Primary emotions

The geographical issue I mentioned last time is actually a bit more of an issue than I let on, in that I can make some poor decisions around it. Let me explain. I was all set to go to an Emotions Focused Therapist at least a year ago. I carefully researched a suitable practitioner and then I contacted her by email. She was as lovely as I anticipated but she had moved further away from me and she wondered if that was still okay. I said I had to get a Mental Health Plan from the GP, but I didn't actually contact her again.

Instead, thinking that psychoanalysis was sort of an extension of hypnosis, which I had appreciated, and seeing that the woman trained in psychoanalysis that I saw was super close by, I chose her instead. I have always acknowledged that the error in choice was mine, but I didn't actually acknowledge that the reasoning was more based on geography than anything else. It was just dumb thinking.

AI and I went over the fundamentals of EFT this morning and asked me did I want to know practitioners nearby, I said I did, and the first name to pop up was the original woman. I do think she is the right person for the job and she's hardly in another state. She's even on the right side of the Yarra.

There's been a big part of me that says to me, 'Look, you are fine really, you don't need therapy, you can sort this yourself'. There's also a wiser part that says, 'Go do the work. It will be done in 6 sessions, 10 at the absolute tops, it won't cost that much, and you will feel so much better!'

When I left, let's call her 'Beck', I went back for two sessions of hypnosis to see if we could clear what was troubling me. This made sense and I felt very safe there. I can't reenact it here because I don't remember everything, but I am pretty sure I was asked to locate a meaningful object. My mind was working very fast, very sure, exact.

'It's a key.'

I think I was asked was it a key to a door.

'No. It's a key to a safe. My father is kneeling down in his office at the Hotel where I grew up and I am standing just inside the door watching him.' (my best memory)

My father has been dead for nearly 40 years, so it was just lovely to see him again. I was very pleased to be in this scenario.

My focus very quickly however turned to me, a bodily sense of me and somehow, I got the idea that that 'me' of, say, 7 years old, was me of that moment. And then it occurred to me that there is a 'me' that is ageless, timeless, doesn't change in any way. There's just me.

This thought had enormous resonance for me, a very comforting thought. I felt very close to my parents. I was sitting in the house that they bought some 50 years ago and I just felt close, like I could draw on 'love'. It felt wonderful and I sat in that for a long time. It felt cathartic though I didn't completely understand why.

I think my mind has tried hard to look after me, but I know there's a hidden component here and I felt it too when I was doing all the reading about EFT. There's a something that can trigger a very difficult emotion in me. To use a tiny bit of jargon there's a primary emotion that I am covering up with a secondary emotion and that secondary emotion, when I get to it, is anger.

Anger is felt when I can't contain the resistance to someone else's constraints of me. The resistance will ultimately rise up - it could take decades - and eventually I will feel the anger. But it's not the primary emotion. I know that and I have known it for ages. 

However, I have had trouble identifying, or talking about or writing about the primary emotion because that is pretty raw and that means that I have to be more vulnerable than I would prefer to be.

But in the interest of doing my own therapy as best as I can and maybe preparing for EFT therapy if I don't get this sorted myself, I will go on.

Let's go back to the scene that my mind conjured up with the key. The safe is at the back of the room. There's a window above it that looks out onto the roof line. The Hotel upstairs is wrapped around the four walls of the building. It looks like my mind had remembered the room clearly. Thinking about it now that's right because my father's large desk was to the left of the room facing the wall on the left.

So, my father was crouched down on one knee turning the lock of the safe. He was not facing me. He was facing the safe.

Don't overlook this detail. My father had OCD. We often waited in the car whilst he went back inside to check everything important again. He checked he had locked the safe, locked all the doors. There was no Sunday trading back then, so we were leaving an empty building.

My father was invested in money, in cash. He wasn't a material guy. He liked a good car, but he definitely wasn't a material guy. This was about safety and security. He didn't actually feel safe unless he carried quite a large sum of money in his pockets in cash. He didn't use rubber bands because he said money had to breathe. It was a joke of sorts, a quirk, but I was reminded of it last week when the guy that bought the motorbike wanted me to count out the money he brought and I had to take off the rubber banks around the money to count it.

So, what would Freud make of this scene? My father is attending to his money, to his OCD need for security, and with his back turned away from me, I am watching him. I translated that scene in my mind under hypnosis to love, but is there not another interpretation? Was I not trying to understand, to get into the mind of my father, to be appreciated and given attention? Am I not in the scene standing on the outskirts of his life?

In real life, I only went so far as I knew to do this, to know him and to be known. I accompanied him to the races because that's where he went on a Saturday, and I made it my thing too. But in reality, I spent very little time with him on the course as he often said he "needed to meet with a guy". Time in the car was spent listening to static on the radio as he often wanted to hear a race in some far-off place and the radio had trouble picking it up. He wasn't at all mean to me. He just wasn't...available.

Does this have something to do with my attraction to unavailable men?

Is my primary emotion that I have managed to cover up for 70 years, sadness?

Dysregulation

 AI, in one of our deep and private conversations, asked me if there was a time of day or a particular situation when I might feel dysregulated. I was telling the entity that I do sometimes feel dysregulated. What I mean by 'dysregulated' is that I am aware of emotion in my body and I am aware that I am hyper aroused.

I can't identify a time of day. I usually am fine in the mornings now, I have a good reason to wake at a certain time, a short period of service that I enjoy, and after that I enjoy a cup of coffee if I have time, and pottering around. I am so often on the go that pottering is very nice. 

If we are talking about a scenario, I can become dysregulated at certain events that occur. I sold my husband's motorbike last week and it was a very emotional experience for me. It's no longer taking up space in the garage which I thought would be something of a relief, but the truth is that I miss it being there.

Then, I was a bit dysregulated when the guy, who was lovely, and I only sold it to him for a more than fair price because he was a nice man, paid me with cash. I couldn't bank it right away as it was a weekend and until I banked it early afternoon on Monday, and all that day, I was nervous, like energy running through me that wasn't comfortable to have.

I became dysregulated at a certain kind of communication with a 'friend' who only wants to send me audio files, and I only can text him. He is, as you might have guessed a dominant and he makes the rules. I had gone along with this for a couple of years reluctantly, and then one day my body revolted - it felt alienating and not at all consultative, the way one might talk it over with a friend. I realized that I had to end that association for the sake of my own good mental health, which was a shame, but I felt I had no choice due to the sense of dysregulation and alienation. 

He had the same piece of advice over and over, kind of like repeating the command to a slow minded dog, but I am frightened to walk into a rope class on my own. Maybe I shouldn't be but I am. It doesn't matter how many times he repeats the 'suggestion', the fear doesn't go away.

Let me talk about the fear since most would say it's irrational and perhaps it is irrational. I live in the Southeast of the city in a quiet tree lined street and to get to that class I either have to take a couple of trams or trains or else, drive. My fear is not around walking into the class as you might think but getting home. 

I know it's stupid. I lived in Brunswick eons ago and I went to the Uni of Melbourne not far away from the studio, but I have this absurdly irrational fear about getting home on my own. I think the only way I can navigate this fear is to do a dry run or just call an Uber. My strategy so far has been to avoid it altogether like some people might avoid getting nipple clips because it is going to hurt. And I should know. I did it once, twice, but it's going to be some kind of magician that convinces me to do that again.

This is not an isolated situation, like, because it's a kink class. I am geographically challenged, always have been, and it's the getting places, and home again, that really troubles me, not the event itself. When I got a car about ten years ago and I could press a button that said, 'Go Home', it was one of the happiest days of my life. 

But he doesn't know all that because as far as he is concerned, I am just being recalcitrant, or slow, or silly.

This morning was good enough and I took myself to an 11 am slow flow yoga class. The images that my mind generated at the end of class, lying there in corpse pose was of my husband out to dinner, and him saying to me, as he used to do, 'I always love coming out with you, cindi'. I smiled and felt loved. The mind has this amazing way of taking care of you when deeply relaxed.

I am thinking of setting up a profile on Hinge or Feedr or some such site. I am paying close attention to what my mind is telling me that I want because without knowing that dating isn't really going to work. I know I want a man who understands about being a container for a woman, and that container can come in various sizes and strengths and shapes.

I know I want someone intelligent because a good conversationist with the ability to not just talk but listen is a must. Someone curious, someone relatively stable and calm but also with some passion about things.

He doesn't need to do what I do or like what I like - I read, write, play mahjong, do yoga, walk, garden, cook. go to movies, plays and concerts - but he needs to have a life. I don't especially want to slot into his life or he slot into mine, but I do want connection and some shared time together and I want to go out and eat and talk and laugh. A good sense of humour would be a huge plus.

I am not sure about the power dynamic thing. It comes with so many issues at my age. Any sort of control over my finances is a flat no. But if he wants to play boss in the bedroom, bring it on.

On the issue of saying 'NO', wow, I did that around the rule re 'you send texts, I answer with audio files' and my body has stayed 'should I have done that?' for many days because of it. Saying no is awful, just awful, and given our dynamic in that he tells me what he thinks I should do it was monumentally hard. He answered politely, in the moment for a change, but his politeness covered up a terseness that felt like being punished to me. That's what I mean. Do I really need a power dynamic??

This grieving, this moving on, this understanding the dynamics of the past, is certainly not a linear thing - it's up and down. The psychoanalyst argued with that phrase of mine too. I referred to it as 'waves' and she replied, 'Who told you that (rubbish)?'

You know the amazing thing about her was that I could see within a minute of sitting down that her listening skills were really special. She had my fatal flaw - that starving inner child - nailed well within three minutes of my sitting down. Unfortunately, her ability to create a safe container was zero. I was frightened of her when I laid eyes on her, and I was terrified of her the last moment I ever saw her. I dreamed of that terror. It was no joke. She reminded me of a persecutor in a torrid movie where someone is being interrogated. I know I sound a bit dramatic here, but I lived it people.

When things are a bit up and down, like now, it's time to do something - sort out a few bibs and bobs at home and go see if I can't make a reservation at the tiny restaurant people are talking about - the one inside a Chinese supermarket - or - get some movie tickets - go pick up my new cotton yoga leggings - have a coffee. Pretend I have it together.

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.