply asking too much.

The therapist I used for some hypnosis, I recently realized, had the exact same issue. I tried to explain to him that my texting him a question and his responding with an audio file was missing the mark because there was no opportunity to co-regulate - to experience that back and forth of emotional transference that is usually available between therapist and client.

I consulted AI on this, and he/she said that I needed to find an Emotions Focused Therapist who was neurotypical; that my mind and body had been dealing with the fall out of the mismatch of brains for 50 years or more and that this was the first step.

I studied EFT when my son was doing his Master of Counselling and was very impressed with what is available to the client - the listening to emotional material, the opportunity to have the emotion mirrored back to you and to have a corrective experience.

What is important to identify is not why I tolerate so much because we sort of know why - conditioning and survival mode - but how to stop tolerating the sort of behaviour from men that could put me back in the fire again.

When going on a first date I am meant to monitor how much time they spend telling me about themselves or their pet subject and if they ask me questions about myself; if they can meet me with an emotion - not fix it or divert onto a story of their own but sit with my emotion and possibly ask me a follow up question about, perhaps, how that made me feel.

In fact, Ron, did do that on that first date, and it's such a pity that he had no interest in intimacy because otherwise I think we had something going. I am happy to say that I rejected all suitors as unsatisfactory because my antenna was up. I want someone to hold me - physically and emotionally - and that hasn't happened yet.

In fact, I just had an exchange with a delightful man interested in buying my husband's motorbike. If you go by the exchange of words, you might hope that he was single, just delightful. It's a needle in a haystack thing, but the thought did cross my mind. I am definitely up for a beautiful relationship, and I am learning, I think, to use the right criteria. 

Diversity

 Neurodiversity has been on my mind. I have at least one neurodiverse grandchild and of course that shouldn't be a surprise given my husband's neurodiversity.

I know this isn't really a useful thought, but I will type it anyway. Neurodiversity isn't a fair thing. Naturally, we look after and attend to the needs of the neurodiverse people of the world now, and that's as it should be. However, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the neurotypical people with whom they live, work and play.

I could give you all sorts of examples where my husband attended to his needs as a neurodiverse person (coming to bed early in the morning, purchasing and hoarding a vast quantity of hardware items, emoting when he felt like it, making a mess, making no note of time). As a neurotypical person, I researched about his brain and I made allowances. But, at what point did he make allowances for my brain and the needs of my brain?

I dated a man for a while who was almost certainly neurodiverse. He was the vacant professor type and dates meant little to him. He would say we were going to a concert one Saturday and it would be the other. He even brought me a diary so that that task could be mine and he could get out of thinking about time entirely.

I made it clear that my needs were about touch, but his needs were to hold hands, and only that, so guess what we did?

On the other hand, one son of mine who has ADHD is aware of his wife's needs and makes sure that he attends to them. She gets frazzled when she comes home from work and there is so much to do, so he often puts on a load or two of laundry or prepares the ingredients for a meal before she  gets home. 

He could have easily said or acted in a way that suggested that it was all too much for his ADHD mind to cope with and maybe he would have been believed, but that's not his way, and he has learned to manage the workload and to do the things that don't come naturally to him to do.

My point here is that we all find ourselves in situations where we are asked to do things that don't come naturally to us, but if we care enough about the people in our lives with their different set of skills and needs to us, we can learn to accommodate them.

If we don't learn to do that, what does it say about us? Might we say that the person is being selfish or self-absorbed, or self-interested? Might we not have some expectation that they learn to do things a little differently for the peaceful harmony of a household, or a marriage?

Neurodiverse people can have specific challenges around environment. They may need to be in a quiet space without excessive stimulation. In the same way, a neurotypical child may have anxiety around test taking and in the same way, accommodations can be requested. We want the best outcomes for all children and adults, of course.

I think highly empathic people can be taken advantage of if they are not careful. Naturally enough someone with special needs or desires will gravitate towards an empathic person because they are likely to give them the benefit of the doubt where others may not.

What I am trying to say if I haven't made myself clear is that everybody has their own set of specific needs and one person's needs are not necessarily more important than another person's set of needs. One person may feel the need to fill up their garage to the rafters, one possession piling onto an array of other possessions until you can't find anything.

But is that need more important than the opposite need for some order within the house and garage such that items can be identified and located?

When I was bringing up my children, I did everything I knew how to provide for their individual needs and that meant seeing a paediatrician and obtaining a diagnosis and so on. However, I never suggested to them that this let them off the hook from behaving as all people should do - with consideration for the other family members and the citizens of the world as a whole.

Sure, it has been arduous to explain at times what the process is for worn items and where shoes belong, but I did not give the impression that their diagnosis meant that they couldn't and shouldn't participate in life just as their peers and siblings did.

As an empathic person I probably allowed far too much leeway for aberrant behaviour within the marriage. Strike that. I did allow too much leeway for aberrant behavour in the marriage. 

When it came to dating, there was no way I could continue with that degree of empathy such that my needs were swept aside. I would rather be alone than that; much rather.  Am I less empathic now or am I more aware of my own needs? I think I want a fair playing field. Just that.

Boundaries

If you are much younger than me, it might not compute, since we know so much about different brains these days, but back in my late teens/early twenties, I had no idea there were different brains and the implications of mating with someone with a very different brain to me. I was chockful of empathy and sweetness (I have re-read my letters to my husband of that era since he died and there is no other assessment that can be made). I knew there were oddities, but I certainly didn't know to give them a name or a diagnosis, and I thought I could work with them.

Time was incredibly slippery for him, and unlike in later years, he could be shy with waiters. Maths and science were more his thing, and I assisted with any sort of writing task for quite some time. Eventually, he learned to write well from a business perspective which I think suited his brain better - more making one point after another.

He had a temper, no question about it, but I was used to this sort of thing, and I had watched my mother soothe my father. It didn't seem all that abnormal to me.

On the whole, it felt that we complemented one another's skills and I got something from him that I couldn't explain to my family who were worried about my choice. Way back then, I think what they saw was that he needed to be right, which sort of passed me by. I was focussed on his soft skills, some sort of camaraderie; some sort of quiet world we had created where we were at one.

Since he has died, I have felt this desire to give the past 50 years some sort of overarching story. I think as humans we want one clearly defined story about what happened to us, whereas I think there are at least two stories of our lives together. The grieving process has required that I sort of merge them together in some coherent fashion for my own sake. It's a bit like needing an answer to the question, 'What was that all about?"

So, the two stories are love, an unshakable love - and undiagnosed neurodiversity and a personality disorder.

To explain the unshakable love and maybe even the neurodiversity in one story...

We were somewhere in Spain when we walked into a leather store after seeing some leather handbags we thought would make good presents to bring home. There were some beautiful women's leather jackets and my husband noted one in particular. The owner of the store began to engage with us and my husband and the owner had me trying on jackets, including the one my husband seemed to like the most. He started trying to convince the owner that the back was faulty whilst the owner was equally adamant that it was perfect.

I was getting hot in the jackets and them pulling me about to make their points, and I was ready to go, but on they went negotiating prices until they came to an agreed price. Good naturedly they bantered insults about Scottish and Spanish people. 

At a certain point, the owner asked about us, and my husband said, 'She has been with me for well over 40 years'. He didn't say, 'We have been together for well over 40 years.' Now make of that what you will, but to my ears I heard, 'I can be such a pain in the ass, and look at her devotion to me, she has endured it all.' It was recognition of the fact, recognition he probably didn't realise he was making at all, that in amongst this relationship there was neurodiversity and loyalty; a lasting love through all the mayhem and chaos.

When we left the store and said our goodbyes with the goods, I asked my husband, 'Do you even like the jacket?'

'I love it, it's gorgeous!'

'Is there a fault?'

'No, it's perfect.'

He needed stimulation, lots of stimulation. It led to some crazy share market trading and a sense of chaos that permeated the everyday. To this end, he found my desire for some clarity and certainty to be boring. Franked dividends, where was the fun in that when you could invest in some start up that could go to the moon?

At a certain point, after turbulent years I created my first boundary with him - I would never again sign anything for him that I didn't understand and didn't agree with. He acknowledged the boundary and didn't ask me to break it ever again, explaining thereafter what he asked me to sign.

In the end, I inherited his debt, the hardest part of the last year I think, but the end is near on that one and I get to start afresh, the slate clean, the future far more certain than it has ever been.

I think he knew I was smart. He saw my transcript one day - all the HDs of a Masters and he acknowledged how well I had done - but I don't think he ever imagined that I could turn around this ship or steer it at all. I found in his desk drawer some notes, not to me but to my oldest son. I certainly discuss with that son the direction to take, but I have instigated the details of that plan all by myself. I think my husband would have been surprised that I was quite capable of taking over from him and looking after the family's future.

To be honest, I am a little surprised myself. I think, by virtue of my husband's desire for complete control, I felt incompetent, and indeed there was much to learn and to experience, but I am doing it, I continue to do it, and I have confidence that whatever comes, I will be okay.

I know he loved me dearly and I loved him dearly. If I have something to say, maybe a final chapter, a conclusion, it would be, 'We were lucky to have him, and he was lucky to have us'.

Release

 I have been doing the few tricks of the trade that I heard Andrew Huberman talk about - the sigh where you breath in fully, take another quick breath in and then breath slowly all the way out, together with the shorthand EMDR approach where you move your eyes from left to right, up and down, and then to the bridge of your nose. Maybe coincidentally, since I have been doing that several times a day, I have noticed a quieter mind.

It's not to say that I don't get triggered when I can't get some peace because that still happens. Yesterday, I was confronted with too many things to consider or solve from too many people, and I couldn't access that quiet mind. However, when I can have a bit of space to myself, I notice that even if a difficult emotion is there, it's quieter. So, even anger, is quiet. That's unusual, I think.

I'll be honest. I am in my last hours of being in my 60s and it's confronting. Is it the big 0 birthday that's confronting or just my birthday, period? In so many ways, I could be 40, or 50 or 60 or 70. It doesn't feel that much different to me. I'm still me to me and that's ageless.

I wonder if, being with a man all my adult life, I am going through a spell where being with myself is quite enough. That awful Eharmony site that I was on for a year offered me three looks at men for free and I scrolled and rejected the three persons within a minute and deleted the email. I just don't want to go through it again. I think that somehow, I need to meet someone in person, and I have to feel something before I can engage again.

I hear from time to time about those bunkers where people are in silence for five or so days, with no stimulus at all, and whilst I know it wouldn't be a walk in the park, I think it would be soothing, like a mini death.

In Bali with my husband in 2024 one of the meditations we did, with light strobes and didgeridoo electronic music led to me having a death experience where I was underground, not able to access my family but able to feel their vibrations. 

There was a tinge of sadness I couldn't be with them, but I processed the death experience as okay, and after that I was in the company of Buddha sitting quietly on top of a mountain that was a rich shade of red. I was completely awed. When I relayed this experience to one of my sons, he asked me what they had given me to drink, and then I realized they had offered me a welcoming drink. Hmmm, anyway, it was an amazing experience.

I think it's a bit like that now. What could be offered to me in a period of silence where I didn't have to respond to the world's needs of me? What would be offered to me if I left the world for a little bit and just disappeared?

Well, I can't, I can't do that until financial things are sorted and that's about two months away. Maybe by the end of the year, I can get on a plane and go and be somewhere where nobody knows me and I can just rest.

There's a little voice inside me that whispers 'you really should arrange to see a psychologist, you know, talk it out'. But there's a stronger, wiser voice saying, 'it wouldn't change a thing, you just need to be free of cleaning up other people's messes, that's all, and you will be, you will be'.

One day I said something to AI like 'when will this feeling end?' and it said something back that it won't end, not to think about when it will end. I know this is a faulty thought of mine, to wonder when something will end. The point is that I am holding on, holding on for an end to a situation that is uncomfortable when the real antidote is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. 

There's no good or bad, or right or wrong - no dominant or submissive at all times - no control or lack of control - there's just what is. In essence, there is surrender to life as it is playing out, doing what one can, but allowing for a time frame one can't necessarily control.

These are random thoughts today, not well constructed, but getting at something important. There's a big part of me that wants to control outcomes and maybe because that's there, there's the part of me that wants someone to come along and provide the space for me to surrender to his control - to provide experiences where I simply must let go. 

Spankings or beatings, call them what they will, even in a fantasy, give me relief. I engineer the fantasy such that it's more, much more than I would enjoy, because I want it demanded of me that I release into the situation - effectively to have NO control. This discipline is my kind of 'cigarette break'. It has always been this way and as you now know, I've been here rather a long time.

Do you sometimes wonder what it is you are meant to be learning? I think I am meant to be learning how to be at peace when there is no peace.