I can do it with a broken brain...
On doing it with a neurodiverse brain, powering through and breaking down
I have two other blogs that I should have written by now. Instead of writing this one, I spent 20 minutes sorting friendship bracelet beads into colours…it’s safe to say my brain and body are a bit broken right now. It’s been a busy time; end of the job, jump into Pride month talks (I’m on, I think, four by the 14th, along with several ‘normal’ teaching workshops). On top of that I’ve done a weekend in Edinburgh and two Taylor Swift concerts. Before that I had folks staying with me, I had a trip to Rochester for another talk and a weekend in London, and another day trip to London…the past month has been a lot, and it’s not done. I have Taylor round two, and a trip to Aberdeen to give another talk and visit a friend. It’s all really good stuff. But it’s a lot. It’s a lot of people, a lot of lack of routine. And doing that while Autistic, with ADHD and a chronic illness, is a lot. And it takes managing, too.
People would look and think, ‘but you’re fine…can’t you just…’ and no, I can’t just. In order to do all this, I’ve had to factor in blackout days where I don’t go anywhere (not just to like do things like clean the house and sort my life out). I’m having to firmly say no to friends even if I’d like to do the thing to preserve some rest days in between. ‘But you look fine.’ yes, because I put a lot of effort into being ‘fine’ to the outside in order to do these things.
Now, some of this is much like a neurotypical person would do; you’re a bit tired, so you put your best face on for a big work event. Or you neck that coffee in order to go out that night and power through some tired. Nobody is saying that Neurotypicals don’t get tired or over socialised or overstimulated. But take that tired, and factor in a brain that is running about 50 other tabs at once trying to keep up. Factor in that it’s inherently more tiring, and challenging to deal with being somewhere away from home, travelling, dealing with people.
I’m struggling today, and I know I need to ‘fix’ myself in order to face and, more importantly, enjoy the rest of my month. I really WANT to be seeing friends for Taylor round two, giving Pride talks, and seeing a friend I haven’t seen in decades. But I know all of that is going to take work.
Being an Autistic person who both masks well but also can function fairly ‘normally’ to the outside has its challenges because nobody expects you to be struggling or sometimes wants to accommodate you. Yes, I was perfectly capable of going away last weekend, travelling alone, of staying in a hostel with friends, eating out, going to a concert etc, etc. But what you don’t see is the ways of coping behind that…or not. That at 3 am the first night I was crying and trying to figure out if there was anywhere else I could stay because the noise in the hostel was too much. I fixed it by the miracle of white noise playlists (and exhaustion). But I wouldn’t want to be the person saying ‘I can’t stay there’ and inconviencing everyone else. So, I found my own work-around. Similarly, I took myself out for breakfast alone to have alone time because, for me, being out in a coffee shop or similar felt more manageable than being awake in a shared room.
I often get a bit of ‘but you go to theatre/concerts/hockey how Autistic are you?’ well, firstly, yes, I’m lucky that I cope well with that sort of environment; that sort of noise doesn’t bother me when it’s crowded in a managed sort of way I’m fine. So yes, I can do that largely without being affected. However, Taylor night 2, the crowds outside the stadium were worse; we ended up in an endless merch queue, and when I escaped, I fell over on some grass, and a woman laughed at me. So I ended up crying and trying to avoid a meltdown outside the stadium alone. Luckily, my friend’s partner was there to sit with me. Luckily, my friends were understanding and supportive and were there if I needed them. And maybe to the outside, none of it (bar being laughed at and crying, which really isn’t very Swiftie of that lady…) looked like a big deal, but it’s one of a thousand little things. Like being tired post-concert and knowing you’re shutting down a bit and not really able to talk but trying to. Again, everyone gets tired and quiet, but it’s the neurodiverse actual fight to try and talk that feels like an uphill battle. Again, I have friends who fully understand and are fine with it. But it doesn’t mean it’s not hard. I guess what I’m saying is I can do it, but it takes work.
Not to make it all about Taylor, but ‘I can do it with a broken heart’ is a brilliant metaphor for life as a neurodiverse person. I joked yesterday it’s my new pre-speaking engagement song but actually, it’s just a great power-through-pretend-you’re-normal song. The ‘lights camera bitch smile’ genuinely feels like what it feels like to be pretending you’re ‘normal’ when it’s taking all the effort you have to make normal conversation, mask as if your life depended on it (as it often does).
‘I cry a lot but I’m so productive’ is also a neurodiverse mood. Often, something feels like the BIGGEST deal in the world or the hardest thing. Or you’re crying about a thing that seems ‘silly’ to others. Or more often because you’re simply exhausted. But you’re working harder than everyone else to prove you can keep up. Because you don’t have to be as good as everyone else you have to be better. To make up for all of the stuff that makes you such an inconvenience or holds you back in life. So you cry a lot but you’re so productive. Because you can’t stop, and you can indeed do it with a broken heart (brain).
It’s that push through and push through again mentality. Because you can’t let people know that your brain (and body) wants to give in, is screaming at you to stop. Because if you stop you’ll prove that you can’t handle it, that you’re not good enough, that it’s actually that you’re just a bit crap as a human, employee or friend. Not that your brain is working against you.
‘Breaking down I hit the floor, all the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was screaming more’ …I don’t have a crowd, but it feels like when you hit the floor, finally, when you break…eveyrone is scareming ‘but why can’t you get back up? Why can’t you carry on?’ whether it’s not being able to work harder, or do the specific work thing, or as simple as not being able to meet a friend for coffee. It feels like the whole world screaming ‘more do more’ even though you’ve just broken into a thousand pieces from pushing past all of it time and time again to keep up. Doing it with a broken brain so long at the pace the world demands just to shatter in pieces on the floor while people still shout for you to keep going.
And to continue that song, ‘I’m a real tough kid I can handle my shit’ I’ve been handling my shit for a long time, long before I knew I was autistic, or had ADHD. And I’m someone who is determined to do it all despite my broken brain. I know that I can do it with a broken brain, but I also know there’s a cost to it whether that is running on no sleep for four days because my brain just won’t let me sleep somewhere unfamiliar. Whether it’s knowing I’ll have not to do things for a few days to have done things/do things the next. Whether it’s just powering through for this month knowing a crash will come next month or knowing I can do it with a broken brain for now. Because like Taylor, I’m not letting anyone ‘come for my job’ and letting any of this beat me.
But those are the short-term solutions. What I’m not really talking about here is that I’m having a lot of trouble acknowledging to myself that I’m actually in a bigger state of burnout. Partly from a really practical level, I spent the last two years writing three books, releasing one that involved a lot of promotion. All while holding down a day job that was, at times, pretty challenging and juggling various freelance tasks. I’ve gone through six months of intense stress finishing that job while trying and failing to find something to replace it. While finishing another book, continuing to juggle freelance work….and I’m only a year or so into my Autism and ADHD diagnosis. I’m still figuring out the workarounds that knowledge was supposed to give me. Because I haven’t had time or space to. I’m still trying to figure out what’s next while dealing with the impact of what I’ve just finished. And I’m doing it all…exhausted and broken if I’m honest. I don’t have time to stop this month. I need to do all the Pride month work, but financially, I need to recover a bit of myself as well by doing what I love and am good at. But I am somewhat doing it with a broken heart (brain) I am fighting my way through. And I know it’s a bigger issue than just hiding away from people for a weekend. But it all takes time and space to fix, and we don’t acknowledge that enough, either.
I’m not a person who expects the world to magically fit around my needs. I know the world is such that we all have to adjust and find ways to function in the world. But it’s also about acknowledging it is hard sometimes. Sometimes I am a bit broken by the world if not my own brain. I hate to stop, to give in to it. But sometimes that’s what you have to do. So for now I’ll keep doing my ‘real tough kid’ and doing it with a broken heart (brain), if knowing that at some point I have to stop too.
Thank you for this, from my (actual) broken heart and beautifully, painfully neurodiverse brain. You've captured it so well.