If you are in therapy or considering psychoanalysis this episode is for you. This episode is also for you if you have been wondering about neurodivergence, autism, or ADHD. This is the beginning of what I think will be a long quest and potentially a new direction for this podcast and blog.
In this episode, I lay out my experience with psychoanalysis and my recent foray into learning about ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and neurodivergence. Several episodes will follow with increasing levels of detail and both specificity about me and generality that may apply more broadly.
There is a companion blog post linked here that inspired this episode and is worth reading if you’re into this sort of thing.
I don’t know why humans ponder our existence. I don’t know what motivates one person to pursue personal growth and another to dismiss it entirely. My work is directed at those of us who want to live a ‘fulfilled life’, who are ‘pursuing happiness’, ‘seek healing’, or want to flourish. We want to live our best lives while here on Earth.
This is not to say any of us are miserable. Some of us are, of course. Sometimes growth is motivated by severe trauma. Others are simply curious. I think curiosity is very human and is enough of an excuse to gaze at our navel should we choose to do so.
For me, my pursuit of these things came about because I have always felt DIFFERENT. I didn’t have a better word to describe this feeling, and I’m not sure there is a better word. I have just always felt a little awkward, or atypical, or unusual. I never really felt like I ‘fit in’. If you have read this far, I’m sure you can relate.
This feeling led me to several experiences with counseling, therapy, and coaching in my youth, teenage years, and adulthood. After I had kids, and again after my divorce, I sort of ratcheted down on trying to understand myself and to heal.
I have lots of experience with therapies of all types. And I can’t say that any of it healed me. Certainly, much of it was HEALING, but I never felt a Eureka or ‘a-ha’ moment that made me feel better.
Mostly, therapy made me feel like something was wrong with me that I could learn to ‘fix’.
But I never felt ‘fixed’.
Not feeling ‘fixed’ made me feel even worse. I felt shame at not being good enough to heal.
I went into therapy feeling ‘not good enough’ because I was different, and implementing the therapy training led me to feel even more ‘not good enough’ because I couldn’t make the techniques work.
It wasn’t until recently, when a therapist suggested I do some neurodivergence tests, that I was able to open up to Autism. Nearly all of the tests suggest that I have a high propensity for being Autistic. While I didn’t score ‘off the charts’ in the ‘super obvious’ range, I was way above neurotypical or allistic (non-ASD).
What surprised me about ASD is how well it seemed to explain the entirety of my experience. I found videos, podcasts, and interviews of people saying the same things I had said all my life. Things like:
- I always felt different
- I feel like other people had a handbook of life that I didn’t get
- The world doesn’t make sense
- I love myself, but I fall apart when I interact with the rest of the world
- I have mysophonia, or sensitivity to some sounds
- I am an empathic, introverted, highly sensitive, INFJ
That last one pretty much screams Autistic as far as I am concerned.
I have also found a lot of support within the neurodivergent community. My few posts and episodes about self-diagnosing have been well-received and supported. I find myself identifying strongly with other neurodivergents.
More than anything, if ASD does accurately describe me — and I am only self-diagnosed so, who knows — it doesn’t bring with it a sense of shame.
Unlike therapy, which says, ‘Here’s how to fix what’s wrong with you’, neurodivergence says, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you’. Rather, ASD and similar conditions direct us to accept ourselves. Instead of changing WHO WE ARE, we are tasked with changing how we interact with the world.
The changes applied to neurodivergent people are about navigating the world, not about who we are.
This is a huge relief. And this is what is different about my experiences with ASD compared to my experiences with therapy.
Maybe it’s selfish, but I would rather consider myself ok. I’d rather figure out how to change how I interact rather than change who I am.
Self-compassion is something both therapy and neurodivergence work promotes. Why I couldn’t see this as clearly through a psychoanalytic lens is unclear, but I don’t care. But I will always wonder if this is just my perspective or preference. I am not trying to compare the techniques or explanations concerning their virtues. I’m merely sharing my experience in hopes that it might help other people having similar struggles.
More to come.
To listen to or view this episode, find Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom on your favorite podcast app or YouTube. Or you can use the links below to stream:
Podcast audio stream:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/14094539
YouTube video: