River: The view around the corner

[mdlbear]

Late Friday evening I had the bizarre feeling of turning a corner somewhere in my mind. I was happy all day yesterday, calm and contented today. I realized a couple of hours ago that it felt as though I had stopped being afraid of something.

But I didn't know what it was.

Colleen's condition? I'm a little more optimistic, but I think that still worries me a lot. Money? still a trainwreck. People? I'm still as shy as ever. My own emotions? maybe. The last seemed most likely, an hour or so ago. Certainly I turned away from them for a long time, but I've been trying to get in touch for months now, and succeeding pretty well. Depression? Maybe, but I'm fighting it now, and winning.

People have been telling me for a while now how brave they think I am, exploring the ruins of my shattered self-image, stumbling around in the dark of my mind with the furniture re-arranging itself; what courage it must take to follow this dangerous path into the unknown. (Both metaphors have a lot of resonance with me; I'll follow them up soon in another post downstream.)

But that's probably it.

As of a few days ago the changes I've been going through were scary. Look at the last bit of turning a corner:

A hill, a desert, and mountains in the distance.

Over the last couple of weeks my old self-image has been left in tatters. My old theories about how my mind works -- Asperger's, emotional blindness -- no longer fit the facts. There are old habits to unlearn, feedback loops to break, new ways of interacting with people to learn. I don't even know how to go about doing any of those things, or even what questions to ask to get the right kind of help.

At the same time, my old coping mechanisms are gone. There are still things I'm afraid of, but I can feel the fear now. I'm still lonely, and I don't want to keep avoiding people, but I never learned how to start interacting with them. Colleen always taken care of my social life; I've been to my last four cons without her. It's getting late; I'll expand on this over the weekend perhaps.

The task ahead is daunting, and frustratingly slow. I'm in totally unfamiliar territory, and I don't even know who I am, let alone where.

But somehow, a couple of hours ago, I seem to have accepted that as a challenge instead of turning away and crawling back into my cave. It's the first night of Spring, and it's dark out there. But somehow there's a change in the light again.

Up until now it has been pretty scary. I was confused and lost in unfamiliar territory, and all the old landmarks were gone. The scenery was strange, the path was steep, and I kept getting stones in my shoes. But suddenly I realized that I was enjoying the walk. The scenery is weirdly beautiful, and the water in the river is clear, cool, and refreshing. Now and then I meet people on the same journey. I still don't know where I am or where I'm going, but that doesn't matter now.

When you've lived all your life in a swamp, and suddenly come across a river of clear water that runs through it, it doesn't matter how slowly it's flowing, how scary the rapids may be, or where it's going. It's going away from the swamp, and that's enough.

Comments

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

You stopped feeling helpless. You stopped feeling hopeless.

You started feeling that you could improve your world.

You started to accept that you *can* take responsibility for your own happiness, and that the topic is actually approachable -- you couldn't figure out how to approach it before, and that was terrifying for you. Now that you have a direction, you can look for your path. Now that you've found a path, you'll follow it as far as you can until you need to rest for a while, and then you'll find another path.

Congratulations, Bear.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

[firecat]

Yay, that sounds like a big relief.

[mdlbear]

Yes. It puzzled the heck out of me for a while, but yes.

[mvt.livejournal.com]

The combination of drugs and therapy has worked for me before.
Bravo for sharing it and for working so hard. Giving your self an hard honest look is not easy.

[mdlbear]

Thanks. I haven't tried either before, so I've never known what to expect.

The sharing is a large part of the therapy for me: writing about it and asking my friends about the parts I don't understand.

As for a hard, honest look, well, once I started down this path it never occurred to me to do anything else -- it wouldn't have done any good.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

You've gone from thinking of these new experiences as "unfamiliar and scary" to thinking of them as "new and interesting".

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

The two are not orthogonal sets

[mdlbear]

Indeed. All of it's unfamiliar/new; parts are scary. Most of it is interesting, including the scary parts.

"Interesting" does not always mean "enjoyable", of course.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

A certain degree of scariness can be fun; this is why horror movies and "extreme" amusement park rides continue to make money, and why some people pursue bungee-jumping, spelunking, or motorcyle racing.

A certain degree of unfamiliarity can be fun, also, at least to a neophile. (Personally, I really have a lot of trouble grokking neophobia, although it's considered one of the hallmarks of the autism spectrum.)

And some people are willing to put up with a fair degree of discomfort if things are interesting enough, or at least up to the point where the discomfort of the interesting-but-not-pleasant things outweighs the discomfort of boredom.

And a person may react in these ways as gut reactions, or because they choose to react a certain way.

I have a feeling you're not bored at all lately...

[mdlbear]

Indeed. All of the above.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

True, but thinking in one of those frames tends to make it very difficult to think in the other one at the same time.

[mdlbear]

Yes. Or something. Most of the work I've been doing has been interesting from the start; I think perhaps what did it was accepting that even the confusing and scary parts are headed in the right direction, and that I'm unlikely to get stuck there.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I think that's the most critically important observation - that even when things are unpleasant, that unpleasantness isn't permanent.

[kayshapero]

Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

[filkferengi]

So, Antonio Machado was right, after all. "Walking it makes the path. The path is made in the walking [of it]."

Also, rock [walk] on!