It would be an understatement to say that the last four months have been eventful. For me personally, it has been an insane rollercoaster ride, with many ups and downs, both emotionally and mentally. I never imagined at the beginning of lockdown just what a personal internal journey it would ultimately become for me.
I realised in the first few weeks of lockdown that I was putting myself out there trying to connect with people, asking if they were ok, reassuring them that their feelings and emotions were valid. And yet hardly anyone was doing that for me in return. I actually felt alone, aimless, insignificant. And it got me to thinking just how much I had been take advantage of during my 40 years of living. To be so dependable and kind-hearted that people automatically think that you’re just going to be there as if you have nothing better to do with your life.
When I went through my diagnostic process for autism, I started writing and voicing a lot more of what I felt and what I had experienced during my life. For me it was (and still is) therapy. But I also saw it as a way to educate people on how life can be as someone who is on the spectrum, especially one who was diagnosed late in life. I wanted others to see what I saw, to experience what I experience, to develop empathy and compassion for situations similar to my own. Unfortunately, I have learned that a lot of the time it is like screaming into an abyss, and you wonder if anyone actually hears you.
I look upon my diagnosis as a mark of validation for the person that I am, as a way for myself to realise, “this is why I have felt so different and alien to everyone else in my life for such a long time”. The sad thing is, I came to the realisation that I still do feel somewhat alien, even now.
One day towards the end of April, something inside of me finally screamed “I’ve had enough!”. Enough of being taken for granted by people whom I cared about. Enough of being spoken down to and patronised after talking about my personal experiences. Enough of having to fight at least twice as hard as everyone else for the last 40 years just to feel the same level of social respect and acceptability. Enough of feeling like I’m screaming into that abyss every time I open myself up. It just became too much.
As a way of trying to release some of that internal pressure, I wrote a long post on Facebook and Instagram about my frustrations of being a square peg in a round hole. It’s still up there if you want to take a look, actually.
But by that point, the sail had already sailed, so to speak. I ended up having an emotional breakdown that same evening. For a while now I had been trying to find the right words to describe it – breakdown, meltdown, semi-meltdown/breakdown. But I realise now that it was indeed a breakdown of my emotional regulation, of what had kept me going and surviving up to that point.
For weeks on end, I went virtually incommunicado on all social media (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). I felt just about foetal. I did not want to talk to anybody at all, let alone at length. There were those who messaged me, wanting to know why I was so silent, wanting to know that everything was ok. I didn’t reply to them, I needed to cut myself out completely and be on my own, otherwise I knew I would fall back into the same cycle of thinking about everyone else over myself. Some of them even tried to call, but all I said was that I was alive. That’s all they needed to know at the time.
In my head, the support network I thought I had built so well had let me down so badly. I was well and truly alone, in my body, in my heart, in my mind and in my soul. I went through a long period of self-reflection, reliving just about every horrible memory in my life associated with being different and not knowing why, and reopening a number of old wounds that I thought I had closed long ago. Every moment was me wondering how my life had got so messed up as it currently was, thinking about “what if” my autism had been diagnosed years earlier – would I be happier, more stable, would I be considered more acceptable by everyone.
Those of you who know me also know that I’m very much about emotional intelligence and honesty, not being afraid to express what you’re feeling and letting yourself feel what needs to be felt at that moment. For me blocking any emotions is quite unhealthy and leads to many issues further down the line. In the same vein, I abhor toxic positivity – being positive for the sheer sake of it, not because it’s something you genuinely feel. And using that to guilt everyone around them not to feel anything else. Quite frankly, that is dangerous, especially in uncertain times like these.
Sadly though, a number of folks whom I thought were my friends were going down that route. And it made me realise that I didn’t want to associate myself with people who try to whitewash problems with such proclamations of “positive vibes only”, and “don’t worry things will get better very soon”. I remember commenting on Twitter just after my birthday that those things are probably the worst things one can say to someone who just needs to be heard and listened to, but that is for another time and place.
As such, no one understood or wanted to understand what I was going through. No one in my life had the capability to acknowledge and empathise with what I had experienced. They smile, they nod and they try to offer solutions – without actually *listening*, without *hearing* what I was trying to communicate. It’s almost as though they do not want to be present with me in that moment and they keep me at arm’s length while trying to “say the right things”. And I’ve allowed that to happen to me over so many years, perhaps as a matter of keeping the peace or not wanting to cause trouble. It’s only now that I can see and feel the damage that it has ultimately caused me.
Recovery & Rebuilding
So these last three months have been about rediscovering and rebuilding myself from a pile of emotional rubble. And it has not been an easy journey. I knew (and still know) that I could not go back to the way things were, to me constantly self-deprecating, to me subconsciously adjusting my behaviour and my mannerisms, just to be liked and accepted. That would be lying to myself as well as to everyone else.
It’s quite strange in a way that one of the biggest sources of support and understanding came not from my existing friendship base, but the strangers I chatted to on the gay social apps. They exhibited so much more empathy than the people I actually knew in real life – they listened, they understood, and they didn’t judge. They took the time to get to know me, without all the pre-loaded emotional baggage. At long last I felt heard. And it was from those conversations that I began to once again draw strength, slowly but surely. I managed to get myself chatting to people again, although still not on the level that I was pre-lockdown.
But what about my existing relationships? I’ve essentially pressed the reset button on those. As I was reflecting on my past life after the worst of the breakdown, I made a conscious decision to wipe the slate clean on all the friendships and relationships I had pre-lockdown. It doesn’t mean that they’re strangers now, but more that the relationships need to be rebuilt with new layers of trust, honesty, respect, understanding, empathy, and of course compassion.
I managed to get myself to attend a few Zoom parties while I was still in recovery mode. And the great thing about being in recovery after something like this is that as you are still feeling somewhat raw, you get to observe how you truly react and deal with the world around you. And the Zoom parties confirmed one thing for me: I don’t do groups very well, not unless I know and trust *every single person* in that group. If it is a gathering of lots of people whom I don’t know, I will instantly become lost amongst the voices, no matter how much effort I make to contribute to any conversation. I will simply retreat into a corner and enjoy my own company. I came to the realisation a while ago that I do not possess the innate skills required to interact in a group setting like that – I tend to shut up and listen.
On that basis, I made a decision that if people want to get to know me, they need to do it on my level – one on one. It ensures that I have their focus, as they would mine. And from there true connection occurs. It’s no longer enough for people to say “hey, come and join us, you’ll have fun”. Not if I don’t know or trust those who are attending. If I do end up going, it will be for another reason, and you will find me once again in the corner.
In the same token, I also came to realise that I had accumulated many people throughout my life, but especially in the last few years, who simply just didn’t give a damn about the life that I led, or the person I had grown to become. I had found particularly after I left Australia to go to Europe, a number of my friends just drifted away. Now that in itself is natural – friends come and go, etc etc.
But I also turned 40 during this lockdown. I knew that I was not getting any younger. And especially coming out of the breakdown, I wanted my life to have more meaning. And that included friendships. The saying “quality over quantity” carries for me a stronger meaning than ever. I had many people message me wishing me a happy birthday that day, and yet for me I didn’t feel like celebrating or responding to anyone. In fact a lot of the time, it felt rather contrived for me, although I do know that they meant well in their own way.
Throughout these past few months, I have put myself at arm’s length from just about everyone I know, and not just in a pandemic-induced socially distanced sense. Over the last few weeks especially, I have been going through my social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), unfriending and unfollowing people whom I felt no longer contributed anything of real value to my life. Those people were just *there* – relics of another time, another place, but which had no relevance to where I was today.
Some won’t even realise that I have unfriended them. They will just move on with their own lives as if nothing has happened. And so I must do the same with my own life. I’ve always been one of sentiment, holding on to the good memories, the good times. And I know I can still look back on those, but I can also be ruthless at the same time.
Some of you may be curious as to how I survived on my own all these months. Thankfully I had a lot of things to occupy my time and energy – Animal Crossing, Duolingo, Eurovision, just to name a few. I even stopped exercising completely, apart from the suggested daily walks. And for someone who had been teaching group fitness almost non-stop for over 11 years, being sedentary for four months does help give one another perspective. When I was at the gym the other day covering a class, I weighed myself for the first time since before lockdown, and was stunned to discover that I had put on about five kilos. It literally was the heaviest weight that I have ever been, and for someone who has had trouble putting on weight since forever, this was actually a happy moment for me.
On the Eurovision front especially, it has helped me a lot through this rebuilding journey, particularly the #EurovisionAgain evenings where I managed to discover a lot of music that I had not previously appreciated. Most of you know that I had been intending to go to Rotterdam for the contest this year before it was cancelled, so having a virtual Eurovision to re-watch every weekend was something to keep me motivated. Some songs even made me cry a lot, which in turn helped released the emotional burden I had been carrying. Some of them are even helping to inspire me on my way forward from here, in fact.
Where to from here?
If I am going to live my life truthfully and honestly, and not compromise myself or my integrity, the way I live it will be very different to how it was pre-lockdown. I use Twitter a lot more these days just to keep myself within the current affairs climate, but at this point, I will still not be posting much (if at all) on Facebook or Instagram. I am on Messenger and WhatsApp though. Those who want to keep in touch can do so one on one (a couple of you have been doing so already).
I am still the same person who has the empathy and compassion that you know me for, and I will be there if you need me. But I am not taking anything for granted anymore, and if there is to be anybody in my life, I need to be confident that they approach the friendship from a place of acknowledgement and being present. Like I said above, it’s more the quality than the quantity now.
On that front, I am also more than aware that some people whom I had been close to prior to lockdown might choose to drift away based on what I have written thus far. I don’t hold any grudges on that front, and I thank you for what you did bring to my life. However, I do need to focus more on myself, and be more selfish in that sense, rather than put everyone else’s considerations above my own.
As at time of writing, I am not meeting anybody socially, despite the relative lift in restrictions since lockdown was initially imposed. Firstly, cases are on a slight rise here in the UK, and secondly it’s also giving me space to get truly settled within myself so I do come back with renewed inner strength.
I am in a much better position emotionally and mentally than I was three months ago. But my outlook on life has changed. It is very different to what it was pre-lockdown. The rollercoaster may yet still have a few dips to travel. But I am more certain now of who I am and what I want from life itself, even if it means I have to live it completely on my own.
No Creative Brain 
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