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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