outsidethewall

Over the last few months I have found out I am neurodivergent, wiped a lifetime of trauma, and had a secular spiritual awakening. To say my armour has been removed is an understatement.

Emotions are raw and real and beautiful in a way I have never known. I was looking at my 7-year-old son, wondering at how sensitive and innocent he is, and thinking ‘I was probably like that’. It might be more accurate to say: ‘I am like that’.

A lot of my personality was defined by the near-daily violence at school. My whole persona formed around victory because the alternative was being literally stomped into the ground.

This construct served me well in work and athletics but it was a poor substitute for real living. I became a taut knot of ambition and inadequacy, always aiming for the next peak and a better me. When you fight with yourself the battle never ends.

Now the program has been terminated, the boy is free, and the world is full of wonder. But he is also acutely aware of his limitations and can no longer run the old processes.

To others I may seem insecure or afraid, but I’m not. I’m no longer afraid of myself. I’m no longer afraid of emotion. I’m no longer afraid of living with an open heart. I’m just unaccustomed to it.

I am easily overwhelmed by emotional conversations with loved ones, because those relationships were built on the bedrock of my armour. It’s borderline impossible for me to explain this adequately. ‘Sorry honey but the whole relationship dynamic was built on a lie I didn’t know I was telling myself; things will be better now’.

How would it feel if your partner was suddenly… different? They dropped the neediness and the anxious energy? They said they want you to be happy, but they didn’t act in the ways you’re accustomed to? And the reason? ‘I forgot how to’.

But that’s the truth. I am finally able to feel the love, rather than some faded facsimile. I am able to feel the warmth of togetherness instead of always being mentally elsewhere.

So while I keep going on about the spiritual side, the other side can’t be overstated either; the bedrock of PTSD that is now gone.

I’m like Neo waking from the matrix, naked and gooey. The analogy only half holds; I’m in a better world. But I’m emotionally naked. I can cry for the first time in 30 years and have zero practice at doing so.

And for everyone around me…?

They were used to Windows ’98, clogged registry and eternal defrag. They’ve woken to something new. It’s blank, it's alien, and it’s taking a bit of getting used to.

The algorithms are gone. The system is understood. The software is being installed. And it’s pretty bloody weird.

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