Thriving, Over Surviving

For us, the realization and awareness of our plurality has been grueling at times, and serene at others. Just as our external moods have always seemed to shift in almost Bipolar fashions, our internal barometer is no different.

At some point in our life, we became accepting of the fact we were never to be as others. We were never to attain “happiness”, damn how we loathe that word and all the representations that accompany it. How cruel of life to tout others in a somewhat narcotic like state of euphoria, and never let us achieve. For us, we had to accept being “crazy”, and outcast as the new normal. As many like us; We could not have been farther from the mark.

Many believe that therapy is answer. Many of us struggle to find a person, professional, we can connect with. Many times, our perceptions are so protracted, we either miss the connection, or even worse, perceive one that is not in our existence. We have been and always will process, perceive and even react differently to most everything, as compared to Neurotypicals. The truth is, therapy is only a tool, a roadmap with no preconceived destination. Training wheels for life.

For us, as we suspect it is with many, simply having our training wheels seemed lacking in fulfillment and satisfaction. Even though we had come to an awareness about our trauma, and ourselves, we still felt this emptiness, almost familiar sense of a hopeless struggle. Why have we not felt this enlightened and strange state of bliss most people seem to wander in daily? We wanted this!! We wanted to go through a single moment feeling as if the world were safe for us. We went to experience freedom from fear and anxiety for just a spot in time. This was yet to come for us.

As we grew further into our journey of awareness, we came to realize some things. We began to study certain philosophies and those who wrote about them. We were not looking for the meaning of life, rather how to identify what being alive really meant. What being human was, and how we could get there! We were still struggling to be a human being, we thought.

Acceptance, of anything can be a catch twenty two. Yes, we needed to accept our plurality, as well as the trauma that has occurred. We needed to realize our alters were real, and part of our system. We, yes I, am a system of many parts. However, the critical change did not occur at this juncture. Our acceptance of selves, has to then be accompanied by the realization of our evolution, not our malfunction.

Acceptance alone can lead us down the path of emptiness and despair, clinging to the rays of light we see in the carefree world we inhabit. We can begin to measure ourselves based on what is presented to us as normal and good. This is the biggest mistake we ever made in our lives. This was the real post trauma stresses. How could anyone, personal or professional begin to compare us, measure us, or judge us, using benchmarks from a neurotypical universe. No, this was the real tragedy. We were in fact something different. We had “become “, rather than we were “damaged”. We were exactly as we needed to be.

In existential beliefs, a main core value is “Existence Preceeds Essence”. For systems of parts, this is the key to identity. This sucks s what made our world intelligible to us. The fact, that we are “who” we are, mallows us to define what we are. Our system, is who we are. Our plurality is not what we are. We simply, are. The collective ideas, beliefs and sensory perceptions are then used to define what we are in this time we have. In this moment, of true unrepentant self. For only then are we able to live as us.

For many of us, from Trauma survivors, Neurodivergents, and others who experience processing differences, the labels cast upon us by typicals, is worse than the suffering we have endured otherwise. As Carl Sagan, so well documented, all evolution is a result of external forces. There is no “organic”, or unforced evolution. Why should we as a group, an ever growing populace, be shamed and cast down by society? How are we any different than those who came before? We are what comes next, not something to be cured.

As we began to not only accept ourselves, but realize we are not broken, we began to grow. We now embrace our system, our “shortcomings” have become our strengths. The need to get “fixed”, has dimmed. Our desires to thrive beyond the limits of normalcy now seem attainable, as we harness the power of our differences. Learning each alters strengths and weaknesses, we are able to organize into a multi core, multi dimensional, and neuro-evolved, entity. We still have our moments of doubt, as does any creature. However we no longer look at the world as something we need to aspire too; we see the world as something which can aspire to be as we are.