Breaking Free from the Need for Control: My Journey Towards Embracing Uncertainty

The Speeding Semi-Truck of Self-Discovery: Navigating Life's Sharp Turns

My journey of self-discovery began when I was in my mid-twenties and started focusing my attention inward (after a lifetime of tuning myself out).

My pursuit of personal growth, to 'become a better version of myself,' has been a constant in my adult life. However, the trajectory of this journey took a significant turn almost eight years ago (during a mental and physical health crisis when I was diagnosed Autistic a few months before my 30th birthday).

My adult Autism diagnosis marked a pivotal moment in my life, altering my understanding of myself (and my path to personal growth).

Making sharp turns occasionally when faced with new information is necessary.

One of the traits that I find most attractive in people is their ability to adjust to new information (even if it takes them a while).

While some may need to slow down to navigate these 'sharp turns,' our ability to adapt and 'swerve' occasionally is crucial.

Our ability to change directions prevents us from crashing, enabling us to navigate life's ever-changing circumstances.

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My ability to "swerve" wasn't always what it is now.

Even now, I don't "swerve" as quickly as a non-autistic person or someone who's neuro-average can.

As an Autistic Person, especially one who also has an anxiety disorder and survived various forms of trauma around different types of relationships (starting in my formative years and continuing into adulthood), swerving can be especially difficult (and more emotionally draining for me), but I can still do it (in my own way).

I'm more like a speeding semi-truck with a heavy load, taking more time to get up to speed and slow down, while the people around me are more like sports cars with great breaks.

To make these turns, I must slow down and proceed carefully, losing all the momentum (which took time to gain). Then, I must proceed slowly and cautiously as I shift around the curve.

If I try to "drive like a sports car," I'm going to fail, sliding off the road, but I do just fine if I respect the fact that my brain takes more time to get up to speed and requires more patience when changing directions (instead of forcing it to do perform in a way that it wasn't designed to).

A semi-truck and a sports car side-by-side.

Learning to "drive my vehicle" (my body and mind) correctly has been life-changing and empowering.

At this point in time (seven and a half years post-diagnosis), I've mastered the basics, but all these years later, I'm still learning about the Self that I had learned to tune out (when I did not know the truth about my brain for the first portion of my life).

I started this blog as a very different person than I am today.

When I started this blog, I was much angrier, more rigid, and less flexible in my thinking than I am today.

I've had to grow in my ability to be more flexible.

Part of my need for structure, stability, and routine is related to being Autistic (and other ways I am NeuroDivergent).

Some of my inflexibility comes from being a traumatized person (who was unaware they'd been traumatized) living in survival mode.

For most of my life, I didn't understand myself or the impacts of what had happened to me, so my invisible wounds were left raw and open, bleeding on everyone around me who triggered them.

It was my normal.

A meme or tweet says, "I just told a story at work about my childhood that I thought was really funny, but now everyone is super quiet, and someone said I'm so sorry."

Looking back over my life after an adult Autism diagnosis has been a lot like that - looking over my life in horror, realizing how bad some of the things I accepted as "normal" really were.

I realized that things that I didn't think had impacted me had, in fact, impacted me and were bleeding into my various relationships (both personal and professional).

A shadowy figure trapped in a dark room.

Control was how I took my power back.

Because the world around me isn't well suited to my needs and is often resistant to flexing to meet my needs, I would cope by exerting as much control over the environment around me as possible.

I would work my way into management, training, or workplace leadership positions to prevent others from controlling me or my schedule whenever possible.

To control my feelings, I would work many hours a day because working was an excellent way to distract myself from the unresolved pain, discomfort, and trauma that I was not ready to cope with yet.

When that didn't work, I would lose myself in music, using my sensitivity to the songs to manipulate my moods and trigger the desired emotional states (opposite of the unpleasant feelings I was trying to escape).

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I hope this helps,
- Lyric