Josh, neurodivergent: A long time ago I realized that I just don’t act right and I spend a lot of effort trying to make sense of things. When my daughter was born I really only have one memory... granted once the birth was underway it was quick. I remember being kind of lost in trying to figure out how I felt. Truthfully, I still don’t know exactly what I was feeling when she was born. That pretty much sums up my emotional awareness I suppose. In my thinking, I wasn’t afraid or scared or anything because statistically speaking we were set to have a very healthy baby. I wasn’t excited so much because I really didn’t know what I was getting into. But this is par for the course, and why I generally just free fall through emotions. I sort of have two options, that and just going with the mood or getting lost in thought trying to figure out what is going on.
But it isn’t all bad, and in some ways has been really good. Generally speaking, I don’t really have a fear of things. I avoid things that are dangerous and am not concerned with things that aren’t. I don’t take risks because everything is a calculation. A good example is while we were hiking one day Kelly was very anxious we had become lost. She began getting worked up, and I stayed perfectly calm. I knew exactly where we were in regards to landmarks and such and knew there was no reason at all to be concerned. Granted when she is anxious that is of no help at all, but it is a perk. I don’t have the stress that friends talk about having. If something is good, it is worth whatever issue might arise and if it isn’t I remove it from my life. It is no trouble at all for me to just erase something from my life, for good or bad. Black and white thinking, I don’t think is such a bad thing. I am not clouded by the guilt and worry that Kelly has for an example. Another great example of just being able to flip a switch and make something obsolete was when I was on the brink of suicide. I was pretty bad, but when my daughter was born I believed it was entirely unfair to leave her without a father, so those thoughts are completely banished from my thinking.
I think my kind of thinking combined with the confusion of emotions is one of the reasons I have always loved music so much. To me, it is a compass for how to feel. Being in concentrated rage, anger, love, or somewhere in between it greatly affects me. Something else I have always absolutely loved is concerts, which might seem odd given my previous statements regarding sound. I feel like an emotional vampire I guess, because I know one reason I love concerts so much is the raw energy that comes from them. But music is more than that. Generally speaking, the moment I open my eyes in the morning I have a song playing in my head. For a while I tracked the song opposed to my mood for the day, but it really didn’t make a difference. The bottom line is if I wake up to a song playing in my head I am going to have a better day, and if I don’t it's going to be significantly less and probably a bad day.
I think, like I’ve said quite often, that this was a huge benefit to diagnosis. I guess beforehand I was always trying to be something I wasn’t, and now I am pretty comfortable with my lane and stay in it. Without a doubt it isn’t always great how I think about things, but I think there are plenty of perks to it. Especially when I see what stress does to you normal folks!
Def Leppard concert for Josh' 40th birthday.
What we wish we'd known (Kelly): When Josh is trying to make sense of his emotions, it can look like he's not feeling anything - so I often misunderstood his blank look or non-reaction in an emotionally-charged situation. I spent a lot of time being hurt by or angry about what I THOUGHT was his not caring... which wasn't the case... and it didn't have to be that way.
Kelly, neurotypical: Josh told me this post was going to be about music, so I had planned to write about the role of music in our relationship... but as usual, what he said or meant and what I understood or interpreted are not exactly aligned. So, you get what you get with this one...
When Josh and I started dating, he made me a mix CD like any good Gen Xer. I thought it was endearing and romantic. As time went on, though, I struggled to understand how he could feel comfortable enough to hand me a romantic playlist, but wasn't really able to articulate his feelings. 'Words of affirmation' are not Josh's strong suit. This threw me for a loop for a long time, but it's something I've adapted to (we've both had to adapt to each other's strengths and weaknesses).
Now, I know to let Josh process his emotions on his time, and feel and express them when and how he's ready or able. I also know to look for whatever touchstone he has found to help him focus and process his emotions. Oftentimes, it's music... like my romantic mix CD. Sometimes it's a picture... around our daughter's recent birthday, he texted me many of her baby photos, and I knew he was sorting through how he felt about her getting bigger. When it comes to the day of our daughter's birth, it was a stuffed animal. At some point during the mayhem of her entrance into the world, he disappeared down to the gift shop to purchase her first gift - a stuffed elephant. Obviously, this annoyed me at the time, but now I see what it was - a meaningful gesture and something he knew made sense in the immediacy, when he couldn't yet sort through the rest of his emotions about such a momentous occasion.
Now that I understand, these touchstones have become mine, too. When I wish he just knew the right thing to say, I always have my mix CD.
Comments