Gratitude Overwhelm
I did it to myself. AGAIN.
Too much of anything can be harmful to me. Including gratitude. Which is why I try to balance writing about gratitude with writing about grief. But somehow I missed posting my grief newsletter for THREE WEEKS.
Because I’ve been feeling too much gratitude.
I moved at the beginning of the month, turned 50 on April 8th, and picked my brother up from the airport early that morning. We spent the next several days prepping together for a party on Saturday night. Attended by people from many parts of my life and past.
Including:
my junior high school homeroom teacher, who I’ve known since I was 11, and her husband
the mom of my high school boyfriend and her husband, both I’ve known since I was 15
the hostess at the restaurant my kids and I went to every Friday night with their father until the divorce
my two teenage kids
one of their friends
my kids’ father
a couple of my kids’ friends’ moms
a new neighbor from across the street I met on a walk
the valedictorian of my high school
a high school rowing teammate turned psychologist PhD who has monitored my posts and reached out whenever she senses trouble
her lovely wife, a social worker who has likewise volunteered her time when I seem in distress, and their son
another junior high school buddy who helped with the very first of my 10 moves
the final au pair to share our home, with her husband, who she met while living with us
my choir director and several choir members
the twins I babysit along with their parents and grandparents
a friend and former neighbor from the old building
my cousin in from Florida
my brother in from Colorado.
Also brief appearances by new neighbors in my building.
It was magical and I loved everything about it, except that somehow the wireless speaker didn’t manage to play the playlist I assembled and I didn’t notice until most people were leaving. Assembling that playlist was a highlight of my week, and I’m disappointed not to have shared it and not to have danced.
But I danced up and down the hallway from the party room to my apartment countless times on Saturday night. Every time my nervous system reached a point of overwhelm. Which was often! Because I am a slightly different person with each of the different people in attendance at my party. So I was shifting between personalities endlessly through the night. Which takes lots and lots of energy.
It’s not that I change personalities. It’s that I show up and mirror the person in front of me. Which is also kind of like putting on a mask. I think many humans do this, but those of us with highly developed mirror neurons do it more. It is a superpower and helps me connect to each of the people in that room in a highly customized way. And it means that my age and demeanor shifted from 3 to 82 and everywhere in between all evening long.
While the toddlers were there, I needed to get down on the floor and talk to them at their level, bring them to my apartment to meet the kitties they know by name, and make sure they had toddler-friendly food on their plates and not too much sugar at once. Their parents and grandparents were there to care for them—I was not in charge of their well-being. But instinctively to connect with them, I behaved exactly as I do on the days I’m at their house.
Which I tried to do with each of the other people in the room as well. None of it consciously. All of it involving a great deal of energy.
I was so many different people in the span of a single evening I made myself dizzy.
In the very early morning on Sunday I drove my brother to the airport and got one last stretch of being a big sister. Came home to greet my Florida cousin and played a slightly different role. Became mom again as my kids awoke. Interacted with their dad at drop-off and stepped into ex-wife role. Headed to chorus and tried on being a tenor again, which is itself a shift from the alto role I held most of my life. Resumed looking for work on Monday and working on Tuesday, but then needed to escape to DC on Tuesday night because the absence of all the people in my space was somehow every bit as loud as the presence of all the people in my space.
So I went to DC, as I often do when my nervous system is close to breaking. Driving south lowers my blood pressure, and going home resets most things. While also leaving me stepping into still more roles. Each human I interact with draws out a different combination of my parts. When I miss parts of myself, I know I need to interact with certain people to bring them to the surface.
All the parts at the surface at once leads to system overload. DC helps with system overload. DC offers system reset.
I returned from DC on Wednesday, spent more hours than usual with three-year-olds on Thursday, and climbed into my bed Thursday night expecting to rise at 5:30 a.m. the next day and begin to restore order to my home and brain.
On Friday morning at 5:30 I realized restoring order to my home and brain needed to take the form of a self-induced coma. I’ve done this now five or six times since my single bout with COVID, which is where I think I learned the trick.
When I push myself well beyond any point of normal energy expenditure, I continue on for several days, continuing to deplete myself. Because I get stuck going in one direction, start to gain speed, and then it’s hard to combat that momentum and reverse course.
It involves stopping. And remaining still for a bit. At least for me it does.
So I spent 36 hours in a near-comatose state, horizontal except for rising a few times to feed the kitties and drink water. As I floated between half-awake and fully asleep, I piped books into my head. This is the trick I developed after—or maybe during?—COVID. I take in information even when I am not fully conscious. So I provide information in these not-fully-conscious states.
This was my playlist for my self-induced coma:
A Little Less Broken by Marian Schembari
Is This Autism? A Guide for Clinicians and Everyone Else by Donna Henderson and Sarah Wayland with Jamell White
Unmasking for Life by Devon Price, PhD
Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD
Uniquely Human, A Different Way of Seeing Autism by Barry M. Prizant, PhD
I took a break at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night to tune into Heather Cox Richardson’s speech commemorating the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s lantern lighting at Old North Church in Boston to set ablaze the colonists’ rage against authoritarian control.
To complement this content, my brain concocted fascinating dreams braiding different parts of the books and the past three weeks together. It was a wild 36 hours, and has left me with many thoughts on autism and authoritarian control. Including that one results from the other. Autism is genetic and runs in families, but I bet if we trace its origins back in each family, it will lead to authoritarian control.
What else but authoritarian control leads to pathological demand aversion/pervasive desire for autonomy? I know it’s where mine came from. Too many people telling my what to do finally led me to snap and now I can’t handle ANYONE telling me what to do. Not even myself. Which is why I set deadlines and fail to meet them. Like, my Gratitude Project post is supposed to go out on Thursdays and yet today is Friday. And I started this post last week but am only finishing it now.
I don’t follow rules because there were too many rules in my past. Too much of anything leads to a reaction. Allergic avoidance in some cases.
Too much gratitude leads me to a comatose state of recovery. Too much being told what to do leads me to be incapable of following orders. Just look at my dad. He had the exact same thing. So did my mom. Authoritarian control by my grandparents turned both my parents into rebels. Literal revolutionaries. Autistic as they come.
This is why the current administration is going after autistics. Because we see and speak the truth plainly, and the current administration is stocked full with narcissists. Who are autistic but have been enabled to only see and feel their own feelings. This is a subset of autism created by patriarchy. I’ve heard 6 percent oft quoted as the portion of the population who have full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and I just scratch my head and wonder why I seem to know so many. I also scratch my head around the whole concept of neurotypical because no one in my life is neurotypical.
Neurotypical people do not like me. Because I am different and make them uncomfortable. So if I don’t make you uncomfortable, chances are you are not neurotypical. And if I do, there’s still a strong chance you are also not neurotypical but not willing or able to face it yet, hence the discomfort.
Which is why I have a hard time understanding who exactly is neurotypical since it’s not anyone in my life in any significant way past or present. To be in my life requires neurodivergence. Your neurodivergence is what attracts me to you and vice versa.
I was raised contrary to society in a great many ways, including to be drawn toward difference more than sameness. Sameness bores me. This is why the guests at my party ranged in age, political beliefs, skin color, religious upbringing, native language, profession, class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and gender identity. And were as neurodiverse as they come.
Sameness bores me. I am drawn toward people who are different from me, and then I mirror them. Making me a little bit more like them. And ever-more neurodivergent. This is why parties with 40 people leave me flattened but joyful. Even more multi-faceted than I was before. But needing to rest and recover big time.
Except what happens right after one of these major mirroring sessions is I feel really alone. Like all these people’s energy fills me up and then—POOF!—it vanishes. And I feel deflated, depleted, almost non-existent. It’s painful. I think it’s called withdrawal. The downside risk of abundant joy.
So I’m learning to plan for it instead of fear it.
Yes, there will be withdrawal after any period of receiving love from many directions. Which will feel weirdly akin to feeling unloveable. Even though it’s the consequence of being loved by many. (In a short span of time in person in ways I couldn’t ignore if I tried.) It doesn’t make sense to feel so bereft following such goodness.
I should be able to just be grateful to have had abundant love that then goes away. And I am. And it hasn’t gone away. I know all those people are still out there loving me right now. For being myself. Which is a pretty extraordinary gift to have at 50.
It is also a gift to have each of you reading along as I attempt to make sense of my life. Having an audience is highly motivating. I value you immensely. I feel surrounded by community in many directions, which is a very comforting way to feel. Especially in times when fear is being used against us.
Community is the antidote to fear. Which is why authoritarian leaders fear community and try to sow division wherever and whenever possible.
The people united will never be defeated.
Grateful for my people. You are a remarkable crew. And I am overwhelmed and very appreciative of the abundance of love, blooms, gifts, care, time, and attention you lavished on me for this milestone birthday. I would not be here without my communities. 🙏❤️✊
Can you share your playlist? 😃