This Pause Belongs Here
Slowing down to see the patterns before moving forward.
Before I move on to the next chapter of my memoir series, the story of my first major burnout, I need to pause here for something else.
I feel it’s necessary to explain why I’m choosing this very public form of external processing. This is not about seeking attention or proving something (and yes, I know there are people who think late-diagnosed autistics are just ego-driven attention seekers, and yes, I also know saying “I’m not arrogant” is exactly the kind of thing they’d point to). It is a deliberate choice to take experiences that have shaped me, sometimes in painful, messy ways, and lay them out where others can see them.
These experiences have only recently come into full focus. That clarity has been both restless and unstoppable, like popcorn pressing against the lid of a pot, rattling to get out. Once it starts lifting the lid, you can’t fit it all back in the pot without crushing it. It needs to come out to stay whole. Doing this in a public space creates accountability for me, invites connection with people who may see themselves in my words, and gives context to those who have only known parts of my story. It is not easy, but I believe it’s important.
By now, if you have been reading from the start, you have seen the threads:
the ever-present weight of trauma.
the pull toward people who will hurt me.
the ways I have numbed myself, often through drinking, until I could feel nothing at all.
the relentless drive to be useful, to excel, to perform safety through achievement.
the habit of bending myself into whatever the moment required, instead of learning who I truly was and what I needed.
Those threads will keep weaving through what comes next, but here, I want to slow down and name them before the pace picks back up.
I am writing this memoir series for a few reasons:
To process trauma out loud and without shame. This is an important part of my healing journey. Not so anyone feels bad for me. Not to invite pity. Simply because keeping it inside has never done me any favors.
To give people who have known me in real life a clearer picture of the whole me. Sometimes, when the truth is left unsaid, relationships fill in the blanks with guesswork. That guesswork breeds anxiety on both sides. If you understand more of where I have been, maybe you will understand more of who I am now.
Because other people’s writing has helped me put my own puzzle together. I have found missing pieces of my own story in the honest, messy words of strangers. If this can be that for someone else, then I believe it’s worth putting it here.
Photo by satriya wardhana on Unsplash
Vulnerability is a doorway you walk through knowing it can lead to connection or harm. Sharing the unvarnished truth brings a kind of freedom I cannot find any other way, even as it leaves me open to being misunderstood or judged. I know the risk, and I accept it.
Because for me, the alternative, silence, would cost more than I am willing to pay.
This moment is the hinge between two griefs, and I want to feel it swing all the way open before I step through.
The next chapter will pick up where my body and brain first started to shut down under the weight of years of over-functioning. But this pause belongs here. This passage between losses — my brother’s life and death, and the first time I began to lose myself — matters just as much as the chapters on either side.