I'm not insecure

 

After all these years of beating myself up for not being able to overcome my self-consciousness, I find that I'm not really an insecure person who can't get past herself, I am autistic. The times I'd stress and spiral over social interactions, and micro-analyze casual conversations were sensory overload and processing disorders. I couldn't talk therapy my way out of my looping thinking patterns and self-defeating thoughts no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't a character flaw or a lack of will power and certainly not a lack of faith, as my long time counselor implied. It is simply a matter of having a different kind of brain. What a relief it has been to discover this. Suddenly there is a wide open field in front of me after years of clinging to a craggy narrow path. 

There is a common misconception about autistic people, that we lack emotion or empathy. That we are not social or engaged in the relational aspects of life. So much of the research has centered on a specific demographic with specific outward traits, that girls from my generation and with my compliant and quiet personality, just did not fit the profile. And as the way of the world is still very centered around the patriarchal views, even as the science evolves, the mainstream misconceptions remain. 

The truth is we are highly emotional and empathetic. Many people who self-identify as empath's are likely undiagnosed spectrumy people, trying to make sense of why they feel everything so deeply, and see details other people often overlook. 

There is no filter. 

We feel it all and have trouble regulating our emotions. I am a crier and a laugher mostly. Many of my smiles are forced and many days I can't remember how to train my mouth into a grin when a camera is pointed my way, but my laughter is genuine. I love to crack jokes and love to hang out with my friends. The higher energy involved sends me crashing under the covers afterwards, but it isn't because I'm shy or simply introverted. It's because the energy required to be out in the world, when there is no filter to keep from absorbing it all, is physically exhausting. 

Yesterday was an annual visit to my doctor. I really would benefit from seeing her a lot more frequently, but her practice is private and the appointments are expensive out-of-pocket and out-of-network, so I limp along throughout the year until she makes me come in for bloodwork to get more refills on my prescriptions. 

This year, with the new diagnosis in hand, I discussed my chronic illness packaging with an enlightenment that has been missing my entire adult life. The connection between Autism and the health issues I have is strong. The generic "connective tissue disorder" and diagnosis of Lupus only covered some of the symptoms. The newest diagnosis of Mast Cell Disease and Mastocytosis, covered a bit more. The knowing of the one thing, has lead to the discovery that the likely umbrella for what I experience physically is EDS - Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. All of the myriad unexplained and seemingly unrelated symptoms, the way they've increased in severity over the years, all of it fits this newest diagnosis. Another piece of the mystery is solved. 

Many patients with EDS take a medication known as LDN and we discussed the possibility of me giving it another try, since I hadn't given it a fair shake when I tried it for Lupus many years ago. The doctor mentioned the potential for vivid dreams and suddenly I find myself laughing with her about the vivid sci-fi like dream I did have when I tried taking this med before. 

I was lying on a bed in a room on the second floor of a house. Nothing was familiar, but I knew my family was downstairs, as if we lived there. Staring up at the ceiling, I felt a dizzy sensation and realized the ceiling was moving, but it wasn't a ceiling at all. It suddenly dawned on me that there was no roof on the house and I was staring at the underbelly of a slow moving spacecraft. Like, Star Trek level, intricate looking machinery that was vast, and a mere inches above the house. 

As I watched the thing above me, I was keenly aware of how conspicuous and vulnerable I was. I remember thinking that I hoped "they" didn't see me. I wasn't afraid, but I didn't want to be seen and I didn't know why. I had no idea who they were or what was happening. 

Recalling that dream, those words in my own thoughts leapt out at me "I felt conspicuous, vulnerable, and didn't want to be seen." This was what life has been like not knowing I was Autistic! A trip to the grocery store on a particularly hard day came to mind. It wasn't anything happening in my life that made it hard, it was the loud volume of the music over the speakers, the glaring overhead lights, the crowds, the feeling of not finding what I needed, and every single last person that I walked past sent me into spirals of self conscious looping. 

Do I smile? Say excuse me for standing in the spot someone else wanted to be? Smile. Don't smile. Be polite. Say hello. Look friendly. Don't speak! OHMYGOD! That sounded stupid! Don't look! You looked rude! You look weird! You are making a big deal out of nothing!

I felt conspicuous, vulnerable, and didn't want to be seen. 

Recounting this hard day to my therapist later on, not yet knowing the truth, she cocked her head and simply said, "life is not supposed to be that difficult". 

Indeed. 

Knowing the truth about my brain and my physical health is everything. Knowing may not change everything around me, but it changes something pretty profound within me. 

I am not insecure. I am hyper-sensitive, I am unable to filter. I have a sensory processing disorder. Now I know on hard days that I can simply duck my head, put on a pair of headphones and keep to myself. 

I am not flawed. I am a beautiful empathetic human being. 

I Grieve

Listening to podcasts all afternoon as I packed paper packs in the studio yesterday, it hit me that I grieve the end of my marriage the same way I grieved my father's passing. Not for the loss of the relationship I had, but for the loss of a relationship that never existed. The loss of hope that it ever would be. 

I did not mourn for the father I had, I mourned for the father relationship I never knew. A healthy love from a healthy man who could love me unconditionally and with the nurturing a little girl needed. 

I do not mourn the loss of this marriage that is finally coming to an end. I mourn the knowing that, at 56 years old, I've never known real "romantic" love. Always my relationships have been an act of desperation. Connecting with someone to fill a void. Always that someone has been glad to prey on my desperation. Always I've lived in the illusion of it. Always, I've wrestled with my own demons. 

Tried to purge my own personhood. Contorted. Distorted. 

It has been nearly three years since we separated - over a year since the paperwork was filed in court. As the final (please for the love of god, let it be the final) court date draws near, the memories unfold in my mind. Scene after scene of emotional abuse and my unyielding hope that I could find just the right combination to make it work. 

To somehow prove to myself and the world that I was worthy of it. His love. Knowing full well, and yet somehow blocking it from my mind, that he was a clinically diagnosed narcissist, incapable of giving or receiving anything resembling it. Chasing my own tail.

In the past three years, I've found that combination I sought in order to be loved. It never had anything to do with him. 

For all those years it took me to finally see my own worth and love my own self--I grieve. 

Wound Care

Writing my stories, even in this relatively obscure way, where I know that maybe a few dozen people will happen upon these posts and read them now that this is no longer the hub of my creative life and teaching schedule, comes with no small amount of internal backlash once I hit the button to publish. 

A part of me is off and running, forming new posts, pulling out other long buried memories. Ready to write it all out of my system. But the other part of me, maybe the wiser old crone inside of me even, is cautioning to take a slower approach. 

These are wounds that I am opening, revealing, allowing to be exposed to the air and other peoples scrutiny for the first time in decades. They have not healed properly under cover of darkness. The exposure is painful and requires new dressing, salve to ease the inflammation, rest. 

Wound care. 

 

It's only a number

Statistics have always been comforting to me. They somehow help me make sense out of the world. Validate my experience or affirm my opinions with a cold hard percentage and it strangely brings me peace. It turns out, my attachment to citing statistics is somewhat of an autistic thing. 

Sometimes a statistic will help me gain clarity about a decision. Like getting the vaccine in spite of the higher potential for harmful side effects my chronic illness brings, because the statistics are clear that those with the vaccine are not getting infected as much or as severely as those without, and I couldn't live with myself if I somehow infected one of my grandkids.

Here's a statistic I heard today--on average, it takes a woman seven attempts before she finally breaks free from an abuser permanently. It took me five formal separations before I finally broke free of the mindset that took me back to my husband over and over, not counting all the times I took up residence in a different bedroom, or the studio floor, or the back seat of the car, or a friends guest bedroom for a few nights. Maybe it was 6, if I count the time I checked into a hotel out of desperation. Don't even ask about my two previous marriages.

One time, early on in this marriage, he was having one of his rage episodes. Picture a tiny Godzilla storming through the house, veins popping out of his neck, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring, screaming threats as he tore through closets and drawers looking for the items deemed his whenever he raged - my car keys, my money, my checkbook, my debit cards, my phone. Anything that would enable me to seek help or land on my feet if I did escape. The punishment for making him angry was to have it all withheld and be told I had to leave, but then he would block the door and demand even more, telling me to go, while physically blocking my ability to do so. 

On this particular day, I hid in my kids basement bedroom with a few of my own possessions, my purse and car keys tucked inside my coat, while I frantically packed the kids belongings into their school backpacks listening to him rage through the house overhead, demanding all the things.

We were a household of four of his kids and three of mine, all living in a single story ranch house with one bathroom and makeshift unfinished basement bedrooms we built when my kids and I moved in. 

That day, I slid the window of his oldest daughters bedroom open - not an english basement, or a deep window well, with a large window - this was one of those tiny crawl space kind of windows that slid to one side, and one by one I lifted the kids that were home through and we all piled into my car for the only place I could think to escape - his ex in-laws house, because they happened to be out of town and we were keeping an eye on their place. 

It wasn't long before he came looking for us there. With more raging and threats to turn me in for kidnapping, he gathered all of his offspring up and made them leave with him, screaming at them about their loyalty. About a half mile down the road, he pulled over and made his junior high aged daughter get out of the car and walk back to her grandparents because she hesitated too long when he demanded she respond in agreement that I was the enemy. I'll never forget how she rushed into my arms sobbing her anguish and confusion when she got back to her grandparents house. 

It was the last time any of his kids failed to express their loyalty to dad when he raged. After that, whenever he had one of his episodes, he would gather them on the couch afterwards and whisper insulting jokes about me into their ears to make them laugh, while I cooked their dinner and walked on eggshells trying not to trigger him again. 

I tried hard to prove my love to them. Went out of my way to prove I didn't favor my own kids, to my own kids detriment. The bond I tried to form with his kids was severed over and over and to this day they would agree with him that I am just another one of his crazy exes. I finally see how he painted this picture of the crazy ex to me. How easy it was to believe that story because she turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. I actively worked with him to win custody of his kids, because it was so apparent what a mess she was. God forgive me. 

The raging is no longer a part of my life. We have not lived under the same roof for nearly three years now, yet we are still married. The divorce has dragged on and on. I sit here with that same pounding heart and flood of PTSD symptoms and memories welling up, as I compile an ungodly number of documents to prove that I am not hiding income from him. This was his response to my attorney informing the judge that I was in the process of applying for disability. The abuse is now being done through the legal system. 

Sixty-two percent of women on disability report having been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused throughout their life. Higher still among women on the spectrum.

Spiraling Up

 

I am spiraling. I am having trouble accessing the place in my brain where I can anchor, make decisions and a solid plan. It feels like I'm on the side of a cliff clinging to a rock, looking for the next crevice, a toehold. Something. 

This morning I am keenly aware of the illusion of social media. The way that it makes us all appear better than we actually are. Or worse. Depending on the day and the skill of the writer of the post. I'm caught in this place between needing to present myself in such a way that one has confidence in the classes I have for sale and the knowledge that this need has pushed me further away from the authenticity that is so important to me. 

It has been one of the hardest years I've ever had to navigate on my own. The Autism diagnosis came about as a result of the pressure of it all. An ongoing agonizing divorce from an emotionally abusive and toxic relationship that is draining me of every resource, while he builds a story around him of yet another crazy woman he survived. I know this story, it's the same one he used to hook me when we were dating, the story of the crazy ex. He, the belittled man. And when she, with her past emotional baggage-- it's always the ones with the past emotional baggage, comes apart at the seems from the emotional abuse he dealt her and turns back to her old broken behavior patterns, he has the evidence he needs to support the story. 

That girl in the news, Gabby, the one who was killed by her fiance after being pulled over on an epic road trip she had planned, he who was riding the coattails of her dream had been reported for physically abusing her by a witness somewhere along the way, managed to convince the police that she was the crazy one because of her tears and her tumble of words that were mixed up with the toxic guilt women carry for being abused, for not being able to behave their way into not being abused, for not being good enough not to deserve his abuse.  While he, the calm, cool, and collected one laughs with the police and gets a fist bump for his tolerance of what is obviously just another hysterical woman. When I look at her crying in those videos of body-cam footage and see her tear streaked face. I see me. 

Why are we so hysterical? Why indeed. 

My past emotional baggage centers around being Autistic and not knowing. It is the trauma that I grew up under, the not knowing why I couldn't behave my way into the acceptance, and the belonging, and the love, and affirmation I so desperately needed. Every little girl and boy so desperately needs. To continuously bump up against the invisible barriers or trying to behave my way into having my needs met when I couldn't understand why the behaviors expected of me were so hard. I learned self blame. There was no other explanation. 

Fast forward to the perfect storm of pressures. Pressure closes all the doors in my brain. It leaves me without access to the place where I can manage much of anything. The divorce that is still ongoing, brought about the need to address the decade of unfiled back taxes. Another story of Autistic meltdown, burnout, and narcissistic abuse. Life doesn't care if there is too much going on to deal with all at once. Other family matters, all stemming from this missing knowledge of neurodivergent wiring, are bubbling to the surface, coming to a head. Everything. All of it. All at once. 

I've been in a near constant anxiety attack the past few days. It started with a phone call, the kind of a mother's worse nightmares. Not THE phone call. But the one that leaves you waiting for the next. My heart is breaking. 

I sit here writing this post as I anticipate making a call myself. The one that will start the process of applying for disability. Something I should have done ages ago. Something I've needed to face for so very long. Something I have avoided like the plague as the lie in my head convinces me that this is the evidence that will prove to the whole world what a loser I am. The fact that I have worked and worked and worked so hard trying to find a way. Trying to find the right combination to make it possible to pull myself out of this pit and yet my body continues its spiral into chronic health conditions that keep pressing me to release it from those lies. Find a little relief to the pressure. 

The process may be hindered by the fact that I had that one good year. Last year, when everyone was home and the need to connect across the internet was so high that my classes sold swiftly. But that pace I set for myself has just about killed me. Today, one year ago, my appendix nearly burst. So many other physical issues are surfacing. Many of which are comorbid conditions to autism. It really was the missing link to explain it all. The knowing is such a relief. But the knowing doesn't make it all go away. 

And the reality is, this is such a competitive market. I won't stop teaching for now, but I'm working harder and longer for less and less return on my investment. And I can't keep up. The last half of the year would not have been possible without a PPP loan. It's time to start the paperwork process and see how much I will have to pay back. But there he is out there, watching my posts on social media and believing I've somehow made it big and he has revenge in his heart. Life is hard enough without a predator on your heels. 

Pity. This post is full of it. I don't tend to write from a place of pity. Today I needed a release. Somewhere. Somehow. I needed to put these words out there. And here, where maybe a dozen or so people will stumble across my words, I can release just a bit. Put it out there. Speak the truth. The real truth. The whole truth. 

I am spiraling. I just hope I'm spiraling up. 

I'm Overwhelmed

 I'm overwhelmed with the number of things I want to write about today. My words are all mixed up in a jumble as if a ball of yarn the cat got ahold of. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to make sense and get one thing pushed to the forefront. I'm looking forward to the begin. 

Transitions- a new website and a shift in content for this blog

 

The times they are a changin. As I write the title to this post, the line from the Dylan song pops into my head. That is the way of it with me, always a musical underscore to the internal dialogue. 

If you haven't heard the news, I've moved to a new website, one where I can host and teach workshops online, and the student/participant will always have access to the courses they've purchased without having to download and keep track of each one individually. I'm really proud of the way it turned out. And excited at the potential that is there. Still it was no small investment of my resources, my time, energy, finances, and emotions have been all tied up in this endeavor. There is an ongoing task list of things to do there as I continue to add content and explore the working dynamics of the platform. 

With the new website, comes a new blog. I've already posted nearly a dozen blog posts there since opening day just a month ago. I've yet to find a way for readers to subscribe to the blog the way that you can on this one, but I'm still learning. My plan was to close this blog once I mined the old posts for those I wanted to migrate to the new one, but instead, I've decided to repurpose it. 

I know there are a few hundred subscribers here who receive my posts in email format, so I'm writing this mostly to give you fair warning. My art practice has moved, here on the old blog, I will begin to allow myself the release of writing more personal posts about my life and experiences. I've always written in this way, but typically as it pertains to the art I'm making, and as I share my insights and life lessons learned. I will continue that over on the new blog. Here I will share more memoir, short story essay, letters to myself, letters to whoever might need to hear what I have to share, diary style entries, and deeply personal and meaningful thoughts as I work through whatever issue I am facing that day. 

In May of this year, I was diagnosed as a neurodivergent. It has been such a relief and an eye opener to review my life with this new insight. I am Autistic, my traits fall heavily into the ADHD spectrum, so its a double whammy, and I am also Dyspraxic - meaning my brain sometimes sends my body the wrong signals and I easily walk into walls, spill my coffee, hit my face with my car door breaking my front teeth (only one of the pinnacle of incidents leading me to seek the diagnosis), and frequently causing my mouth to spit out the wrong word, wrong name, or mispronounce something I've said a million times before. And then shockingly to me, I am also slightly Dyslexic. 

My IQ test revealed a higher than average intelligence, but my functioning life scores were embarrassingly low. The psychiatrist explained I must have developed a strong sense of intuition to be able to adapt to the demands of a daily existence not knowing the cause of the internal struggles that are my constant. It all explains so much. 

Saying a diagnosis is a relief allows some to believe I am doing just fine. And I am, sort of-ish. Mainly because my physical and emotional pain thresholds are high. I am fine in the way that I am sitting up and still trying to function. It has been hands down one of the most difficult years of my life. That pinnacle of events I mentioned leading to the diagnosis, was a hellscape of traumas piling on top of each other, much of which are ongoing. Suffocating and debilitating. 

I now know the proper terms for the way these experiences are affecting me. This year has been mostly consumed by a state of Autistic Burnout. Autistic meltdown after autistic meltdown, has left me incapable of performing daily tasks, functioning at a normal level, communicating well, or maintaining so many things in my life that are important to me. I've been operating out of hyper-vigilance survival mode. And from an outward perspective, I've not allowed myself to reveal even a fraction of what is happening behind the scenes. Writing has always come easier to me then speaking, I can craft a post and edit it, look up words that are being elusive and only post when I feel reasonably sure I won't look as daft as I feel. 

I see people respond to the news of my diagnosis with dismissal, disapproval, and rejection. Mainly the people who I've spent time with in the past and had favorable interactions with. We tend to freeze people into timelines and roles in our minds. But those closest to me have been receiving me with open arms. Listening to my experiences with a desire to understand. And many of my closest friends turned out to be neurodivergent too. We do tend to be drawn to people who are most like us. I love that those are my most creative and big hearted friends. I'm so honored and proud to belong to this group. 

Now I am in a place of developing resources that will help me to function with the new knowledge I have about why these things I go through keep happening to me. My body and mind are slowly starting to unwind from the tight knot they've been bound up in. But I'm also keenly aware of the need to continue to slow down the pace and release the pressure valves, as the knowledge alone does not keep the burnouts and meltdowns at bay. Autism is a circle of traits. On any given day some are stronger than others and my level of functioning changes at the drop of a dime.

I picture a cat sitting on a counter among an array of personal items, knocking them to the floor at random. A hairbrush goes scattering; today I am unable to perform the daily tasks to groom myself. A pocket watch is bounced across the floor; I have absolutely no sense of time passing. There goes the photo album; I don't recognize my own daughter standing in front of me in the grocery store. What will the cat knock from the counter today?

It has always been this way. I've learned to adapt and hide these things out of fear and shame in the not understanding. Autistic masking is one of the biggest traits that cause women to limp through life undiagnosed. I very much fit the profile of learning how to be a person by studying how other people interact with each other. Now I understand why. 

Girls of my generation were woefully under-diagnosed. Science is just now catching up with us. The number of adult women suddenly being diagnosed has everything to do with the fact that our traits as children caused us to be overlooked by the researchers. We were malleable and eager to please. We were quiet daydreamers, too fearful to speak up in class. We were the last ones to make it out of school at the end of the day, dragging our book bags stuffed with unfinished assignments, tripping over our untied shoelaces, and looking for the mitten that was just in our hands. Painfully afraid. 

As I process these things I often find myself wanting to share in my writing. But I've had nowhere to put it out there until now. The new blog and website will continue to be about my art, community, and classes. Here I will allow myself the freedom to just write.

If you've made it this far, I thank you for the time you invested in reading this. 
The new website is called Canary Rising and can be found at this link. 
The new blog can be directly accessed at this link. 
The current course offerings are all listed here. 

With so much love and gratitude,

Crystal Marie

Stand Tall Simone Biles, I'm a Quitter Too

It is an astonishingly beautiful day outside. 

I woke before the sun rose to a crisp chill in the air that signals the season will soon begin to change. And though the weather app on my phone tells me it will warm to over 80º this afternoon, this morning is absolute perfection. 

The kind of weather that invites a morning walk or coffee on the deck as the birds trill their daybreak song. 

But I know, as I walk past the front door and the dappled sunlight scattered across the rug, that I will do neither of these things. I fill my mug with more coffee, return to the nest I've made from the pillows, blankets, and books scattered across my bed. I may not even pull the curtains all the way open today. 

Do I need to open the curtains to enjoy the breeze that sweeps in through the screen?

There was a time when I would guilt/shame myself into saying yes. Yes, this is too beautiful of a day to waste here in bed. Yes, this day demands a walk and also a tweet about my walk and the nature I enjoyed, and here's a beautiful picture of the acorns and feathers I found. 

This is the artists life after all. We were made to be astonished. And share such beauty with you, those who live in the world beyond our computer screen. See what beauty I notice? See what a contemplative life I lead? Look at my garden, green and organic. 

Come see the bird, the feather, the tree, be astonished with me. 

Posting images carefully crafted to entice, invite longing, instill wont in your soul to imagine you also could have this life. This slowed down, rat-race leaving, soul care giving way. 

But that tweet and those beautiful images on a day like today would be naught but a lie.

Slowly, I am opening myself to the knowing inside, that tells me I've driven myself too far. Said yes to too many things. Sacrificed my own well being on the altar of people-pleasing and what will other people think. Slowly, I begin to reflect on the culmination of these bullies that live inside of me, the ones that tell me that a day in bed is for losers. That the instinct to snuggle deeper into these blankets when that sunshine is dancing in the sky for me is simply too indulgent. 

This day is for living and living is done with motion. Bed is for sleep, illness, depression. What excuse do I have?

This day comes on the heels of too many dishonest yeses. Yeses that were driven by fear of being perceived as unloving, unkind, unmotivated. Yeses that were driven by desire to do more, be more, please more. Yeses that ignored that niggling doubt that rose inside-- the one that was my truest voice. My intuition. My knowing. Yeses that reasoned away the lack of available time on the calendar and the new understanding of my need to surround the busiest days with the slowest in order to truly thrive. 

There have been clues in this week of too many yeses. Clues that perhaps I should sprinkle in some well placed no's. An outburst or two of anger. A flash of resentment-- this one is always a clue. Sobs bubbling up for absolutely no reason, except for all the stuffing of my own knowing. 

I look at a picture of myself, posted as a collection of images taken at a family celebration and see the vacancy sign in my eyes, the grimace that passed for a smile. Instantly I recognize that mask I am wearing. The one I have worked so hard to remove. Instantly I know I am in trouble, when I see that person, staring at me from the screen. 

She is pleading with me to return. I have abandoned her there in the land of too many yeses. 

My old fear mantra was instilled before I was born. It came from an era when survival depended on appearance. When gossip could ruin a woman and destroy the rest of her life. What will people think was ruler and lord. 

Authenticity? Vulnerability? Ha! What silly indulgences. Conform. Conform. Conform.

Living according to the rule of what other people think and its partner, people pleaser, and the other one, approval seeker, requires the self to step aside. Wants, needs, thoughts, opinions? Better check with the authorities, your voice is not to be trusted. Absolutely no asserting of oneself into the equation, who do you think you are there Missy? Getting too big for your britches?  You should be grateful for this scrap of affection and the attention you are receiving!

The only way to survive is to hide. Put on the mask. The grimace smile. Hide your truest self. Hide or you will be judged and found out to be the fraud, the phony, the inept mess that you are. 

Wear that mask long enough and Elvis has left the building. Imposter syndrome quickly follows. 

Yesterday I gratefully came to the very end of my yes rope. Tattered and frayed, that rope and me. I sat in front of my computer and my planner and looked at the impossibility of it all. I felt a gun to my temple, (metaphorically, don't fret). I heard a voice, (the kidnapper, the hostage?) Simultaneously it threatened and pleaded "its either them or me!"

I sat back in my chair in resignation. I can't choose. 

I quit. 

Today I woke to the sun dancing its dappling light and the birds trilling their daybreak song. 

Today I sit in my own nest and the answer to that question rises proud and strong. 

It's me. 

I choose me. 

The Knowing Place is

Your Intuitive Voice is the purest, most authentic, version of your own dang voice before all of life’s conditioning and experiences covered it up, and it is living inside of you still.

It’s that gut feeling place, that knowing place, the niggling doubt that keeps eating at you place, deep inside that we so often pay no heed, because part of life’s conditioning teaches us to be logical and practical and smart.

Logical, practical, smart thinking seems like a much different species than intuition, but it was born of the same seed. Both are a form of knowing, but one asks you to prove yourself and the other asks you to listen to and trust yourself. To understand that the knowing is deep and it began before you were born, continuing to gather the knowing right up until this very day.

When you enter the studio, your intuition comes with you. You don’t have to perform a special ceremony or do a studio rain dance to get it to make an appearance, you simply need to get quiet and listen.

If you haven't listened to it for a very long time--your own dang purest voice, then the logical, practical, smart voice will have stepped up to the plate and will earnestly tell you to not trouble yourself with such impractical things as trusting yourself when you’ve had a lifetime of input from outside authorities. Those teachers and guides who have brought you the tools and the rules that govern their use to help you paint and draw in the studio.

And that’s great that you’ve been able to receive such outstanding instruction. Maybe you even received some of it from me. But the lie we believe is that the intuitive voice is at odds with the logical, practical, smart, and more rational thinking that comes with following the lead of others who have more experience and the credentials behind their name to prove it.

The truth is, that all of the instruction and information you’ve picked up over the course of your years gets folded into your intuition. Like a good batter, the individual ingredients are important, but indistinguishable from each other, you simply get to enjoy the cake. 

To work intuitively is not to put aside the information you’ve gleaned over the years, it is to trust that information is right there inside of you as you work. All you need to do is pay attention to that knowing nudge inside. The knowing place acknowledges the fear that comes from trying something new or stepping outside of your comfort zone and then it goes ahead and creates the thing anyway. 

Maybe those first attempts will suck. Maybe you'll find all kinds of flaws, but that isn't evidence that proves you were better off following the rules of others then you were trusting your own dang voice. It is actually the evidence that you are listening. 

The intuitive voice never promises you perfection the very first time you try. The intuitive voice understands its strength comes from the trying. And in that place a canary learns to fly.

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The Pearl - A Story In Three Parts

The Pearl - Lesson 4, Artist's Oracle Cards with Crystal Marie

part one

The Pearl Archetype:

 

Created under duress, the pearl is formed layer upon layer, year upon year. The rarest of all gems are those that hail from decades old mollusks, fetching upwards of a million dollars for the finest of specimens. 

 

The pearl depicts the origin story. The beginning is contained within the whole. It is feminine. It is divine. It is the beginning, the fullness, and the completion. The pearl perfectly illustrates the growth that happens throughout the developmental stages; and the experiences of one’s own life. It has the kind of strength to its spirit, that can only be born from adversity. 

 

The pearl is believed to have healing properties and wearing one signifies a commitment to the care and feeding of one’s own soul. Self-love. Self-care.

 

The pearl is truth. It has no need to strive for it. It just is. 

Out of balance, the pearl is rigid, distant, withdrawn, masked. A pearl without an adequate sense of self is still operating from the grit, rather than standing in its own truth. 

 

The pearl is the very essence of oneself. Beneath all the layers lies our truest most authentic being, with no shame for the fledgling beginnings. It is the most integrated version of who we are. Discovering the pearl is to unearth the most valuable of treasures—your own voice.

 

The pearl has been found at great cost and no price will ever be high enough to tempt you to let it go. 

 

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part two

 

Yesterday I sat, tears silently flowing, listening to the psychologist read me her findings and formal diagnosis over ZOOM. The diagnosis by this point, was not a surprise—ASD Level 1. At 55 years old, I am learning this thing about myself that explains all the things about myself that could never be explained. 

 

It took time in the beginning, to open to the possibility that this could be true for me. Time to unlearn and relearn exactly what it means to be Autistic. Time to shift my brain from its tightly held stereotypes and misconceptions. Time to learn that this isn’t an illness by which to be cured. Already, the psychologist had shared she had enough information to make the determination, but we finished the next few rounds of interviews and questions all the same. 

I was prepared to hear this news.  

 

What I wasn’t prepared for was the way I would feel hearing just how Autistic I actually am. How very, very, low my scores actually were. How highly indicative my responses were to the truth of this thing. 

 

Of all the “Below Average” scores and “highly indicative” fields of information the psychologist reported, the one that hit me the hardest was that of my Executive Functioning. I almost don’t want to, but I want to share because, fuck. Just fuck. I scored in the 8^th percentile. 

 

That’s an 8. 

 

Eight. 

 

I’m going to sit here for just a minute. 

 

E.I.G.H.T.

 

I stopped the Psychologist mid-sentence and asked her to clarify. Eight? 

 

Eighth Percentile. 

 

She tried to make me feel better by explaining that this wasn’t just out of all the autistic people. This was out of all of the people-people. But that didn’t help. "That means 92% of all the people-people have better decision-making skills than me?" 

 

She nodded and kept reading. 

 

When I shared this news with a friend, her reassurance came in the form of celebrating the truth of that score. How it means I’ve been operating far-beyond my functional level and doing a tremendous job of taking care of myself. 

 

And that there is the rub. 

 

That celebratory statement is the reason I sought out a diagnosis in the first place. I am utterly exhausted from surpassing my functional level and doing a tremendous job of taking care of myself. The behind the scenes of my life has been held together with duct tape. 

 

Bubble gum and spit. 

 

Sheer grit. 

 

I’ve described the last decade of it as a long, slow, unraveling. But I was finally getting to the place of feeling more secure with my identity. More confident in the feeling that I belong. Not to you. To myself. That sense of belonging you carry along with you, that allows you to enter any space and feel okay without the need for someone else to affirm it. 

 

In that split second of time—the length of which it takes to read the number 8, my core was split wide open. There was nowhere left to hide. I felt lost and I felt exposed. 

 

The thing is I already knew I couldn’t go on the way I’ve been. I already knew it wasn’t sustainable. I already knew there were changes afoot. And it scared me. How on earth would I survive?

 

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part three

The most remarkable thing has happened. 

 

The thing I’ve been singing to you about since the beginning of the unraveling-10, now nearly 20, years ago. The thing that led me to the table to make art when the unraveling left me splat against the wall so thoroughly, I could only describe what happened as a nervous breakdown--I didn’t know it was called Autistic Burnout back then-- it was my intuition that led me out of that fray.  

 

The only score that was above average of all the pages of scores on that evaluation, was that of my intuition. My non-verbal communication. In the 95^th percentile, I could identify most of the patterns on the IQ test, but when asked, I couldn’t always explain why. 

 

My verbal score was nearly half my nonverbal. A pretty big blow to someone who finds creative writing a passion. But I can take as long as I need when I write. Having to respond verbally doesn’t award such luxury. 

 

I’ve compensated without knowing it over the years, for my immature executive functioning, by intuiting how to do the things I needed to do. Reading the report again on my own after the evaluation session was over, it fully hit me. 

 

This wasn’t the rub this was The Pearl. 

 

Of-course there are still changes that need to be made. I’ve been heading for that wall again at an accelerated speed. But already, intuitively, I have made a few adjustments in my schedule and the rhythm of my days that have given me hope. 

 

I am returning to the very essence of myself. The journey has been costly. 

But I wouldn’t sell it for any price in the world.