Written 5th August 2024
I am reflecting on my post I wrote over 2 weeks ago and just noticing how prescient my thoughts can be. Having being through a minor hell in the last while, being able to notice the signs of body distress without connecting to anything specifically. This is the challenge of poor interoception. You may ask yourself, “what is this weird word?” Let me quote from Dr Emma Goodall.
Interoception is an internal sensory system in which the physical and emotional states of the person are consciously or unconsciously noticed, recognised and responded to. For example:
- a person notices their stomach is rumbling and they have a pulling sensation in their abdomen
- they recognise this as signalling hunger
- they respond by eating something.
This is something that is missing in many autistic folks, myself being one, and it continues to be a real source of difficulty in navigating activities of daily living. The extra sting is that the more sensory overwhelm that is experienced, the more difficult it is to notice the distress. When you have to use active processes to work these things out, it consumes mental bandwidth. By active processes I mean that many of the daily habits and routines that neuro-typical folks don’t have to think about, an autistic person has to have a scripted process to remember what to do. Add into the mix a strong fuckery of ADHD and just getting out of bed and making past breakfast can be an adventure that needs a backpack and a steady stream of magical flying howler letters from your mother to remind you to brush your goddam teeth. Then you manage to finally leave the house, drive to your doctors appointment, turn around when you get to the carpark and go home because you forgot to put on pants.
*Sigh*
Anyhoo. I had a huge crash. My blood-sugars had been out of control for a few months without me knowing and it was really only because my wonderful agent rang me for a chat and pointed out that I am showing multiple signs of burnout and I really needed to stop pushing myself. My single launch of Falling So Hard was a beautiful and humbling experience and I was super grateful for how people just came to my rescue and saved the day by carrying stuff and allowing me to just sit down and bark orders at everyone to get it happening.
It’s really easy to start self-flagellating at this point but I have at least learn’t enough to stop and ask myself what is going to nurture rather than torture. Torture is a wholly ineffective means of sustainable motivation. I have identified that my current mental systems are the issue. Therefore to stop the overwhelm, I now know enough to recognise I can’t do it all using my current model, I need to let go of the immediate ease of direct control and to get some help documenting the processes that are required that allow me to do music sustainably and enjoyably.
However, the rough fact of it is that there is just not enough money to go around to pay people to do all the stuff necessary to make it work, most people supplement their musical dreams with a job but I so far have been unable to work in any sustainable way. The hardest thing to let go is that I don’t have the capacity to earn a living from music. I struggle to ask people to do things for me for free but I have finally gotten to the point where I believe in myself enough and I value the spirit of what I create that I know it inspires and nurtures others and by making it easy for others to help, clearly documenting the processes of a Saint Ergo show, I can give folks a document that makes it easy to be part of something wonderful.
There is a deep pain in letting go, but if you let go of the right parts, it truely can be a gift and it can be freedom. I do not need to do everything and it it is ok to ask others to contribute, maybe this is how humility really works, maybe its about trusting others with small pieces of my heart, that I have built enough resilient presence that risks being hurt, because I know I can always being again.