Farn

Posted on (Updated on ) in relationships

These are strange times indeed. The coronavirus is bringing up a lot of fear for people, hopefully to process and come out the other side of. In amongst all these mixed up emotions then other things are comign up for air that have been hidden, perhaps for years or decades. This is a time for great unravelling. Perhaps it is compounded for me because I am in that age, the midlife crisis, where the universe seeks to guide you to pull apart all that you have known to be true and examine and test it to see if it holds water or not.

I have been fortunate enough to be in a situation where I am working through this pandemic, keeping occupied and busy, not getting too bogged down by the fear of contagion as it has been a day-to-day existence in my line of work for longer than the government appeared concerned about it. I had been merrily compartmentalising any issues I had come up, putting them to one side to ‘deal with later’ as I kept ‘feeling useful’ and ‘keeping busy’ with work. And… then I got a cold so bad that it forced me to rest for over a week. Slow down, my body was crying out. Just stop doing. Rest. Recuperate. Process.

And in doing so, unable to take the medication that usually keeps my brain from overthinking too heavily, I stumbled across a blog post from a friend who moved away, and it unearthed a whole bunch of emotional gunk to examine.

I met this friend shortly before I moved to a village, by sheer chance for some reason I had to take my daughter to a different play session and she and her daughter were there. It turned out, she lived in the same village, and our daughters were of a similar age. When I moved there I reflected her hermitlike state and we didn’t connect readily at first, but gradually our friendship blossomed and as the girls got older they inspired one another. We would hang out and it would not be unheard of that my husband would get home from work, find out I was still over there, and cycle over with some beers and we’d pootle home much later of an evening.

I can’t remember at what point she mentioned that they were thinking of moving, but I remember it hitting me like a brick. I felt this urge to cease contact immediately; I experienced this before when neighbours mentioned they were moving then the shutters instantly came down and I stopped talking to them months before they finally moved out. But, our friendship was so great and there was huge uncertainty about when the house would get sold, it felt like it might never happen, so I persevered and it felt ok. We helped them pack, spent their last days with us. We stayed in touch on social media, the interactions felt like they were keeping the friendship alive. We saw each other a couple of times when she visited, and 3 years ago the whole family came down and getting the girls back together again it was as if no time had passed, they got on wonderfully. And then she decided to stop using facebook, and as is the way with my brain, she then drifted out of my life.

And to read her words again it felt like time hadn’t passed, that if we saw each other again it would be just as it always had been, but yet there was sadness that she wasn’t a part of things any more. Yet also, I walked out of so many friendships when I moved here because I did not have the capacity to maintain them, what is it about this one that saddened me so much? Is it simply because I was not the one in control of it changing, that I was not ready for it to end the way it did? One could argue that I was and still am fully in control of rekindling that friendship, if I put the energy into it. And perhaps I will.

However, the pain that came up surrounding reading her words on that blog post a few weeks ago was showing me something more. It was showing me the reasons for me having this object impermanence issue surrounding people. The pain of continuing to care for those no longer in my life is too great for me to handle, and my closest friends kept moving away when I was a child. I developed this coping mechanism to protect myself. If I pushed them away before they left, the final memories of the friendship weren’t a deep one, and I wouldn’t hurt so much.

And on relationships as an adult. People only leave my life abruptly if we’ve had a blazing row. Mostly, people gradually fade as their need for me or my need for them dissipates. It is a kind and gentle way to make way for new friendships to emerge.

But, what happens if I am asked to end a friendship to protect my partner’s emotions? Same pain, it seems. I don’t know how long it will take for the pain to go away. All this emotional stuff coming up. I think it’s linked to this recent friendship ending, when neither of us were ready for it to fade. I don’t know how to handle this next bit.

how a trigger feels in the body

Posted on in Uncategorized

Yesterday I was talking to a professional person about overthinking, they had no idea of my history and were trying to advise me on overanalysing the impact of events and circumstances, of items consumed, etc.

It was interesting because I was sitting there quite calmly and all of a sudden, I guess I felt like he was speaking to me in a condescending fashion about scientific experiments, and I could feel this wall go up inside me. I instantly knew I’d reached the point where I’d stopped being able to take in what he was saying, and explained this to him. Instead of him getting all huffy about it, he understood completely and tried to reword things; neither of us knew exactly what it was that set things off. I remember describing to him that it felt like a wall had gone up in my gut, like a shield of resistance. I wish I could explain it more thoroughly, but perhaps writing this will be enough of a reminder for now.

models of consent

Posted on in relationships

A conversation that was had and passed on at the burn that I wanted to explore further.

Differing models of consent. The one that is advocated most heavily at the burn is the ‘Fuck Yeah’ model. Where anything other than enthusiastic consent is seen as a no.

The one that many people were taught by their peers in the playground may have been more along the lines of ‘Fuck, No’. Where anything other than a definite no means that you should keep trying.  And eventually you might grind someone down enough that they will run out of excuses and agree to something.

When people coming from these two wildly differing models of consent come together there can be a lot of frustration in communication as the first person is saying ‘I’ve not given enthusiastic consent so why are they still hanging around?’ and the second person is more along the lines of ‘I’ve not been told a firm no so I’m continuing to sniff around hoping for a positive reaction’.

This second one has an added layer of stereotypical female upbringing (though I’m sure there are men out there who are also affected by this; I’m seeing possible signs of an abusive family unit in this picture too), where we have been brought up to be compliant, to keep the peace, and to not put ourselves in danger. So, finding excuses as to why a person cannot do something rather than just saying no to someone could be a sign that they are being polite, could be that they are trying to keep themselves safe from a physical or verbal attack that has been warned could happen, or it could be they’ve experienced trauma in the past for saying an outright no, and do not wish to trigger that again.  If it is a trauma response, fawn mode could be engaged and thus overcompensation on the people pleasing front, and therefore be perceived to be even more enthusiastic about wanting to do something that they are actually trying to saying no to.

Some links about the 4Fs (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) in order of depth; 1; 2; 3.

 

Another model of consent I’ve come across  is the blanket consent unless I say otherwise model. I’ve come across two versions of this – the version where the person recognises immediately when a boundary has been crossed and asks for it to stop straight away, and the version where the person tries the thing and recognises later that it’s not for them, and so asks for it to not occur again in the future.

As an empath, something that I experience often is when a partner is seriously interested in doing something then my highly active mirror neurons respond to that and enthusiastically want to do it too. It can be something that I’ve previously thought abhorrent, or just not understood the desire behind it, so I am usually aware (if not straight away, then on reflection) that it doesn’t belong to me.  Often it becomes something that I enjoy, a new kink in my toolbox, but if it is something that I do not end up liking, it would be wrong of me to cry wolf and say I’d been forced into it, because I had very much agreed to engage. Instead, I see it as a learning experience. Perhaps I hadn’t negotiated clearly enough prior to the event, discussing the details more carefully. Perhaps I need to introduce a clearer way of showing that I want to back out, or perhaps I need to ask my partner to check in on me every so often. But, as a result of my neural makeup, I am more likely to try and tolerate it and then drift into dissociation before I recognise what is happening. It takes a very observant partner to read me enough to realise that I’m not really there any more, particularly as I go a different kind of not really there, I head into a feral state, if I’m totally immersed and enjoying myself.  So, instead it is more about recognising to step away from people in order to make decisions, and not to be around people if they continue to place me in these situations that I do not like, if I cannot find a way through them, and seeking support for coming to terms with what I’ve experienced, in a non judgmental blame free way.

face blindness #2

Posted on in Autism

Ok so now I’ve realised this about myself I’ve been considering it a little more. I always thought the idea of face blindness was more like you didn’t see the detail on people’s faces at all, that it was just a blank, so it’s been interesting to contemplate.

Apparently there’s a specific area of the brain that processes faces. And in those people who have face blindness it doesn’t work. We use a different area of the brain instead, one that is used to recognise objects. As it turns out, my object recognition software in my brain is pretty damned good, it processes things that other people don’t spot. Perhaps it is overcompensating for the lack of face seeing?

Anyhow, I met someone the other day who my partner talked about being attracted to, and I couldn’t see why, I didn’t understand it. Actually, it got me a little bit upset as I was doing my overthinking thing and thinking does that mean I’m not actually that attractive either, does he go for people who aren’t that pretty? I was in a bit of a funny headspace. Anyway, then I saw a photo of her and instantly saw how beautiful her face was, and could totally see it.

So, flat stationary versions of faces are way more easily assessed by the object part of the brain, I have established. Having a face move around both the room and in expressions is very complicated for my brain to process.

Interesting…