My Shrunken Head
When we closed the Yarn Store, I went into a month or two of funk. I deserved the time off. I watched old movies, and caught up on a good amount of reading.
After about a month, ideas for other things I could do were percolating. But when I wanted to make a phone call or send an email, I would feel panic, or I felt becalmed, or would feel procrastination, or I would feel like I was waiting.
This was also true with chores around the house, calls to friends, yarnbombing projects, making medical appointments, everything.
I’m not sure what a panic attack feels like, but here's what I felt. My heart rate and breathing increased. I didn’t know what I was afraid of, but I felt fear.
Here is a description of becalmed. This is an old nautical term meaning when a sailing ship is without current and without wind. To be stalled.
Everyone feels like putting stuff off till later. But this is the first time I felt what I think people call procrastination. I just couldn’t get it done. I couldn’t get it started. I found 100 things more important or more interesting to do. In the past, if I had a deadline for a paper or an article, I would write it, then rewrite, put it away for a day or two, and read it again. I was never one to confuse a deadline with a due date. But now, I found I couldn't even start.
Many times in my life the thought that it would be interesting, or maybe just amusing, to take my head into the shop and go in for some therapy. Now, it was time. Our insurance company gave me some names. A couple of therapists I interviewed immediately wanted to give me happy pills. Forget that. One woman immediately said there was daddy issues. Maybe, but forget that.
The office lady at my doctor's office overheard me asking about a therapist, and she recommended a guy she went to. I went to talk to him. We hit it off. We did not have conflicting attitudes or values.
But he was a Myers/Brigg person, and my skeptical flag went up. But damn if the process didn’t figure out something about me. He showed me that I am a logical thinker. Most of my decisions all through my life were guided through reason and numbers. But the opening of the yarn store was an emotional experience, a paternal decision. If I decided to open a business through logic and numbers and it didn't make money and failed, it was easily a learning experience. But the yarn store was something else, it was family, it was social, it was emotional. He said that I did not have the tools to deal with the failure of a business that was an emotional experience. Amazingly much of the anxiety and sadness really went away within minutes after hearing that.
He also suggested that I was experiencing some PTSD, but that didn’t ring true and nothing became of it.
Unfortunately, the relationship ended. He was writing a book, and he hired me to edit it while at the same time keeping me as a patient.
There is a reason why this is unethical. It became unpleasant.
Next there was Terry. A good guy. He became a friend. He advised me as a friend. He helped me sort a lot of things out that had been rattling around for years. He also mentioned PTSD, but nothing came up.
Then he died.
Next I went back to a guy I met when shopping for therapy, but he didn't take my insurance. Still didn't, but took me for what would have been the copay. He really liked my description of becalmed. PTSD came up again. Unfortunately, we had life philosophy differences. We would wind up having discussions instead of the business at hand, me. And the reduced fee started annoying him. We fired each other on the same day.
Sarah and I went to a Children's Hospital presentation. It was about treating the parent’s trauma in experiencing the trauma of their child's illness. More people showed up than expected, so I stood at a cocktail table instead of sitting in the audience.
Psychologist Dr. Gold was talking about how everyone rightfully gives lots of attention to the sick kid, but the parents are going through trauma as well. The unrecognized and ignored trauma leads to post traumatic stress disorders in the parents that the family will be forced to deal with later. As he was talking I saw that the drinks on the cocktail table were vibrating, like Jurassic Park. It was my heart pounding.
I talked with Dr. Gold after the parents left. He wanted to know about my childhood, the illness, and my relationship with my parents. He asked if they broke up after I got better. They did but it didn’t stick. What he talked about really helped me understand my mom a little better.
He recommended a guy in South Pasadena, who I went to see. He helped me a lot with some fine tuning. He gave me a written psychological evaluation which was fun, but didn’t reveal much. Except one question labeled me as highly narcissistic. The question, “Do you like to see yourself featured in magazines?” Of course I do, who doesn’t. The doc said that was unusual. I took out my phone and showed him a recent issue of Los Angeles Magazine, and there was my mug and an article that mentioned and quoted me. The doc and I laughed.
More recently, I've been going to a physical therapist my neurologist recommended. Not for any physical problems, but she knows how to figure out how the brain processes.
She is a genius.
The first thing she figured out was that I need to be verbal sometimes when I'm figuring something out. She suggested that I should say things out loud that I really want to remember, or work out a problem out loud to myself.
Genius. It made a big difference.
Next, she saw that I'm left-handed. She could see that when I was figuring out puzzles using my right hand it took milliseconds longer to do than if I used my left hand. She explained this was because my brain had to do an extra step in translating actions for my right hand. My right hand has to double process.
Genius. Thank you, Amy. And with almost every visit there is some fine tuning.
As Sarah was soon to retire, I was in the middle of writing this volume. Things brought up by this memoir started feeling heavy. I used the analogy of canoeing down a river. Best to follow the current and go with the flow. But this memoir was muddying the water. My paddle was stirring up silt.
I found a therapist who took Sarah's insurance with the understanding that this was a limited engagement.
She identified me as autistic on our second session.
It's official!
And then lastly, there was the feeling of waiting. I hadn’t noticed, but…
The feeling of waiting ended when Enzo was born, then Eve, then Zephyr.
It is the truth that liberates, not the effort to be free