Me And Brian: A Memoir

April 26, 2017

Image descriptions:

First image

Step 1: Imagine a rubbish bin. (drawing of a rubbish bin)

Step 2: There’s a lot going on in that bin. One of them is really tickling me. (drawing of a rubbish bin with shapes in it, one shape is orange)

Second image

Step 3: Let’s take a closer look… (stick figure next to overview of rubbish bin, an arrow is drawn towards the orange shape)

Step 4: Stick figure holds a piece of paper saying “You are autistic!”

Third image

What comes next?

My hope: Wow, this has created a nice, big, tidy space! (drawing of the rubbish bin, with a hole in the middle and a tick box which says “big thing to discover about myself”)

My reality: When you remove something, the other stuff just falls into the newly created blank space. (drawing of the rubbish bin, now some shapes are bigger and they say “Hey! Deal with me now! Look, I made myself BIGGER!”)

Fourth image

What it looks like: Brian (my brain) says “You do less than you used to! You’re ACTING more disabled!”

What’s actually going on: I am working through the devastating after effects of years of thinking I could “FAKE IT ‘TIL I MADE IT”.

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Recently I used the “rubbish bin” analogy to try and explain to professionals why my mental health is now poorer.

I’m sure there’s a more gracious way than essentially calling myself garbage, but that’s how I feel about trying to sift through all my brain things!

Discovering I was autistic changed my life for the best, but it also meant finally having room to deal with some pretty rough things. I think it’ll be good in the end, but for now it’s a lot to take on, and it’s a massive process.