Once you learn to keep moving while parts of you are killed off, you can face anything.
I am like a space probe set into hibernation without any thought or plan for reactivation. Shutting down was required, but the damage incurred by system decay, by negligence was just never considered. How do you re-awaken something that incurred significant damage from improper termination and lack of maintenance?
Interconnected systems mean spreading damage, perished seals and frayed insulation ready to cause rippling problems, causing failures in one place as you get another back on-line.
The loss is palpable, personal. I have learned that I am alone in this orbit, that there is no service vessel close by to come and help me get through the broken linkages. When you are beyond the expectations of the system, you are beyond the comfort of it.
There appears to be a tipping point in most lives when you stop making new close friends. That point comes when the amount of history you have outweighs the amount of possibility. After that, there is just too much to share to create intimacy, too little left to build new stories which are profound and important in the context of your life.
Nobody meant me to dry up in a way where rehabilitation was almost impossible. They weren’t thinking that they wanted to permanently cripple me; in fact, they weren’t thinking about my needs much at all. They just did what they could, wanting me out of the way and assuming that I would take care of myself, even as I took care of them and the ones they loved.
I know why I was put on hold, suspended out of bounds. I know why, even today, that asking people to meet me where I am is just too big an ask. I know why I learned to live with death and decay of my internal systems in an attempt to stay connected with those who couldn’t really comprehend what I was telling them.
That process started early for me. I never had the chance to feel heard & valued, never had the opportunity to learn how to do anything more than protect myself, cut myself back and try to survive.
Even when I sought help, the results were disappointing.
Counsellors would find me so lucid, clear and precise about my emotional turmoil that they couldn’t understand how they could help, not really understanding why I had learned to force everything through my logical brain to try and be effective with my Aspergers parents.
I have seen many specialists about my feet, but they all say that the damage has been done and they have nothing to offer but pills which block the nerves. If I can’t do anything, is there any wonder I have mentally blocked them off rather than falling deeper into the abyss of helplessness?
Maybe I can head off potential problems, but maybe I will just find dead ends and loss to engage. How will I cope when I have no rewards to chase, no networks to enfold me? What doesn’t kill you may make you stronger in the short term, burning away the ego, but in the long term, the body keeps the score.
The only way to receive the blessings of kindness, as Erin reminds me, is to be open to other people, but that demands the resilience to take whatever you end up getting from them. My systems, though, are fragile, old, and fried, with just too much exposure to the cosmic rays of a searing binary sun.
I believe in the love, I embody it and share it where I can, but in my life it has never been strong enough to negate the ignorance and fear which fuel stigma, erasure, dismissal and dehumanization. The assault by masses whose own political position of separation enforces their comforting walls has been relentless and massively destructive.
Going towards the love makes sense to me, is the path I have chosen, but the battle between here and love, the scourge through no-man’s/no-woman’s land is full of mines, pitfalls and devices designed to maim, cripple and kill ideas & belief which challenge assertions, demanding engagement & responsibility.
Even when you find someone who says they are ready to love, it is often easy to find their trigger point, the button that unleashes their pain, blasting with vicious emotion designed to shut down anything which would light their still unhealed places. They maintain function in the world with fragile ego tricks, so having those active defences disarmed creates abject terror.
“‘Tis but a scratch!” the Black Night calls out, pushing past the death of appendages to claim mission, but the damage costs him dearly, no matter how much mental discipline he employs.
Coming out of hibernation requires renewal, healing and hope. My journey has given me deep insight, leaving me with lessons that most find impossible to value, making the return of the gift the most difficult part of the hero’s journey, but it has also left me with deep scars, signs of the battles I fought to claim my own heart.
I felt the pressure to play along, to attenuate, to diminish, to be small enough to serve so I could feel connection, but that cost me the expanse and power of my own nature.
My plaint when first coming out was often about how normies just dumped the price of being exceptional on individuals, forcing us to lie or be called a liar. We had to do all the work or be attacked as perverted and sick, so the closet was the only place for all the pieces of our heart we were sharply told no one could ever love.
I shut down, did the service, was compliant, but the possibility that renewal would ever be required was never considered by the world. Broken was fine for them, nonthreatening, abject and limp, and the rest, well the rest was my problem.
Until, of course, the world changed and it became my problem.
Once you learn to keep moving while parts of you are killed off, you can face anything.
Except, maybe new life.
Callan 