The Back and Forth in my Brain- ND inner dialogue

As long as I can remember, there has been the chatter of different voices in my head. One of them is the let's do all the things! one, the other is the let's do this thing just like yesterday one. I have started thinking of those as the ADHD one and the autistic one, but I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. There is also the gifted one, and the well...there's a lot going on up here. You might know exactly what I mean.

It starts as soon as I wake up. One part of me wants to take up space. They want to do what they want to do, when they want to do it. Another part of me doesn't want to move so fast. Another says no automatically. The habitual dancing debate. The back and forth in my brain- the ND inner dialogue. It feels like there is another part of me that watches all this happen, but who doesn't step in.

I call that part the mediator.

This is actually the part that needs some work. They are wayyyyy too patient- disengaged and won't step in to help. Their detachment has caused me so much frustration and confusion. The different parts need that mediator part, they need a reliable source of support who helps them know and decide what to do.

But the mediator (who I think of as my Self) has gotten yelled at, banished, and ridiculed so many times when they've stood up that they just freeze and fawn, shut down, go into numb mode, disassociate- not waiting to get struck by possible arrows. The mediator knows they don't have to say a word.

They gave up, a long long time ago.

Is that where the back and forth comes from? The mediator giving up completely? When did that happen? The mediator (whose presence I imagine to be strong and present in me as a little child- like I was full of my Self) finally succumbed to the immense pressure and left the rest of me sparring for control. But the rest of me doesn't know what to do

-because when they were supposed to be practicing and learning knowing what to do they didn't have good instructions, again and again and again.

The mediator was the one who took all the blows for the rest of these parts

The mediator soaked up all the ridicule and criticism. They absorbed the being misunderstood and teasing and shaming until they quiet quit and went numb- deadened. The mediator became a protector instead of a teacher, so the parts stayed untaught, immature, and unaware of the need for them to learn and grow and work together.

This, I think, is one of the biggest challenges of being a late dx AuDHD person. Because we live in a world that doesn't accommodate how our brains work, we don't learn how to operate our brains. And we end up doing all this work to manage all these parts of our brains separately, without our mediator (self). Instead of learning how to knit this complex system together, we guess and mask and hide and freeze and run from one thing to another, persistent dissonance in a system that is capable of handling the tension of complexity when in the right environment. One that, when it functions well, is like the most incredible symphony, the deepest pleasure, soul gratifying and so real.

When my system works together it's so good that it takes me out of time and I feel suspended in midair without any fear of falling.

But when it works apart, which is almost all the time, the parts that cannot listen to one another just keep talking at, talking at, talking to hear themselves talk talk talk. They don't understand the other parts also exist as something real, and are confused when they hear another voice speak. They think they are all alone, and although they feel haunted and hear voices, they don't believe in ghosts.

It brings up such an intense sense of loss and grief when I imagine what it would have been like for my little girl long haired self to grow up in a world that recognized me and my brain and could help me get to know all the parts I'm working with, strengthen them, validate them, understand them. What it would feel like to not have a confused chaotic riot in my brain, all day, every day, 24/7. The effort it takes just to get out of bed...to find a way to get myself to move and not be frozen while I try to go from one thing to the other to the other, a relentless round and round of questioning, bargaining, resistance, ideas, and negotiation.

Can I learn this now? Or is it too late for me? Can I learn how to wake up the mediator, feed it confidence and a willing heart so it stops being a protector and goes back to being a teacher? My brain feels like pandemonium and needs the mediator to step in and help the wild horses, teach the stones to listen, be the backbone of this operation.

I have missed the strong presence that knows me, knows my heart, who will speak up and manage the sides that don't know each other or how to work together but desperately need to. My Self. Someone who will unite us in the mission of unscattering, bringing us together in a way that makes it make more sense, that when we speak, we listen. Ending the infinite tug of tag and war and instead putting us all together around a table: eye to eye, ear to ear, listening to hear. Weaving our ideas into a knowing that is less exhausting and more invigorating. My teacher. The mediator is my Self, who is my teacher. The mediator is my teacher, who is my Self.

Something I've been trying to do is not over-correcting my impulses, so if I want to write short notes for my podcast on an index card, and also longer notes in a notebook all while I'm writing my morning pages I do it. I'm trying to turn off the autopilot that stops the mediator from speaking up freely and clearly. I'm trying to show the mediator I'm actively listening, because I know she is the voice of my self. Now I listen when she speaks up and says what she wants- and then I try to give it to her. I let her have her say, remembering that I am an almost 54 year old woman who can certainly decide how life works for me. That I am not going to be in trouble if I do things my way.

I am not going to be yelled at, spanked, or banished because I am having a big experience.

This is incredibly hard to do. I have a lifetime of training that tells me to get in line and do as I'm told. Who do you think you are? But by god, I am not dead yet. One of my biggest urges is to live, to fill out the outlines of my life with as much me as I can since I am the only me that will ever exist made up in exactly this Amy Knott Parrish way. I want to express as much of this life as I can, experience it as who I am, not who I was scolded and molded and should-ed into being.

And that means I need to know how I operate. To wake the mediator, my self, from a long hibernation and let her know that we aren't doing the fast paced mystery way anymore. We are doing it our way. And we can learn what that means out loud, not in secret. It means to explore reality in a way that is real and not in service of a system that is primarily interested in its own thriving at the cost of my well being.

No more of that.

I will learn like a child- curious, unhurried...spacious. I will not feel ashamed when I get it wrong because living is a lifelong practice. I will not think badly of myself and I will encourage myself to try.

When I wake up and the habitual debate begins I will gently shake the mediator awake. Remind them they are welcome here. Ask if they can help. We'll call all the parts of me together, and start to help us all learn about each other with the kindness and firmness and willingness missing from all the decades before. We'll learn how to operate this brain, to be full of ourselves- so full that we become part of it all.