Energy!
Where has it gone. disappeared, deserted, just not here. I am not clear, why, it is that I have a zero supply, a zero level of energy to complete the tasks I need to complete, interact with the people I need to interact with. It’s just not there.
Concentration it’s just not there and I track it to energy levels. Flitting and floating between activities. Flip from this onto that, back to this.
The batteries are flat. Recharge is needed. Now.
Yet innate within is the need to understand, to know, to have a clue where that energy is gone. It is only Tuesday evening. So I write this stream of consciousness kind of stuff. I let the words tumble out from my subconscious and wander through my finger tips and become pixels on the screen before me.
What do they reveal?
A couple of things to reflect on. A big day adulting yesterday. Whilst not a lot of having to interact with the public it was spent in a public place, and involved lots of focus in maintaining focus not a task that was not enjoyable, but, really needed to be done.
A late night last night, doing not much, a bit of writing, a chunk of social media. Minimal sleep.
An early morning doing the adult thing and getting the daughter off to school. Then a joint time sitting with a counsellor debriefing some family stuff.
Discussions in groups – two in particular – one involving being accused of arrogance for expressing some information. Information that was off a different reality than the opinion expressed contrary to the reality of the reference material. The focus expended in choosing not to reintroduce myself into the discussion and allow others to ‘have my back’.
Another discussion, verging upon ableism. Getting close to the level of silencing the Âûtistic voice, or at the very least to equate the family voice of non Âûtistics as equal and perhaps greater than the voice of the lived experience of the Âûtistic.
I think there is the answer a combination of all those things. The culmination of all that adding up to the draining of energy and the needing of the recharge. The need to replug in. To allow the replenishment through rest.
After having spewed forth all this information it is clear to me that it is very easy to forget how important it is for me as an Âûtistic, and I suspect many other Âûtistics too, to be careful and take care. To look after myself. To know that times of passing, or even just negotiating days with significant time dealing with NT’s doing the things NT’s expect and the like.
Yes I can manage to do it quite well. Yes I can manage to look almost non Âûtistic. But there is a cost. A big cost in energy sapping tiredness. A risk of burnout and shutdown. A risk of being in a situation that could risk meltdown if the right triggers come into play.
One thing that has become clear to me that in the post acceptance of my Âûtisticness is a way of being that acknowledges that fact and that in a bunch of ways I think, I am appearing to be more Âûtistic than I was. It’s not that I am appearing more Âûtistic or I am acting more Âûtistic it is that I am embracing that Âûtistic reality and only doing the passing thing when it is really necessary. Because I realise and understand that there is a big cost in doing so and that in fact I am a far happier and complete person when I don’t pretend but do live my reality.
Thanks for sticking wit this ramble and waffly post tonight.
Keep Calm and Free your Stim! Be Âûtastic!
