How Do You Know When It's Time To Move On?

Reflections from a daydreamer

The Old Ball and Chain — Found Object Encaustic Sculpture — by Crystal Marie

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“Eddie had come to understand that what a man saw and what actually existed in the natural world often were contradictory. The human eye was not capable of true sight, for it was constrained by its own humanness, clouded by regret, and opinion, and faith.” ~Alice Hoffman, The Museum of Extraordinary Things

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Journal Prompt : How do you know when it’s time to move on?
(from the MHN Storyteller app)

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As I sit here at the dining room table looking through my journal response to the above prompt, written in my messy, energetic, sometimes illegible cursive, the underlying theme of perception keeps coming to mind. How we perceive ourselves, how we perceive others, how we perceive what is solid and right and true based on our own circumstances.

Today is one of those days that make me want to throw open the windows and let the fresh air wash through the house. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, the grass is beginning to show signs of green, and yet stepping outdoors in response to the squirrels and their show-offy antics hoping for a handout, tells me it is still too cold for this to be today’s reality. It was simply a matter of false perception based on what the sun shining commonly represents.

One trait common on the ADHD spectrum that has always been an issue for me, but am only recently able to name is time blindness. Before coming to understand this as a part of my wiring, I would joke that I am always surprised by what time it is. I am always surprised by the date on the calendar. Indeed, I have a daily alarm set on my phone that rings at noon simply to give me a realistic perception of the number of hours in the day that have passed and how many I have left to get done whatever it is that I’ve set in front of me to do.

I’ve been following Morgan Harper Nichols on Instagram for some time now and one of her beautifully illustrated books of poetry sits on my bedside table.

I’d resonated with her encouraging but real style of writing and creating art that is both visually beautiful and deeply thought provoking, long before I knew I was autistic and certainly before I knew she was, so the recent uptick in writing about her own experiences as a late diagnosed autistic woman has surprised and delighted me.

Here is a woman though she is the same age as my youngest daughter, who is writing about her experience of sharing her diagnosis publicly that deeply resonates and affirms my own experiences.

Here is a writer and artist, who is known to write in such an encouraging and hope filled way that she’s amassed a following of nearly 2-million people, has many books and licensing deals for her illustrations and poems, now opening a dialogue and shamelessly, openly pushing back on the perception of what it means to be autistic, the stereotypes, the othering, the ableism, and the infantilizing that is common among late diagnosed autistic women when we begin to talk about our diagnosis and burnout experiences.

The neurodivergent brain does not rest in the same way that a neurotypical brain does. It is common to hear a replay of every social interaction, every dialogue with others, every interior thought about whether we’ve said something or done something wrong or weird. Always analyzing the right way to show up in the world.

I used to describe this as hearing a thousand radio stations playing in my head at once—impossible to tune in to any one single station for very long. On a good day, it isn’t radio stations, but a cast of characters offering me a running narration of my own thinky-thoughts that I compare to the early 90s sitcom Herman’s Head.

Without some way to release the stored up sensory onslaught of everyday modern life, more and more energy is consumed by this never ending looping.

In my twelve years of seeking cognitive talk therapy, I gained deeper understanding and healing for many of the old wounds and childhood/social conditioning that were the root messages for some of these loops, but never was I able to get to the point where these loops were no longer a part of my life.

Not until my diagnosis of Autism in the midst of burnout was I able to understand what was driving this onslaught of activity inside my brain. And little by little I am learning to adjust my life with this new perspective. I am learning to pad my days and time in a way that better supports my needs. Learning to let go of the guilt I once had for doing anything deemed non-productive according to “normal” standards.

I’m finally, incrementally, ever so slowly feeling myself coming back to life. My energy is beginning to return. The brain fog has lifted. My daily stamina is increasing. I am finding new ways to manage my health and daily life, thanks in large part to the knowing of the root that connects them all — my neurodivergent brain.

I am emerging from the cocoon, in this newly metamorphosed state of being. The stage just after, still wet, flexing and stretching & drying out my wings. The stage just before flight. Very aware now of how essential it is for me to pay attention to my need for time to ruminate and reflect in silence, for limited activities deemed “required”, and to continue to pare down my schedule to what is realistic for me to manage the sensory exposure that others are able to take for granted. To resist the urge to hurry up and catch up, and do all the things to get “back on track” when that track was not the one designed for me—never will be the one that works for me.

Acceptance is coming in new ways. Incremental shifts of learning to be okay and yet, also still grieving encounters that I can only identify in hindsight were a result of a person who is “neurotypical” perceiving my body language, or tone, or facial intensity, as meaning something more then I was trying to convey.

Asking for clarity when a neurotypical style of communication leaves me feeling like I’m missing something vital from a conversation is translated as hostile, angry, hysterical. Being accused of thinking, feeling, manipulating, being a trouble maker, deliberately obtuse or difficult because I needed more information delivered in a clear, concise way and more time to process and respond.

Being expected to pick up on cues, or accept vague assurances, to perceive or read between the lines, is part of the neurotypical experience that seems to be taken for granted. These things often leave me feeling disoriented, wondering how I will ever cope when I need to pause & process a bit longer than the average human.

And yet, in spite of a recent uptick in some of these puzzling encounters, I feel it all reconnecting internally. Finding my way to authors and artists who speak of having similar encounters and calling it out is life giving and affirming.

Reading Morgan Harper Nichols post on Instagram about the clear pattern of unsubscribes and unfollows she sees in her stats whenever she mentions anything about being Autistic, affirms my own experience. And more validation was found in the comments section, where Katherine May, beloved author of Wintering, The Electricity in Every Living Thing, and the next on my own stack to read Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age, shared that she lost 25% of her followers when she openly shared her own late diagnosis of Autism.

How do you know when it’s time to move on?

Contemplating these things as I responded to this journal prompt, brings me back to the where I was when I decided to place paid subscriptions on pause. I am beginning to form a plan and a new payment structure that will allow me the margin I need, and to better clarify what it is that I am offering subscribers for their financial investment. I’d planned to share it today, but am not quite ready to implement it.

Reflecting on this question, I understand that for me, moving on means to stop being more concerned for how others perceive me than I am with how I care for myself. A new word is coming to me for the year, one that I had a sense of back in January, but hadn’t been able to receive for this very reason. How others might perceive it, take it to mean something I hadn’t intended.

Unapologetic

To me, this word encompasses all that I just shared. That others may perceive my words, my facial expressions, the intensity of my voice, my absences, or the periods of time I need to step away to care for myself as meaning something other than what they are, is not on me. This may sound very obvious to you, but obvious is not the same to the neurodivergent mind.

It has been a process, and will continue to be, to change the inner dialogue from one of apologizing for taking up space in the world in a way that may make others uncomfortable. But I know deep down, this is the only path that will allow me to move out of survival mode into a place where I am finally able to thrive.

Survival mode keeps me spinning plates, trying to manage a schedule I can’t adhere to while wearing a heavy mask that makes it hard to breathe and see. It keeps me fearful of dropping any of those plates or removing that mask for concern of losing my financial stability.

Returning to that Morgan Harper Nichols post on Instagram, I am not only affirmed, but encouraged by her conclusion:

“. . . entering new spaces often requires great risk. In that space, some people may choose to part ways, and it's only natural to have feelings about it. It's okay if you can't immediately find the perfect positive spin on it. What matters most is that you recognize your worth and the value of your journey towards discovering more about who you are. Even if you feel like you're the only one going through this process, this is still true: there are other people on this, journey too . . .” and the final sentence she shares “Keep pacing yourself each day, knowing that this journey of going deeper is a journey worth taking, and, it also the ability to liberate courage in others so they can do the same.”

And so here dear reader is me continuing the mission I stated when I named this blog:

Here, on this blog, I’ve named Crystal Marie, Deeper, I honor the girl who so often retreated to the closet under the stairs, book and flashlight in hand, to explore mystical, magical worlds in far away lands, as words danced across the page for her.

I will continue to honor that girl and allow her voice to be what it was wired to be, unapologetically and openly tending to her needs and sharing from the deeper perspective that comes from being an artist, a daydreamer, a neurodivergent woman, and a human.

I’ll share the changes that I plan to make in another post, but for now I bring you this: I am the same person as I was before my diagnosis. The words I’ve shared were not the old me, the direction I am heading is not the new me. I am and always have been the same me. I haven’t changed. I have evolved, come into my own, grown and still growing, into the fullness of what it means to be fully human. I will continue to write about it all and continue to be, Unapologetically me.

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Currently on my radar:

Allison Davies - I’m currently enrolled in the last round of her ten-week Brains and Behavior course.

Katherine May - So grateful for this woman’s work and words as an author that I’ve happily subscribed to her Substack blog and Patreon account.

Morgan Harper Nichols - Artist, Illustrator, Poet, Wise speaker of truth, beauty, and grace. I’ve recently subscribed to Morgan’s daily newsletter and downloaded her storyteller app, which is where the journal prompt that led to today’s post came from.

Speaking of apps, I can’t recommend downloading the Substack App highly enough. I get no affiliate commission for this mention, it is simply a refreshing experience to open the app and see the latest blog posts from all of the accounts I follow on Substack in my feed. There is no selective ranking by some algorithm to determine which I see, no confusion over what data is being collected and which accounts are not real people. I plan to write a post on this issue and the many incidents that have caused me to spend less and less time on Facebook and Instagram soon.

Unapologetic self-promotion: In recognition of International Women’s Day, I am extending this offer through today:
In honor of the one year anniversary of my course The Secret Language of Women, I’ve created a flash sale for half off the regular registration rate. This is a feature length course with seven lesson modules containing 28 videos, covering the creation of a tactile visual language from salvaged, found, and new materials.

Soundtrack for today’s post playing on a loop inside my mind, not all the lyrics, but that one catchy line:

And this one: