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.
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
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 80ยบ 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.
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.
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| The Pearl - Lesson 4, Artist's Oracle Cards with Crystal Marie |
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.
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 8th 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?
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 95th 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.
