Talking About This Freaks Me Out
How does one survive in this bananas pants world? Please advise.
Why is it so hard for me to function in the world? I watch you move through you day with an ease I can’t fathom. Weaving through crowds, paying bills, hatching plans, laying your heart to bear while I need to take an Ativan to survive a conference call. While I sleep above the sheets rather than beneath them — one foot off the bed, ready to run.
I see your heartbreak, trauma, a fall that seems bottomless and how you slowly recover and I admire your strength, your impenetrability. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m trudging through my days. You go at things so hard, hold onto things so hard, a friend told me once, and I couldn’t get the make of her. I kept replaying her words, re-arranging them because I couldn’t understand how one wouldn’t hold onto something so hard. How one wouldn’t…hard.
From an early age, I learned to study and mimic. Catalog a person’s range of emotions, reactions, responses, facial expressions — how they endure the world — and I copied it. For years, I party-hopped, socialized, hosted large events and parties, managed teams of 10, 30, 100, and now the idea of walking into a room filled with people unbearable.
I’m ashamed that I’ve learned to fake my way through the world without understanding why it’s so hard to live in it for real.
Over the past few months, I’ve read books, articles, scientific papers and studies, essays. I’ve watched hundreds of hours of videos because this is how I get. When I want to know something, I want to know all of something. I’ll go into a deep that seems unreasonable. But I’m reading about adult autism and the words I keep repeating to myself are: this is me.
Of course, I’m not silly enough to self-diagnose. I know how futile, facile, and reductive that is because I see people throw the word “depression” around without abandon when what they’re describing is a tough time. They don’t seek out the advice of a medical professional or do the hard work to determine what is illness versus what is human experience, and I get angry because I want to scream into a screen: you don’t know how hard this is.
And while I want to see a doctor about this because clarity has a way of healing wounds that refuse to heal, of course, the idea of scheduling the appointment, meeting a new person, talking to said new person without the mask of normalcy I use as a crutch, being vulnerable and the exhaustion that comes after, keeps me home.
Instead, I say, well, maybe I’m not autistic. Maybe I’m just an asshole who hasn’t learned how to function as a normal person.
In college, I was obsessed with a guy who, might have been interested in me for a hot minute before he realized I was obsessed with him. But before he regarded me as one would the Bubonic Plague, I was sitting in his dorm room talking and he said to me, why don’t you ever look people in the eye? You’ve been here for two hours and you haven’t once looked me in the eye. And I was confused. Did I need to? Was it necessary or required? He said it was as if I was purposely avoiding his gaze. In the moment I brushed it off, chalked it up to having a crush on this beautiful human, until friends would say the same thing to a point where it made them uncomfortable.
Until I forced myself to look people in the eye. And the forcing became a muscle exercised until taut. Until looking someone in the eye felt easy even if it made me wince every single I did it.
Years ago, before I moved to Los Angeles, a man violently attacked me in my home and I told none of my friends about it. Even till this day. And if they do know, it’s because they read about it here, on this postage stamp place of mine on the internet. But the day after I reached out to a friend with a different problem, a real problem, but one that masked the assault. And I remember being in the car with her and watching me as I spoke. I could feel her boring into my cheek.
Because it’s normal to turn to your friend as she telling you terrible things, horrible things, in the same voice she uses to talk about the weather. Because it’s normal for me to speak staring past her face, to the side of her, above and below her. Because the idea of connecting words with emotion to human contact too much to bear. I can do one of these things, perhaps two, but three is downright impossible.
So, I can tell you what I remember about a man pillaging, stealing things from me that can never be retrieved or returned. But I will never look at you, in the eyes, while telling you this.
A few months ago, a mentor and I get on a call to talk about the work I’ve been doing, which has amounted to data-driven ethnographies. In short, I use data to understand language to determine how people think, buy, and behave. But what wasn’t brief was the slide deck I sent, which was 300 slides.
My mentor laughs because she knows me well and knows brevity isn’t my strong suit but she says, it’s incredible the work you’re doing, but it’s a lot. And while I realize my 300-slide deliverables or 50-slide brand platforms are a lot, I can’t imagine the reduction or removal. I imagine it would feel like surgery. And while I understand people find immense value in the work I deliver they often feel overwhelmed by it. I realize my analyst is sometimes frustrated with me because I can’t understand why she doesn’t want to go deeper even though in the same vein I realize that’s bananas.
Realizing something doesn’t erase the compulsion. Realizing something doesn’t assuage my need to know everything and my need to tell you everything.
Sometimes, I wonder how I functioned in an office for decades without screaming. How did I just get on conference calls all day long? I seize up even with scheduled calls with people I know and love. New clients? Cue the near anxiety attack. Deep breaths. Lie on the floor. Write scripts for calls and various questions and scenarios. Prepare.
Sometimes, I wonder how I dealt with people taking a hatchet to my work because we don’t need all the details, Felicia, without taking a hatchet to them. How do you not need the details, I stop myself from screaming.
I love wildlife. I’m fond of fragrances. People with normal interests indulge in learning about them. I myself spend my life excavating them. And if I told my friends how many hours I spend watching videos about spotted hyenas or learning the habits of wolves, or discovering how a Guerlain vanilla differs from other niche perfume vanillas, they would think me unhinged.
When I like something, I have to know everything about that something. And while knowing everything is impossible, my head will let me know what is enough for any given moment. Or, I’ll just tire of the topic and move on to another obsession. I’m loathed to even use that terms because of the pejorative nature of it. There’s nothing violent in watching hundreds of hours of African wildlife — it’s just…excessive.
I write all of this with a fragrance video streaming in the background.
Ever since I could remember, I only wanted one friend. I didn’t crave a group, a crew, a circle, though I’ve had all of these things — I wanted one person because I found it exhausting to navigate group dynamics. I couldn’t relax because I felt I was always performing. Performing being agreeable, malleable, normal. But having one friend comes with an expiration date because people want room to breathe. People want legions, especially when they’re young and they’re trying to figure out who they are and the kind of people they want in their life.
I spent so much of my life wearing masks, feigning what I thought was normal, that I never actually figured those things out. It takes me forever to make a new friend, to trust them, to get excited about spending time with them. Recently, I did (for me) what felt like the unthinkable — I reached out to a Medium friend, a writer whom I respect and admire, and asked if she wanted to get together while I’m on the east coast in November. I’d even take a flight (before I realize it cost a thousand dollars to divert my travel plans) to meet her for a lunch date.
But then a stranger responded to my comment saying she was in the area and would love to meet up and I kid you not — I seized. I flushed. I deleted the comment, and the friend sent me an email asking what was up, did I no longer want to meet, and the only thing I could say in response was — LOL. I’m weird. How do I explain I freak out when someone interrupts or intercedes. When a stranger invites themselves into my space.
Given the option, I’m content with being alone. I like the idea of intimate lunches and coffee dates. One-on-one hikes. But I can’t handle the maths — the addition and multiplication. I’d rather subtraction, division. I have strict boundaries; I’ve built walls around my heart, and I get defensive when people try to know me. I feel violated, invaded even though logically I know this is ridiculous. Logically, people are being friendly.
This is normal, Felicia, I keep telling myself. But my knee-jerk response will be to hold up my hands and tell them to go away.
Picture the space between you and what society determines is normal widening to a point where it’s a chasm that can’t be crossed or closed. Imagine knowing what’s acceptable and normal but feeling exhausted, frightened, or frustrated that it takes everything in you to do what others do so seamlessly. I’ve mimicked being social, being an adept networker, leader, negotiator, executive. But given the choice, I prefer fewer people, quiet, a life I can plan for, and to spend hours watching a cheetah run.
So….you’re getting this dispatch a little earlier than usual as I’m prepping for my New York trip next week (!!!) and dealing with massive anxiety over leaving my cat since COVID started so….STUFF. You’ll likely get next week’s dispatch when I get back on the west coast next weekend. So, it all balances out.
I also wanted to share a few things I’ve been loving:
“What I have to remind myself is that I always think there’s no other book to be written,” [Cusk] answered. “And I think that that is a consequence of not having a strong ego basis as a writer, and my writing being so shelved right at the back of my unconscious that nothing in how I live or act bears any relationship to a writerly identity.” —"Rachel Cusk Won’t Stay Still”
“You have to hold the line through all the wretched days, months, even years that you spend not writing – doing anything but write: ‘wasting time’, indulging in displacement activities, wandering about pointlessly, biting people’s heads off, seething with anxiety and self-reproach. You have to believe that you’re preparing the ground for something to manifest out of the darkness, to present itself, to be born.
Having already gone through this process countless times does not help. You forget, every single time, that it’s coming at you. The anxiety, the self-reproach are always total, unremitting, inescapable.” —Helen Garner explores how it’s impossible to stop writing.I’m reading Ling Ma’s story collection, Bliss Montage, and it is GOOD. If you haven’t read Severance, I don’t know how you continue to exist.
I’ve been obsessed with filmmaker Ti West since the womb and I’ve been loving his latest horror trilogy, notably Pearl. It’s the STUFF. Mia Goth? Yes, please.
I have a real perfume problem (I don’t even have the income to buy this shit, so I will likely be homeless in six months whilst smelling like a snack). I’m really into Kayali’s Vanilla 28, Guerlain’s Angelique Noir, and Nobile 1942’s La Danza.
Bagels in Los Angeles are a war crime, but I discovered the joy that is dill and chive cream cheese, which can make a bagel in L.A. edible. Why are we not talking about dill? Who is dill’s publicist? I need ANSWERS.
Someone asked me about my resale business (I have one), and I love it. I’ll talk more about it and how it makes me feel a little cleaner about the marketing work I do (i.e., getting people to buy shit they don’t need). I’m on Poshmark and a pile of other platforms. And I’m actually good at this.
Felicia,
This is so relatable -- even down to the obsession with wolves part. I often think I'm "on the spectrum" but then I think I don't really know what that "means". Sometimes I think being able to do a deep, obsessive dive is really great for a writer.
I'm speechless. I don't know to write an essay reply, or nothing but this. I'm in my 40s, and ... my head won't shut up. It's taken me five minutes to type this. I just want my head to shut up. I'm at a point where I'm rehearsing, but trying to avoid contact. If a family member says they're coming over, I'm obsessed with time. "Let me know when you're five minutes away" -- because it's agony to wait. Maybe it's abandonment. I know and have been more self-aware, omitting certain information, because if I admit I try to _________, then I basically (by default) admit the failures. I haven't left my house in over a month. And I also can't stand being in cars. It's just too much panic. I tell myself (almost every day) to stop communicating online. I can't sleep. My 30s were horrible, and I've been to "professionals" my entire adult life. Unfortunately, everything in my country (US) is a business, a factory made one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't work. And when trust is broken by people you think can't break it. It's only going to hurt in the end. It's usually being ignored. I turn my phone off for days, but then the anxiety of "What if _________ called" and I just don't think people are interested in me. Sorry for the nonsense.