One of the hardest problems with being diagnosed as neuro divergent in middle age is that you have created an entire life while masking that you cannot maintain anymore.
I spent so many years memorizing a script to survive.
The last four years provided so many answers while simultaneously making everything come undone.
But life doesn’t completely stop and provide a blank slate so that I can rewrite the narrative.
It’s a messy disaster that needs reorganizing, some purging, and some creating all at the same time.
I’m in the middle of the mess quite literally in the middle of a multiple messes.
There is so much I created for myself that I have to strip bare and completely relearn while continuing to maintain the responsibilities I took on at some sort of functioning level.
And there is no rhetoric or narrative I can memorize or copy this time around.
Just trial and a whole lot of error.
It’s where the lines blur between adoption, trauma, and autism.
What acts do I cut in my performance and what acts do I keep? What acts keep me safe from the audience leaving and which ones keep me safe from the audience being there in the first place? What acts keep them quiet, so I am not overwhelmed, but what acts keep them from leaving me?
The constant sleight of hand to keep the show running while meanwhile juggling triggers, stimulation, responsibilities, felt safety, and laundry takes more of me than I have to give.
For those in similar places, I can’t fix it or provide a quip that makes writing the script easier.
I can just tell you that I know it’s really hard.
Some days the show can’t go on.
Some days it doesn’t get better.
Sometimes… you’ve just created a life you can’t maintain anymore.
It’s O.K. to shut the show down.
To switch venues.
To rewrite the whole script.
To get new actors.
To do a one-man-show for a while.
Sometimes sequels are better than the originals.
I mean just watch Ragnarock, Christmas Vacation, Toy Story 3, and Frozen II.
Andie.ink 
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