Caring Just Enough

In recent months a lot of the dirty “secrets” of society have been bubbling up to the surface.  Though, in fairness, these have really only been “secrets” to people privileged enough to be able to ignore them.  Racism and sexism have been blatantly supported by some of our country’s supposed leaders.  Institutional racism, sexism, able-ism has been caught on video and shared throughout the world.  People of differing faiths have been demonized and threatened to be put on a national registry.  Countries of plenty have been closing tight fists around their lands and resources, under the unreasonable belief that there simply isn’t enough to go around.  Immigrants are being dehumanized.  Refugees are being refused safe harbor.  People are being shot and killed.  LGBTQ individuals are being targeted and hunted down.  Victimized people are choosing to respond with more violence and hate.

For people with emotionally intense personalities (many gifted people), these bubblings can feel extremely overwhelming.  Anxiety and fear and sadness and anger and helplessness are felt by many people, but for emotionally intense children and adults, these feelings are multiplied and intensified.  Emotionally intense people not only feel things more intensely, but they also tend to be extremely empathetic.  They literally put themselves in the shoes and feelings of all the people who are being hurt and harmed.  And when there are so many people being hurt and harmed, many of our brightest, most empathetic minds simply shut down from overload.  The empathy becomes paralyzing. 

Now, obviously, this paralysis is simply not helpful.  To anyone.  Paralysis does not help to end racism.  Paralysis does not help to empower women.  Paralysis does not help to create sanctuary for our world’s poorest.  Paralysis does not help unite with people who are different from ourselves.  Paralysis does not help end violence or hate.  Paralysis simply does not help.

So, what to do?

Our brightest and most caring minds need to care, but not too much.  The trick is to care enough, but just enough.  We need to examine our own passions and decide what we, individually, are impassioned to fight for.  It is ok to choose one issue and throw all your passion and power into fighting against that evil.  In fact, it is necessary to choose just one.  And then we have to trust that other people are out there choosing the other injustices to fight against.  It is ok to notice some injustices and choose to devote your attention somewhere else.  We humans simply cannot give our all to everything.  We have to choose.  And that is ok.  I give you permission to care deeply about one of the “secrets” and do what you can to advocate for change.  I give you permission to notice the other “secrets” and let someone else do what they can to advocate for change. 

Now, of course, I’m not advocating for perpetuating the hatreds.  I will teach my children to be respectful and accepting of everyone, regardless of who they love or their gender, skin color, country of origin, abilities, etc.  But, I cannot be at every rally or write my congress people about everything.  I will be much more effective if I choose my area of advocacy, and throw all my intense passion into it.  I will be much more effective if I choose to care just enough.

Revisiting Gratitude

A couple of years ago, I played along with one of those slightly corny facebook challenges.  I often just disregard these things, but this one was about thankfulness and gratitude.  And, since I regularly encourage my clients to keep gratitude journals and choose to focus their minds on positive things, I thought I should practice what I preach, so I hopped on the facebook challenge bandwagon.

The first few days I think I wrote some pretty generic things (thought honestly I can’t remember).  As a family we were right in the midst of some pretty significant challenges with our daughter’s SPD.  We’d only started receiving services a few months before and both my husband and I were trying to make sense of it all and were grieving the diagnosis.  I wasn’t feeling very grateful, really.  I was mostly feeling tired and overwhelmed and emotional.  And then, I decided to add a bit of challenge to the challenge and I wrote the following:

Day 3: Today I am choosing to be thankful for some of the tough stuff. I admit that I often feel discouraged and overwhelmed in the midst of the following, which is entirely the reason that I am choosing to work at being grateful for them. So, here goes.

1) I am thankful for Sensory Processing Disorder. Don't get me wrong, there is a large part of me that wishes this disorder had never touched my family, or to be more honest, that it simply didn't exist. But, I am thankful for the explanation of my daughter's behaviors and idiosyncracies that has nothing to do with blaming my daughter, my husband, or myself. I am thankful that I am learning to see her behaviors through the lens of "mixed up wiring", sensory overload, or sensory deprivation rather than believing she's a spoiled brat, or that I am a bad mom, or that my husband is a bad dad. We aren't. Sure, none of us is perfect, but she struggles because of her neurological system, not because any of us screwed up or are inherently awful. I am thankful that this disorder is gaining understanding, and that this disorder has brought us into contact with a fantastic Occupational Therapist and has encouraged us to more creatively problem solve and find solutions focused at the actual problem rather than trying to "parent her out of it" or wait til she grows out of it. I am thankful that this disorder has continued to broaden our support network so we are no longer trying to manage the symptoms entirely on our own.

2) I am thankful for my daughter's meltdowns. These meltdowns are definitely not pretty and usually involve some type of destruction, hitting, kicking, shouting mean things, you name it. Her system gets overloaded and meltdown happens. These are exhausting. It is exhausting to try to figure out how to keep her safe while also protecting my other two children, not to mention myself. And I really wish I never had to feel the helpless heartache as I watch my intelligent and beautiful and thoughtful and sweet and generous daughter transform before my eyes, knowing that she's in hundreds of different kinds of pain and all I can do is wait it out. I want nothing more than to nurture her at these times, mother her, hug her, hold her, but all these things make the meltdowns and her pain worse. So I simply have to sit and wait, usually with tears running down my own face and my arms aching because they can't console and comfort her. So, in many ways, these meltdowns are not fun. But I am thankful that by watching her meltdowns we can learn more of what she needs. I am thankful that her meltdowns have increased my empathy for other parents and decreased my judgment of them. I am thankful that her meltdowns have prompted me to rest in the sanctuary of my God in ways that I have never before had to or chosen to. And I am thankful that her meltdowns are teaching me how to be more of what I believe I am called to be - a living sanctuary for all those who cross my path.

3) I am thankful that most people simply don't "get it". Sure, it can be lonely in some ways, and isolating, and again, exhausting. But I am thankful that most people don't "get it" because they have not had to face the challenges of SPD personally. I am thankful that most people are neurotypical and function well. I am also thankful because most people don't "get" that my daughter struggles with SPD. They don't "get it" because she (generally) manages to hold it all together when out and about and then melts down with overload when she's at home. Really, only my husband, my two sons, myself, and (of course) my daughter have ever experienced her full blown meltdowns. I am thankful for the hope that this brings, because with the right tools and modifications, she will be just fine. She proves every day that she can be just fine. And I am thankful that her meltdowns are reserved for me. It means that she feels fully, completely, unquestionably, and unconditionally loved and safe with me. It means that I am doing my job. Despite my mistakes and my own meltdowns and times I have been far less than mother of the year, she can totally and completely be all of herself with me. I am thankful that the effort I put in to prayerfully being her living sanctuary are felt by her.

At the end of the original FB post, I had written something along the lines of writing this mostly as a reminder to myself.  I find that as I re-read it, I am thankful that time, trial and error, and helpful professionals have helped us understand my daughter’s needs better.  But, I also find that I continue to have those days, weeks, months in which the struggle is very real and it is hard to stay grateful.  And so, I re-post this as a reminder that there are always ways to reframe a situation to see it from a different angle.  And mostly, I re-post as a reminder to myself to always revisit gratitude.

Being a Smart Girl

The other day, Jon came home from a shopping trip with KBear and said that a woman had started up a conversation with KBear, which went as follows:

Woman – You are so beautiful!  You could be a model!  Do you want to be a model?

KBear – I want to be a doctor or an engineer.

Woman – But you are just so pretty.  You could be a model!

KBear – I want to be a doctor or an engineer.

Woman – But, don’t you want to be a model?

KBear (to Jon) – I don’t want to talk to this person anymore.

My first reaction was to laugh hysterically and feel a sense of pride.  That’s my girl!

My second reaction was to feel a sense of awe for the advantage of KBear’s autism-y type ways.  How fantabulous that her social difficulties can also allow her to simply say what she thinks and write off silly strangers who are trying to convince her that what she wants isn’t legitimate or valuable.  My younger life could have been so much simpler had I been able to be more oblivious to other people’s reactions.  I certainly would have found my own way of being true to myself much more quickly had I cared less about hurting other people’s feelings.  KBear’s autism tendencies can make social situations challenging for her, but they also innately provide her a level of differentiation within relationships that I am regularly trying to instill in my own life and in the lives of my therapy clients.

My third reaction was to feel a sense of sadness that the world continues to pass on these archaic and nonsensical messages to my children.  Messages that there’d be more value in a girl to be a model than to be a doctor or an engineer.  I was the smart girl in class who intuitively knew I should hide my intelligence if I wanted to fit in.  I was the girl in class who finished her tests about 15 minutes before anyone else but pretended to keep working on them because no one likes a know-it-all.  I was the girl in high school who knew answers to the questions teachers were asking, but kept quiet because the other boys and girls looked confused, so I should be too.   I was the girl in class who pretended that exams or papers were difficult because everyone else said they were and I certainly didn’t want to make them feel bad that I felt the test was easy.  I was the young woman who allowed my own opinions to sit quietly in the background so the young men around me wouldn’t feel intimidated.  I played stupider than I am.  And by doing all these things, I actually began to believe I’m stupider than I am.  I began to doubt my knowledge, my thoughts, my own voice.

Thank God all that changed.  I’d thought it’d partly changed because I’m growing older and wiser.  But I’d also thought it’d changed because the world is changing and is no longer expecting girls to play dumb in order to appear more attractive.  I thought my part of the world no longer valued a girls’ appearance more than her intelligence.  But, the truth is, I guess I knew all along that the world still has changing to do.  Sometimes it just feels easier to pretend that my daughter won’t have to face the same challenges that I did.  So, I cozy up to naiveté to avoid the sadness, until I hear that some woman was trying to convince my daughter that being a model would be better than being a doctor or an engineer.  And the sadness rushes in.

But then I go back to my second reaction.  Thank God KBear can think a little black and white and can simply write off silly people touting ignorant ideologies.  Thank Goodness her wiring allows her to be herself and choose the people she wants to listen to and disregard the people she doesn’t want to listen to.  And for all the times when I feel twinges of loss and sadness as I watch her try to navigate our complex social world, I will remind myself of the flipside and the positives of her wiring.

For all of you who are hiding your true intelligence or talents – take a lesson from KBear and learn to be a bit more autistic!

“Your playing small does not serve the World.
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. . .
As we let our own Light shine,
we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
”

— Marianne Williamson

How do gifted and differently wired go together?

At first glance it may seem like we’ve combined two random issues and thrown them together just because we felt like it.  In actuality, there’s very real reasons we’re wanting to address BOTH neurologically diverse and gifted issues.  The primary of which is the fact that they are actually not even 2 different issues.

Gifted individuals are neurologically diverse people.  They are differently wired.  Life as a gifted person is just as far from typical as the life of an autistic person is.  The general population tends to think of giftedness in terms of ability or talent.  In reality, gifted people experience life differently.  It isn’t just that their brains retain or understand information more rapidly.  Their whole lives are more intense.  They experience life differently, and this difference can often be misunderstood.  This difference has strengths and challenges, joys and maddening stressors.

Additionally, gifted people can also experience other wiring differences.  In the field, we call this being twice-exceptional or 2e.  Gifted individuals can also have learning disabilities or ADHD or autism, etc.  And, in fact, gifted people seem to be more prone to a particular type of neurological dysfunction called sensory processing disorder.  According to the SPD Foundation, as many as 35% of gifted individuals also have sensory processing disorder.  This is significantly higher than the average population in which 5% of people have SPD.  Personally, I think there needs to be more research as to whether all of these gifted SPD people are accurately diagnosed, or if some of the SPD is simply sensual intensity, but nevertheless, the neurology is different.

Ultimately, gifted individuals, individuals with autism or SPD, all live on the fringes of society and neurology.  And loving someone who is on the fringes, whether because of giftedness or otherwise, is more intense than typical relationships.  These kiddos have higher needs, which means parenting these kiddos requires more of the parents.  And when more is required of parents, more support for the parents is necessary.  And so, gifted, autistic, sensory issues, or other neurodevelopmental difference . . . all are welcome at the Fringy Bit.