Y’all know I don’t know what the f that means — literally have to set alarms to remember to eat lunch while blogging or cleaning the house. I enjoy menial tasks and the help it brings everyone in my house to be as independent as possible. Due to my health issues lately, I have had little mental focus on diving deeper into things as I process the last 6 months. Given that I decided to change writing styles a few weeks ago, blogging has been a stress relieving activity. That said, I will be taking a break from research to balance summertime changes within my household & the need for daily routines to be centered on making memories with my kids.

Unlocking Us with Brene Brown is worth listening to y’all. This allows my brain to have that girl talk my brain needs, you know the one. The one most people are scared of and I crave. Please tell me when I am not being “acceptable” so I can tell you if I care enough to change it. Isn’t that what everyone has friends for?

The stress of life as an adult is not easy for everyone — neurodivergent or not. Being forced to make choices we haven’t had the 1) experience, 2) “good” example or 3) all the context to not be judged for choosing the wrong path. By the age of 6 I realized these factors dictate where you are placed on the societal ladder. I am usually in the middle. Helping others below me while learning from the context trickling down from above.

Y’all know those jobs as a teen we couldn’t stand to do. Helping the family cohabitat was my given job as a child. After my mom took her “break” from motherhood, I was forced to step up and stop being the child I was, at 8. At that age, there never seemed to be a break long enough to allow me to slow down and recharge. I also wasn’t into the self-care routine I am now, lol.

I don’t do things for elders for free anymore because not all of them are here to educate me. When you live in a town stuck in the 1950’s and remember stories of what a quarter would get you isn’t all the different from the small town you were raised in, racist fucks. It had to be the screaming “she likes girls” vibes they would see on my face. I have a book of chapters I haven’t shared with the world because I am scared of handing out heartaches to the people in my life who have said some off the wall shit to me regarding my lifestyle choices. Thoughts that need to be categories and argued over and over, in my own mind, whether they are relevant enough to share.

Must Reads after this podcast:

Brene with Emily & Amelia Nagoski on Stress and Completing the Stress Cycle (Oct 2020) touches on exactly why I need to take a break. That even good stress of completing a work project has a cycle that needs to be completed. Without completion of this cycle, what stress pool up over time and will eventually lead to burnout. Our emotions and feelings are linked biologically to our entire body. More on the Nagoski twins and the stress cycle can be heard here on Episode 2 of the Feminist Survival Project podcast.

The fact that Brene doesn’t get very far into the book during the podcast should tell you how jam packed it really is with insight to our body’s need for stress relief to function at its highest capabilities. What is Emotion? The exhaustion we go through when stuck in one emotional response to that stressor for too long. At this point we need someone else to assist us on this path. That feeling when you long for a past person or relationship that was littered with red flags masked as butterflies. At no point in time should we be nervous to share who we are with someone we love.

By simply completing the task, you’d think the cycle of stress would be over. We do the same mundane things to destress as we do to build that stress, listen to music while we clean our home, cook dinner for our family. We are programmed to use what it is we are tasked to do as stress relieving activities without processing what power we have to change to these stressor causing us to use other stressors to relax. Physically my body is shutting down from the stress of what I can not control, not my own actions but the thought processes of the people who actually have the authority to change my life with no consideration for the undiagnosed ways in which my brain reacts to trauma.

While researching content on Burnout: The secret to unlocking the stress cycle I came across these notes by a wonderfully insightful, Michelle Park. Though my notes are not as pretty, they are very similar in communicating the need for a breakdown that my brain needs to process the information. It takes time to simplify and add personal context to what it is that I am regurgitating in these scenarios and why? What am I doing to recreate these same outcomes from different people? What stressor can I live without that would allow for my soul to rest?

These questions are not simple for most people like me; struggling to be labeled for peace of mind first and foremost. This is where my brain is. Now is a time to organize what resources I have taken advantage of, those that I am in need of and a clear plan of engagement within the scenario, you know — practice. Financially I can not afford to sit at home and wait for a physician to do it for me. This planning allows my mind to search the reaches of existence for any questions I might have during this upcoming emotional rollercoaster I’m begging someone to throw me on. Watching hours of content on TIKTOK and instagram about the ASD assessment process, I am taking this time to prepare for the emotional and rudely educational path I am going to have to go down.

I have done the research and self-diagnosing quizzes — now time to deep dive into my symptoms and the other labels they may throw my way to explain the last 35 years of turmoil I have endured. Emily and Amelia dig into Human Giver Syndrome on their podcast, discussed in the book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Katie Manne, and it explains so much about the different experience I faced in my past. The interaction between Emily and Amelia in this podcast episode brought a lot of light to what it is to continue to be the “people pleaser” position I have so easily taken on.

Emily Nagoski: [00:00:45] Let’s pause for a moment and offer a super quick definition of feminism. As difficult as that might be. For us, a feminist is a person of any gender who believes that being a woman is not inherently a disease or a moral failing.

Amelia Nagoski: [00:01:03] Yeah. 

Emily Nagoski: [00:01:04] Sound good enough? Yeah. That’s all feminism means to us.  So what is the barrier that stands between us the feminists and our ability to meet our own needs to complete the stress response cycle? The answer is: a term we made up for Burnout. It started when we read this amazing book Down Girl: the Logic of Misogyny by moral philosopher Kate Manne.

Amelia Nagoski: [00:01:28] In it, she posits a world where there are two types of humans. First, there are human beings, who have a moral obligation to be their full humanity, right? Human beings must be their humanity. 

They have a duty to be as competitive, entitled, and acquisitive as they need to be in order to maximize their human potential. And then, there are the human givers who have a moral obligation to give their full humanity. Human givers must give their humanity.

They have a duty. To give everything they have- their time, their attention, their patience, their love, their rest, their bodies, their hopes and dreams, their very lives sometimes, sacrificed on the altar of other humans’ comfort and convenience. 

Emily Nagoski: [00:02:10] And they dare not have any needs of their own or impose those needs on anyone else.

Amelia Nagoski: [00:02:18] So, you know, which one do you think the women are? Yeah. Givers.

Feminist Survival Project, Episode 3: Human Giver Syndrome, Nov 3, 2020.

I have yet to complete my stress cycle with my past and the lack of accommodations I no longer have access to because of my age. I think this is what I have been trying hard to process and share my feelings with y’all about. I have dissociated from the people in my community who have caused me pain by continuing to hurt me, if given the chance to do it again. When a toxic relationship comes to an end, the person’s involved usually dig in deep with tactics the other person has “turned them on to.” My many examples are easy picking — one of them is “customer service lady” — That tone and condescending body language of that dick teacher who had the authority to belittle you though you stood 2 feet taller than he ever would.

Due to my lack of ability to see the social cues of dislike from others and the stress when confronted with — more now than ever when I’m without prior practicing responses — too many times I have stated the first 10 seconds of what my brain really thinks to people who don’t care. These energy sucking events give me more anxiety over the stressors I try to avoid, wasting both of our time. Being judged is one I thing no one can avoid. “I wouldn’t do it like that” seems to be the reaction I get most from those who just want to see the old version done again and again. The old me never wanted to ruffle feathers — regardless of what anyone else would tell you — now, I just want to be free to do things my own way.

For the next few weeks I’m going to dump poetry on y’all. I’m working towards some original music and I truly think my poetry can pull that off; obviously not at first. Don’t get me wrong, I know I can sing, I just know I can’t sing everything. Rejection & Overstimulation being my biggest issues. I need this time to rebuild a routine I can manage.

Imposter Syndrome hits me the hardest when I’m most confused about social cues. Rejection Sensitivity fills my head with questions like “Why are they staring at me?” Or I don’t even notice you standing next to me because I’m stressed about everything always stressed to me, about me. My clothes, my facial expressions, my stimming — never labeled any of those things when I was a kid. I tend to “read the room” most when I’m singing and people notice.

I know I’m singing emotional songs. I’m singing songs that bring me joy, sadness and the freedom that reminds me how far I’ve come in life. I sing songs that make y’all think of those next to you or so far away you can touch them again. If you know me — y’all know I’m an emotional wreck half the time. Crying at the drop of, well my tears.

I’m also working towards purchasing the premium package, an extra $90 for the next two years, so I can upload a video page dedicated to my Busking Series. So Garage Band here I come. It will be wonderful practice for my podcast; delayed but not dismantled as of now due to no space in my house for a studio, office, or blog space. Thank WordPress for their app so I can do all of this on my phone. I’m not complaining— just putting it out into the universe so I can find it or it can find me.

Shout out to all the fam showing me support & the ones producing the beats I’m about to buy up. Huge shout out to my husband who shined a light on my self-defeating attitude about not being good enough to write my own stuff. Last but never least, all my beautiful souls out there waiting for their turn to get into the “adult only” content podcast coming as soon as I can get everything I need to do a podcast, lmao. So much of my heart goes into this blogging and reparenting journey and I’m happy I can share it will y’all. When the podcast drops there will be more content weekly.

On to the next one…