I've been needing to write for a while. I had a blog some years back, but I've never been much for consistency, and the reasons there have many layers.
I've been writing since I was young, but somewhere along the way, I sort of just went mute. Trauma and a lack of understanding of why I am who I am brought me inward, and I isolated myself, not just physically, but in every way.
I lost my voice.
That's such a sad thing to admit. Growing up, I was pretty loud. I sang and danced with abandon, despite being trained from a very young age to dislike myself and everything that made me me. I was always "too much," "too sensitive," "annoying..." and the list goes on. The grownups who should have encouraged me trained me to doubt and hide. I learned to pretend and fawn. To worry about other people and their perceptions, needs, etc., and bury all the sparkle and magic that make me me, just to try and be a part of things. I worked job after soul sucking job and always ended up in a state of crushing anxiety, which I didn't even know was "a thing" back then. Not until my mid-30s when a challenging relationship sent me to therapy. The therapist was a big ol' dud, but the one helpful thing she said was, "It's clear you have anxiety." In that one moment, I started to understand myself, and it's gotten easier to do since then.
I'm 41 now, and starting to learn about neurodivergence a few years ago has really started to open me back up to loving and embracing myself. I never understood why I was always on the outskirts of social life, begging to be picked and let in. Yearning for people to love me as much as I love them. Even writing this, I have a little bit of a mask on - because I know people will read it. I'm performing. (And not in the way my heart craves)
But I'm determined to stick with this. I'm determined to allow myself to go through the motions so hopefully I can drop the mask entirely and just be.
It's hard to drop the self-judgement while maintaining self-awareness. Because I do understand that ND people can be hard for NT people to "take." We don't always get the social cues. We talk a lot about things people don't necessarily care about. We do our best, and that best is often rejected, so that makes us mask even more to try and be accepted.
After years of isolation, this is my way of taking the first step back into life. I'm still not comfortable in a lot of social environments. I don't really go out much - and when I do, I'm always terrified of running into people from my past. I don't want to see them, and I don't want them to see me. I don't want to have to share "what I've been up to" and pretend to care what they have been up to. They don't really "care"; they're just curious. I have been hurt and ignored so often that I learned to stop trying. If you don't try, you can't be rejected.
But I'm lonely. Deeply lonely. I miss hugs. I miss laughter. I miss moving around the world and experiencing actual life. I do have my kitties, and a couple friends I keep in touch with, but I notice that even those friends have a hard time staying. Or perhaps I just chose other ND people to be friends with, and we're all churning and dealing with our own shadow work. The loneliness exists regardless of the reasons.
I set myself a goal to write for 30 minutes each day. I want to get to the point where it is my catharsis and not something I have to force myself to do. I'm deeply creative, and I would love to share that with others, but I'm also struggling with the shadows, and one big part of ND is functional freeze. I deal with that a lot. I'm in it now. I was supposed to start my writing project yesterday, but that "snooze 2 hours" button kept popping up on my calendar and yesterday just was not the day. But here I am today. And I've been hearing the message from my guides (we'll get into that later) for a while that I just need to create. I need to write, cook, sing - the medium isn't really important - just create.
So here I am, creating. It might be disjointed. I know it is disjointed. My brain doesn't always work linearly. So, if you're okay with that and interested in what I have to say, I'd love for you to keep coming back. It's not a nice story always, my life. But it's real and relatable (I think), and I want to be as honest as possible. I think it will help me heal. Maybe it will help others heal, too. That would be cool.
My name is Brynn. Welcome to my brain. It's not always pretty, but it is full of love.
Thanks for being here.